Talk 11 Love, the Basis of Christian Behaviour (8:1-13)
Introduction to Chapters 8-10
The main theme of chapters 8-10 is that love does not insist on its own rights (cf. 13:5 Amplified Bible).
This principle is applied to the question of meat offered to idols in chapters 8 and 10 and to the rights of an apostle in chapter 9.
The question of meat offered to idols is a very specific topic which was of immediate relevance to the early church and is of less significance to Christians in Britain today.
However, the principles taught here are always relevant and have a very real application in a variety of areas in our Christian lives.
In seeking to understand this section we need to bear in mind two main facts:
- It was the common practice to have a meal in the temple with your friends. It was almost like going to a restaurant. But this involved you in pagan worship. When an animal was sacrificed,
part was burnt as an offering to the god,
part was given to the priest
and part to the worshipper who shared it with his friends in a cultic meal.
The Gentiles who had become believers in Corinth had probably attended such meals all their lives as every kind of occasion was celebrated in this way.
- Since the priest would get far more than he could eat, it would be sold off in the market.
Most of the meat you could buy in the market would have come from this source, having been already sacrificed to an idol.
However, the customer could never be sure whether what he bought in the market had been sacrificed to an idol or not.
Fee’s Reconstruction
Now before getting into the text of chapter 8, it will be helpful to mention Fee’s understanding of the issues addressed in chapters 8-10. He argues that
although the traditional understanding of these chapters is that Paul is dealing with the eating of food bought in the marketplace (see 2 above),
the real issue is the eating of sacrificial food at the cultic meals in the pagan temples (as in 1 above).
This explanation seems to make the best sense of chapters 8-10 as a whole, which Fee sees as a response to the Corinthians’ letter to Paul. He reconstructs the situation as follows:
Some of the Corinthians had returned to the practice of attending cultic meals. Paul in his previous letter had probably forbidden this. But they disagreed with him and in their letter made four points:
- We all know that idols aren’t real, so attending the temple has no significance one way or the other.
- We all know that food is a matter of indifference to God, so it doesn’t matter what we eat or where we eat it.
- Our baptism and participation in Communion will keep us from falling anyway. (Paul’s strong warning about the danger of falling – see 10:1-13 – seems to indicate that they may have held such a view).
- What authority has Paul to forbid us on this matter anyway? (This may account for Paul’s strong defence of his apostleship in Chapter 9).
Paul’s overall response to all this may be summarised as follows:
Love rather than knowledge underlies Christian ethics.
Attendance at cultic meals is forbidden because:
- it involves fellowship with demons (10:18-22),
- it may stumble weaker Christians (8:7-13)
- indulging in pagan revelry may lead to destruction (10:1-11)
However, buying food in the market-place, even though it may have been offered to an idol, is not forbidden, unless in certain particular circumstances it may cause a brother to stumble.
Whatever rights I may feel I have as a Christian, I must be willing to give them up for the sake of my fellow-Christians.
Now to the text of chapter 8:
1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
Knowledge here means knowledge that the idol is nothing (cf. v4).
However, knowledge puffs up (with pride), but love builds up (cf. 13:4).
2 The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.
True knowledge begins when we realise how little we know (cf. 13:9 we know in part).
3 But the man who loves God is known by God.
God knows the man who loves him.
Love is more important than knowledge – even theological knowledge.
The Corinthians knew that an idol was nothing and therefore reasoned that they could eat meat offered to it.
But there are circumstances in which love dictates otherwise.
4 So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one.
There is only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4).
However, compare 10:20 where Paul says that the things sacrificed to idols are sacrificed to demons.
5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”),
6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
The terms ‘god’ and ‘lord’ are used interchangeably in verse 5.
Applying the same principle to v 6, we see a clear testimony to the deity of Christ.
for whom we live
The whole purpose of our existence is for God.
The Corinthians should not have been insisting on their rights,
but acknowledging God’s rights over them.
7 But not everyone knows this. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled.
There were Christians who were not yet able to shake off the feeling that the idol was somehow real.
They still felt as though the food were being sacrificed to a god.
So they felt that they were doing wrong in eating meat offered to it.
These weak Christians were condemned by their own conscience.
Our conscience is moulded by our upbringing and environment.
That is why people’s consciences differ.
Ultimately God wants our conscience to come into line with Scripture, but until it does our conscience is a fallible guide.
Nevertheless, we are answerable to it and must live in accordance with it.
That is why to cause a man to act against his conscience – even if his conscience is misguided – is to cause him to sin.
8 But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.
What we eat does not affect our spiritual or moral standing.
Despite the OT food laws the NT teaches very clearly that nothing we eat makes us unclean.
Note Jesus’ very definite teaching on this matter in Mark 7:14-20, esp. v19.
Compare 1 Timothy 4:3-5.
However, those Christians who understand this must make allowances for those who do not and should seek not to offend them. Consider Romans 14:13-18.
9 Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.
The word is proskomma – an object against which one strikes one’s foot.
However, in v13 the verb skandalizo is used.
The skandalion was the part of a trap that triggers off its mechanism (e.g. the spike on a mouse-trap).
Seeing another Christian eat meat offered to an idol could ensnare, or even destroy, a weaker Christian.
10 For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, won’t he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols?
Many Greeks, on rationalistic grounds, had given up belief in the gods, but for social reasons would eat with their friends in an idol shrine.
Could not a Christian do the same?
Perhaps it would even encourage the weaker Christians to realise that there was nothing in the idol.
No, says Paul. By following your example they will be acting against their own conscience, and therefore sinning.
Compare Romans 14:23: Everything that does not come from faith is sin.
11 So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge.
By your example (of doing something which is perfectly in order, both according to Scripture and according to your own conscience), you may cause someone to transgress the law of his (so far uneducated) conscience, and so to backslide and to perish.
12 When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.
Although it may not be a sin in itself, because it causes a weaker brother to stumble, it is a sin – against him, and against Christ!
13 Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.
An extravagant statement, but the principle is that the strong must adapt their behaviour to the conscience of the weak.
In summary, it’s not what I know that matters. It’s not my rights that matter. What matters is love, a love that sacrifices its rights in order to save someone from perishing.
Point to ponder:
Are there areas in my life where by insisting on my rights I might cause someone else to stumble?