1 Cor No.15 Only the Sunday joint

He moves on in his subjects, having dealt with the challenge of marriage and celibacy, to other practical problems that face the Christians in the day when he was writing. And we will discover, I think, later on, that there is a lot, in principle, what he has to say here, which is nonetheless relevant for us today. 1 Corinthians 8, now about food sacrifice to idols.

We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.

But the man who loves God is known by God. So then, about eating food sacrifice to idols. We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world, and that there is no God but one.

For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from Christ, through whom all things came, and through whom we live. 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.

But food does not bring us near to God. We are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak, 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? So this weak brother for whom Christ died is destroyed by your knowledge.

When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 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. Now the tenth chapter and verse twenty-three.

Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible, but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good but the good of others.

Eat anything sold in the meat markets without raising questions of conscience, for the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. But if anyone says of the man who told you, and for conscience sake, I'm sorry, but if anyone says to you, this has been offered in sacrifice, then do not eat it both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience sake.

The other man's conscience I mean, not yours. For why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for? So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks, or the church of God, even as I try to please everybody in every way, for I am not seeking my own good, but the good of many so that they may be saved.

Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ. Now we turn in God's word to Paul's letter to the Corinthians and chapter 8. And let me, without any introduction at all, take you straight away into the contents of this particular passage of scripture. We have been studying Corinthians now for some weeks and we are aware that there have been several topics which have cropped up for our deliberation.

And now this morning we move on to something that is new and indeed something that seems rather novel in the thinking and the teaching of the Apostle Paul. What I want to do immediately, seeing as our passage is relatively brief, is to outline the passage to you. Then, secondly, I want to underline the problem that we discover within the chapter.

And then thirdly, God helping me, I want to enshrine the principle which I think is relevant for us to grasp hold of and apply in the 20th century. I want to outline the passage, to underline the problem, and then to enshrine and make real to you the principle that the Apostle, inspired by the Spirit, would have us apply in our lives and in our lifestyle today. Well then, let's come to the first aspect of our little meditation this morning.

Let me outline the passage. Remember, please, that the Apostle has been dealing with a letter that has been sent to him by the Christians at Corinth. They have a number of issues that they want his guidance on.

I sometimes have letters that come into my office or in my home and they need to have a very careful reply. And so if I'm working down here, I have a sheet of paper, or because I tend to be more lazy these days, a dictaphone on one side and the letter that I'm answering on the other. And I will go through the contents of the letter I've received, paragraph by paragraph, and give my comments.

Now that's precisely the situation that you are to imagine the Apostle in as you read the contents of this chapter. He's got a letter, and in the letter are certain questions, and he's got his own piece of parchment and his stylus, and he's writing, or else he's got his secretary, for Paul used secretaries, to write down what he has to dictate. Now, what the issue is all about, we'll come upon in a moment or so, but in the first two verses, following the paragraphs as indented, as indicated in the NIV, the first two verses, he has to make some significant comment which will be more obvious as to why he has made it as you push your way through what he has to say.

He talks about the inadequacy of knowledge in itself. There were those at Corinth who thought that theologically they were pretty acute, that is that they'd worked out quite a lot of these problems and they had the answers themselves. And there were a number of inflated evangelical Christians at Corinth who tended to believe that they had got God's answer to all of these questions.

Paul has to deal with these people earlier on in the chapters when he refers to them as, and he does so in a sympathetic fashion, as being rather puffed up. There was a little tinge of arrogance, and Paul reminds them that knowledge itself can puff up, but it's not just knowledge that you need in dealing with people. As a Christian brother or sister, it's also love.

All knowledge is incomplete as far as this side of eternity is concerned. That's what he means in the second verse when he deals with the partial nature of knowledge, and later on when he gets to that glorious thirteenth chapter, he's going to tell us that now we know in part, however much we may understand of the gospel, however much we may have an insight into the character of God, there's a lot more to know. We know only in part, and our knowledge, being imperfect, will pass away.

But there is another commodity which we are to experience. It's not so much of the mind, it's of the heart, and it must run parallel with our understanding of Christian truth, and that is love. So if you teach, if you attend a church, if you're engaged in relationship with another brother or sister, then ensure that there's a generous dollop of agape that's always in your heart, brimming over and mixed with the words of teaching, and possibly correction that you share.

So from the fourth verse, and down where are we, to the sixth verse, he moves to the major part of his topic, and this has to do with food. It has to do with meat, and he's particularly concerned about the whole notion of idolatry. There was, as I shall bring out more clearly later on, the practice at Corinth and in other parts of the Roman Empire of offering meat to idols before the meat was eaten.

Now forget about the meat for the moment, Paul is commenting about the genuineness of idols. Do they really represent God? These knowledgeable people who don't really think there's much of a problem here that Paul is addressing himself to, they rightly say that idols can't contain deity, because there's only one God. Idols are no gods, they're figments of men's imagination, inasmuch as they denote God, as far as the pagan is concerned.

Well Paul agrees with this. Idols are no gods. There's only one God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we live, and it's through the Lord Jesus Christ that we are returned to God and know him as our Savior.

Well, this he touches on between the fourth and the sixth verse, the reality of God and the unreality of idols. And then in the seventh verse, he tells us that not everybody appreciates that idols really can't represent God. Here is a man, for example, I give you an illustration, a man in the heart of Africa, let's say one of the pygmies that I remember ministering to some three years or so ago, seeped in witchcraft, in idolatry, they come to a knowledge of Jesus.

But all those years in witchcraft, it's very hard for them to wash it all away, and it's not easy for a man who comes from a concentrated pagan background suddenly to realize overnight that there is no reality in these idols at all. Not everyone knows this, says the apostle. Have a little bit of concern for those who are not so sophisticated as you are.

Well, in the eighth verse, there's another comment that these people who've been writing to Paul have made. They're still on with this idea of food and eating food, and they rightly say, food does not bring us near to God. It doesn't really matter whether you're a vegetarian or whether you eat meat.

And if you eat meat, it doesn't really matter if the meat has previously been offered to a non-existent God, because idols don't denote, as we've already argued, the existence of the supernatural. It doesn't really matter what we eat. And the apostle Paul, in one sense, would agree with this.

But he goes on, as I unfold the contents of this passage to you, he goes on to say that nonetheless there is such a thing as a weak brother. There are those who do not know your liberty, who for reasons which are perfectly understandable are not as free as you are. And as a Christian, not only do you have to be theologically accurate, you have to be pastorally sensitive.

And I can tell you, speaking personally, it's easier to be accurate theologically sometimes than what it is to be sensitive to the needs of a brother or a sister in the Lord Jesus. So that's the last part of this passage. It's a plea for sensitivity.

So I've outlined the passage before you, somewhat quickly, unable to do so because it's rather a brief statement from Scripture. Well then, let's go back on it. Let's work it through again.

But now lifting out what is the main point behind Paul writing to the Corinthians in this area, let me underline the problem. And basically, and I admit I put the title to my address in a provocative fashion just to stimulate your interest, but basically it does surround the Christian joint. Can you imagine getting into theological controversy about the stewing steak or the handful of chops that were bought from Sainsbury's or Marks and Spencer's yesterday? It does seem a little bit unusual.

But bear in mind that problems of Christian conduct change down the centuries as culture changes. Later on, when we move into other chapters in Corinthians, we shall be looking at some dated practices and dated cultural pursuits which brought for the Corinthians great problems and may not be with us today in exactly the same situation. Well, here was the problem of eating food that had been offered to idols.

No difficulty, I repeat, for us today because food is not offered to idols, not in the United Kingdom, it is in some parts of India, but we don't have this difficulty. What exactly was it about? Let's engage in a historical inquiry just for a moment. Well, this difficulty has two particular sides to it and they could be summarized in this way and it's easy to understand.

There was the problem of buying in and then secondly there was the problem of eating out. The problem of buying in and the problem of eating out. As for buying in, well, the fourth verse makes reference about eating food that's been sacrificed to idols, but the concept of buying it, well, you've got to move into the next chapter or rather into the tenth chapter where in the twenty-fifth verse reference is made to the actual purchasing of foodstuff in marketplaces.

The authorized version translation of the market is the shambles and the NIV says eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions. Well, what does all this mean? Well, let me, as I say, continue my historical inquiry just for a moment or so. The best meat in Corinth was always sent to the temple and it was offered to the god or to the gods and then the priests would have some for themselves and what was left over, this good quality meat, would go down to the market and there it would be sold at bargain prices.

Well, here's the thrifty housewife, the thrifty man for that matter, or unmarried lady, who knows that there's a bargain deal in the marketplace, meat is up for sale, it's good quality meat. Shall we go and buy it? Well, the problem is this. It's first of all been offered to idols and if you buy it, don't you seem to suggest that in some way you're acknowledging the existence of these gods? Well, there were, as often is the case in evangelical communities, two opinions on this issue.

There were the libertines, the free people, the theologians who come to a realization that the idols didn't exist and therefore the meat couldn't have been offered to any other god because there was no any other god besides the Lord. So one could eat, one could buy, with a free conscience. And then there were those who were somewhat a little narrower in their views.

They were concerned about the effect that this might have upon other weaker Christians, upon pagans themselves as they looked on. Would it be a good testimony? The best thing is not to buy. So this was the problem.

Do you buy meat offered to idols? Do you buy it in? And there were two opinions at Corinth. Well, the second problem obviously is related to the first, but it's not so much a question as of buying in as eating out. You see, you couldn't get over the problem by saying, all right, I'll never go into the marketplace at all, I'll just go to the restaurants.

You know, that will be my diplomatic answer, very balanced position this. I'll go out to the restaurants and then I'm not involved in the controversy. Ah, but you see, you're into a problem.

In fact, you're more than knee deep, you're into your waist. Why? Well, the restaurants, where were they? Obviously there's not the Wimpy Bar down the road, the very secular organization, neither is the Black Rabbit up at Arundel, again, a secular organization. All the restaurants, all the cafes, all the eating places were associated with the temples, you see.

And so I have on my files a letter, at least a copy of a letter of one businessman who this time invites another to the restaurant at Serapis, Serapis being a god in those days. And he wants to discuss business affairs with the colleague. Maybe there's a contract that's ensuing.

You know how businessmen to this very day, they talk over lunch with a full stomach. Then the possibility is you might have engineered a sort of willing spirit on the part of the one to whom you want to sell some business. The same practice occurred then.

But the problem for the Christian businessman was the restaurants, they were all in the temple precincts. And if you went there, weren't you letting the Lord down? So you see the particular point of the 10th verse, 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? So once again, evangelicals right down the middle split. Some said it's all right, doesn't really matter, the idol doesn't exist.

It's just a temple to a non-existent God. You can hardly contaminate yourself, go in and enjoy yourself. And then there were others and they thought no, you're not to do this, because you'll be letting the Lord down.

It might not in any way enhance your Christian testimony. You see the problem. What I've done at the moment, I've outlined this passage and I've underlined the problems basically so that you can understand, my dear Christian friend, that in the 1st century as well as in the 20th century, some of these decisions that faces are not easy ones to take.

And there are often differing viewpoints about Christian conduct and practice in secondary areas. Well, without going much further into a historical excursion as to life in Corinth and the Greek world in the 1st century, let me now take you to the last and most important part of my meditation this morning. Let me lift out certain teachings, let me enshrine the principles as I find them in Paul's inspired teaching in this 8th chapter and the 10th chapter of the letter, along with other relevant passages of Scripture.

Obviously we haven't got the same problem. We have, as I have mentioned, no difficulty about eating meat today, at least as far as any idolatrous connection is concerned. But we do have similar problems where Christians differ.

Let me suggest one or two that perhaps you should put in place of the Corinthian difficulty in 1 Corinthians 8. What about this whole business, for example, of social drinking? Is it legitimate for a Christian to involve, to engage in this? What about going to the cinema? Is it right for a Christian to go to a cinema, to go to a theatre? What about the whole matter of Christian dress and keeping up with the styles as they break out on the fashion scene in the 1980s? What about smoking? What about dancing? How are we as individuals to react to some of these things? Now, these have been great problems. I'm not old enough to remember the radio coming out, believe it or not. It was always there, when, as I've been around for these last few years.

But I do remember television. Some of you young people will probably find it difficult to believe that there hasn't always been a television, but there hasn't. When it came out, tremendous controversy in the evangelical world, should a Christian have a television? I remember the diaconate in the church where I was brought up as a lad, ruling against the television.

And there were those of the age of my grandparents who could have told you that the same problem occurred when newspapers came. Should a Christian have a newspaper on a regular basis? Well, what are we to say to these things? That's what I mean by trying to dig out from Scripture what principles are enshrined and what principles are to be applied in these areas of controversy. Well, the first principle I bring to your attention from this chapter is this.

That whatever you do before the Lord, in your attitude to other Christians, you are never to become a bigot. That's what Paul is saying to these differing parties in Corinth. That's why he says, knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

Some of you hold a very strong opinion as to your liberty, and theologically you think that you've won the argument. But I'm asking you, whatever your conclusions may be, to remember that you have no right to hold any conclusion at all which is not bathed and baptized in love. And that needs to be said clearly and dogmatically in the 20th century in some of these areas where Christian people differ.

Whatever your opinion is, you hold it and you teach it on the basis not of the bigot but on the basis of one who loves the brethren and the sisters in Jesus Christ. The second principle which I lift out from these verses is what I would call, though it's not actually referred to by this terminology in this chapter, the Cain principle. The Cain principle is one that cannot be embraced by Christians at all.

You say, what is the Cain principle? Well, you remember Cain was responsible for the death of his brother Abel. And when God speaks to Cain to bring to his mind the dastardly act that he has perpetrated, Cain has the effrontery, has the cheek to say to God, how should I know where Abel is? Am I my brother's keeper? That's the Cain principle. I'm not my brother's keeper.

I have no responsibility for anyone at all apart from myself. Now Paul argues against the Cain principle in chapter 8 of this passage of scripture. I have a tremendous responsibility, perhaps more than most people.

And sometimes I tell you it almost frightens me to death, and more than once has caused me to ask God to release me from my charge as a preacher of the gospel. I have a responsibility to other brothers and sisters. In the way that I live my life, I have to try to be an example to them.

You see, I am not called, we are not called to use an expression I mentioned before, merely to be theologically acute. We are to be pastorally sensitive. Now the sensitivity of the apostle Paul is brought out in a wonderful way in the 7th verse of this chapter.

You remember what previously has happened. There's theological reasoning, it's brilliant, 100%, London Bible College, they give you a Doctor of Divinity. For having worked out the non-existence of idols, that's right, that's great, but your realization of this doesn't in any way qualify you to be a pastor, or to be a counselor in any area.

Because as the apostle Paul says in the 7th verse, not everybody knows this. Not everybody is as astute as you are. You may be strong in your understanding of the doctrines of God, but are you strong in understanding the weakness of somebody else's heart, and the fact that they can't always see it as you see it, and what you could indulge in wouldn't harm you, might hurt them if they indulged in it.

That's what I mean by Paul arguing against the Cain principle. Later on in the 10th chapter, he will speak about conscience that is not your own, to quote the authorized version of the New Testament. If verse 27, if some unbeliever invites you to a meal, you want to go eat whatever is put before you, without raising questions of conscience, but if anyone says to you, this has been offered in sacrifice, then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you, and for conscience sake, the other man's conscience I mean, not your own.

In the company of a brother, or a sister, who may not feel the freedom that you feel, there are certain things that you will not do, because you recognize your responsibility to the total body of Christ. Paul puts it so clearly in the 14th chapter of the letter to the Romans, when in the 13th verse there, he says, let us stop passing judgment on one another, instead make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way, and he goes on to tell us his own understanding of eating and drinking, and yet what he will go without on behalf of someone else, as one, this is Romans 14, 14, as one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself, that if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean. If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love.

Do not by your eating destroy your brother, for whom Christ died. You see what I mean by the Cain principle. There are certain things, which neutral they may be, as far as not affecting you one way or the other is concerned, but you will not indulge in them, because of your brother, because of your sister, these are abiding principles.

Whatever you do, have a loving attitude, whatever your convictions, hold those convictions plunged in agape love, recognize the Cain principle, and what's more, and I was going to say a little more on this, but my time has now been spent, remember the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostle, or rather John, quotes his words when he says, greater love hath no man than this, in that a man lay down his life for his friends, our Lord Jesus Christ did more than that, he laid down his life for his enemies. Now there will be certain things that, because you are a Christian, you will not engage in, they may be ethically neutral, it may not be a harmful thing for you. I do not think, for example, though it would bring my wife, I think, to a state of convulsion to see me, because the idea would be so ridiculous, I don't think it would harm me to go dancing.

It would harm whoever I danced with, because I've never danced in my life, but I don't think that I would be plunged into hell because I went dancing. But there are things that I will not do, not only because I don't have a natural inclination towards them, but because if others saw me doing them, they may feel that they too have a license, maybe a license that they couldn't control, as perhaps in that area, I could control it. So on their behalf, and because of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ and what he has done for me, I will not indulge in those things.

The same could be said of smoking and goodness knows how many other things. I am not telling you in these neutral issues what to do and what not to do. I give you, as Paul does under the Spirit of God, the same liberty as the New Testament suggests.

But bear in mind, my dear brother and sister, that we are accountable to God for what we do, and also we are accountable to the Lord for the example that we set others. And if we're in a twilight area, where we're not sure whether something is right or wrong, where it's arguable that ethically it's neutral, leave it alone. Leave it alone for the sake of the Lord Jesus.

Leave it alone realizing that there's a greater way for you to benefit and enjoy a happy life as you follow Christian pursuits that have no question mark attached to them at all. Well, you see the problem. All this has arisen from contemplating the Sunday joint, but when you think it through, there's a great deal more in 1 Corinthians chapter 8 than meets the eye.

And I bring it again to your attention for you to consider in private. Amen. And, Father, for consciousness of that divine scrutiny, we would ask you that you would for help in all that we do.

You know how baffling some situations are, particularly to some of our younger friends. You know how some older people have had to change their ideas and attitudes as the years have gone by. Help us, Father, to change where it is biblical and where we are stimulated by your Spirit so to do.

But help us to have the courage to cling on to the old-fashioned biblical values as we try to determine in the light of the complex 20th century just what is right and what is wrong for us. Give us a holy wisdom and a holy courage. Deliver us from all bigotry and give us a healthy love for Jesus' sake.

Amen. Amen.