Why should believers be careful about what they do?
Believers must be careful because their actions are constantly observed by believers and unbelievers alike. Though grace is not license and they are not under law, not all things are expedient or edify. They serve as living epistles, read by people who may never open Scripture, so their conduct should reflect truth.
Les explains that grace is not license and never frees believers to do as they please. Paul makes it plain that although no law forbids the believer and he is not under law, not all things are good, expedient, or edifying for him. Therefore every believer has to be careful what they do and practice, because believers and unbelievers alike are constantly watching. Paul uses the expression that every one of us is a living epistle: many people will never pick up the Book and read it, but they can look at the believer and read. The Corinthians lived in the midst of abject immorality, idolatry, and mythology, yet wherever they went within that Greek culture they were to be a living epistle, something the world around them could read and understand. Les notes this is still building toward the practice of the Lord�s Table, and that a man should seek not his own, but every man another�s.