For the next few months, Director of Faith Formation and Pastor Margo will preach on scriptures from the Revised Common Lectionary. Although this week’s worship service and devotions will feature these scriptures, Pastor Margo will preach on John 14:1-7, and you will see why on Sunday!
Read 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 (The Message)
The question keeps coming up regarding meat that has been offered up to an idol: Should you attend meals where such meat is served, or not? We sometimes tend to think we know all we need to know to answer these kinds of questions—but sometimes our humble hearts can help us more than our proud minds. We never really know enough until we recognize that God alone knows it all.
Some people say, quite rightly, that idols have no actual existence, that there’s nothing to them, that there is no God other than our one God, that no matter how many of these so-called gods are named and worshiped they still don’t add up to anything but a tall story. They say—again, quite rightly—that there is only one God the Father, that everything comes from him, and that he wants us to live for him. Also, they say that there is only one Master—Jesus the Messiah—and that everything is for his sake, including us. Yes. It’s true.
In strict logic, then, nothing happened to the meat when it was offered up to an idol. It’s just like any other meat. I know that, and you know that. But knowing isn’t everything. If it becomes everything, some people end up as know-it-alls who treat others as know-nothings. Real knowledge isn’t that insensitive.
We need to be sensitive to the fact that we’re not all at the same level of understanding in this. Some of you have spent your entire lives eating “idol meat,” and are sure that there’s something bad in the meat that then becomes something bad inside of you. An imagination and conscience shaped under those conditions isn’t going to change overnight.
But fortunately, God doesn’t grade us on our diet. We’re neither commended when we clean our plate nor reprimanded when we just can’t stomach it. But God does care when you use your freedom carelessly in a way that leads a fellow believer still vulnerable to those old associations to be thrown off track.
For instance, say you flaunt your freedom by going to a banquet thrown in honor of idols, where the main course is meat sacrificed to idols. Isn’t there great danger if someone still struggling over this issue, someone who looks up to you as knowledgeable and mature, sees you go into that banquet? The danger is that he will become terribly confused—maybe even to the point of getting mixed up himself in what his conscience tells him is wrong.
Christ gave up his life for that person. Wouldn’t you at least be willing to give up going to dinner for him—because, as you say, it doesn’t really make any difference? But it does make a difference if you hurt your friend terribly, risking his eternal ruin! When you hurt your friend, you hurt Christ. A free meal here and there isn’t worth it at the cost of even one of these “weak ones.” So, never go to these idol-tainted meals if there’s any chance it will trip up one of your brothers or sisters.
Douglas A. Campbell, professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, wrote a fascinating article in the Christian Century, about culture wars in the church at Corinth, that you can read in its entirety at this link: https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/paul-wrote-1-corinthians-community-middle-culture-war. He writes specifically on this passage below.
One group was correctly saying that food doesn’t matter and the kingdom of God isn’t a matter of meat and drink, but they turned their confidence into a weapon. Some of the Corinthians were Jews or were strongly committed to Jewish ways of living. They shared the general Jewish revulsion to meat that has been improperly prepared. Such meat would have been quite literally a nauseating prospect for them, and I imagine that they looked down their noses at anyone eating it. But our amateur theologians reversed this attitude and paid it back with interest. They happily ate their idol meat and mocked those who had a problem with it. “Such scruples. What fools!” (1 Cor. 8:1–13).
Paul corrects this insensitivity with his basic relational argument. Although it is technically correct that food doesn’t matter to this degree anymore, such arrogance hardly possesses relational integrity. The kindness and consideration that he began the letter describing in relation to God and Jesus is not being followed here, as it should be.
In a second problematic act of intellectualism, the group pushed another maxim to extremes. “Idols don’t actually exist,” as the Bible repeatedly says, so there are no problems with attending idol feasts and worship events. It is not as if anything is actually there! In this way, the puffed-up ones, as Paul calls them, could continue to attend the plethora of idolatrous events that structured the ancient pagan city—its processions, feasts, festivals, and sacrifices.
To deal with this problem, Paul reintroduces the relationality and connectedness that these thinkers keep overlooking. Idols aren’t anything, but these pagan events are intertwined with the evil powers that roam the cosmos outside the church. Pagan culture might not be what it says it is, but it is still dangerous. Attending an idolatrous worship event is creating a foolish vulnerability to evil, as well as being deeply unfaithful to God. Can we really attend a black Sabbath and escape unscathed? Can we walk in a national parade without thinking that a nation, a flag, or a history “is anything”? Paul instructs this group of Corinthians not to play with fire (1 Cor. 10:1–22).
God of community, help us to keep the relationality of Jesus always before us as a model of kindness and gentleness not of this world. Amen.