Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Let's turn our attention to first Corinthians
Chapter Eight. First Corinthians Chapter Eight.
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I'll also be spending a little bit
of time this morning in acts chapter eighteen,
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but will turn there a little bit
later. So, First Corinthians Chapter
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Eight. We've considered this morning already
a little bit what it means to worship
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God as the only God, our
one true God. Indeed, we have
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worshiped him and we have been called
to do that. Now we come to
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a question that deals with idolatry and
other things related to conscience, related to
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our place in society, all kinds
of things. Let's give our attention to
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God's word. First Corinthians Chapter Eight. Now, concerning food offered to idols,
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we know that all of us possess
knowledge. This knowledge puffs up,
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but loves. Love builds up.
If anyone imagines that he knows something he
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does not yet knows. He ought
to know, but if anyone loves God,
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he is known by God. Therefore, as to the eating of food
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offered to idols, we know that
an idol has no real existence and that
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there is no God but one,
for although there may be so called Gods
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in heaven or on Earth, as
indeed many are as. Indeed, there
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are many gods and many lords.
Yet for us there is one God,
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the father, from whom all things, from whom are all things and for
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whom, all whom we exist,
and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through
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whom are all things and through whom
we exist. This is such an important
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verse I'm going to read it again. Of Verse Six, I'm confusing it
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with another verse in my mind and
mixing up the words. Let me try
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one more time. So verse six. Yet for us there is one God,
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the father, from whom are all
things and for whom we exist,
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and one Lord, Jesus Christ,
through whom are all things and through whom
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we exist. However, not all
possess this knowledge, but some, through
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former association with idols, eat food
as really offered to an idol, and
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their conscience, being weak, is
defiled. Food will not commend US and
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will not commend us to God.
We are no worse off if we do
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not eat and no better off if
we do. But take care that this
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right of yours does not somehow become
a stumbling block to the week, for
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if anyone sees you, and if
anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in
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an idols temple, will he not
be encouraged, if his conscience is weak,
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to eat food offered to idols?
And so, by your knowledge,
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this weak person is destroyed, the
brother for whom Christ died, thus sinning
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against your brothers and wounding their conscience
when it is weak, you sin against
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Christ. Therefore, if food makes
your my brothers stumble, I will never
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eat meat lest I make my brothers
stumble. Man. So Paul is addressing
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the Corinthians in a very particular circumstance
and he's addressing them according to what are
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probably requests. We've come through this
section about marriage and and singleness and sex
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and various other things, and now
we come to chapter eight and he says
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now concerning food offered to idols.
Right, this is a transition to a
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new subject. He wants us to
learn how to think about this particular thing
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in their context, and it's a
very fascinating context with all kinds of layers
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of and wisdom about how we ought
to think wisely about our place in this
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world. As we saw in chapter
six and in Chapter Seven, we have
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multiple things going on. On the
one hand, we very specific instructions on
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how to deal and interact in a
specific situation. But we also have something
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else. We have an example given
to us about how to think through things,
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about moral reasoning and example which gives
us priorities and principles and ways to
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think through complex and difficult situations.
So let's pay attention this morning and think
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about what, how what we can
learn here about God's will for us and
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how we ought to live our lives. I think it helps to begin with
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the particular situation that the Corinthians find
themselves in. What is it? Well,
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you can begin, and this is
where we'll start, back in acts
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chapter eighteen, with a previous time
in Corinth. So if you would turn
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with me there for a moment,
Acts Chapter Eighteen, here Paul records his
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first beginnings. This is the startup
of his time in Corinth and we read
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what happened and it relates to what
is happening here. So in act chapter
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eighteen, verse one, we read
that Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.
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He stays in the house of a
Jewish couple that had been expelled,
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along with other Jews from Rome.
The Romans had been kicked out by Claudius
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and had gone different places and this
couple had found themselves themselves in Corinth,
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very Roman city, a place being
colonized, a place that was laid out
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according to the Roman street patterns,
a place that was filled with idols and
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temples, a place that was a
destination place in the province of a Kia,
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a center of commerce and government and
activity, a kind of Washington DC,
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your New York City, of this
part of the world. And here
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Paul finds himself and he finds this
couple and he stays with them and then
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he goes into the synagogue and he
begins to speak to the Jews. there.
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We read in verse five that he
was testifying to the Jews that the
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Christ was Jesus. So there he
is. He's in the synagogue in this
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faraway place. He's not in Judea, he's not in Palestine, he's not
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in Rome, he's in Corinth,
this Roman colony, speaking to these Jews
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who are not in their home place, who are not in their home territory,
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and he's telling them that the Christ
has come and that Christ is Jesus.
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He's persuading them, he's testifying to
what he's seen. What happens?
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What happens next is verse six.
They oppose him and they revile him.
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Paul does not get a warm welcome
from the body as a whole. There
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are individuals, we read even the
leader of the synagogue, who come to
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faith in Christ, but as a
whole the Jewish people there in Corinth are
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not happy with Paul. You can
hear it in Paul's words and in his
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actions. We read in verse six
that he shook out his garments and he
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said to them, your blood be
upon your own heads. I am innocent.
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For now on, I will go
to the gentiles. And then we
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read in verse seven that he left
there and went to the house of a
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man named tideous justice, a very
gentile a name. They're a worshiper of
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God. And so this is what
he does. And and we read that
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he was in Corinth for about a
year and a half, preaching, teaching,
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drawing people to the Lord, persuading
them. But as time went on
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the Jews were not satisfied with Paul
just leaving the synagogue and going to the
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gentiles. All right, Paul's not
in the synagogue anymore, he's not speaking
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directly to that body, but he's
out talking with guys like this and they
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are not happy with this, and
so they this is what they do.
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In Verse Twelve, we read that
good men Galio was made proconsul of a
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Chao, or when he was proconsul
of the Chaa, the Jews made a
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united attack on Paul and they brought
him for the tribunal. Now, this
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tribunal, this pro proconsole, this
Gallio, he is the boss, the
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governor, the head Hancho of this
whole region, a big region, a
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giant province in Rome and a very
important province right, as the Greeks admired
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in some ways, and we're borrowing
and doing other things in relation to the
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previous Greek culture. This is Greece
right, this is Athens and Corinth and
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all of this land. And so
they take Paul to Gallio and they make
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this accusation. In verse thirteen,
they taken before this Roman governor, whose
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rulings could only be overturned by the
emperor himself. Right, what this man
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says goes and they say to him
this man talking about Paul, is persuading
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people to worship God, contrary to
the law. So what are they saying
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here? What exactly are they accusing
Paul of? There's two possibilities. The
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first possibility, which I don't think
it is, is they're accusing him of
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what we see Jesus Being Accused of
in like the gospel of John, for
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example. For the Jews are saying
by saying that you are God, or
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by other people saying that Jesus is
God, you are blasphemy your social you're
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becoming more than a monotheist, in
other words, and so they were upset
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and they were prop persecuting him because
of that. Now Jesus, of course,
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was God and so it wasn't blasphemy, but that was the accusation.
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I don't think that's the case here. However, when they say contrary to
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the law, they're not talking about
the law of Moses, because what would
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Galio care about that? Right?
He is a Roman governor, not a
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Jewish governor. I'm his job is
not to prosecute or uphold or judge into
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religious conflicts, especially within the Jews, who, by the way, just
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got, as I mentioned before,
just got kicked out of Rome. These
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are not people who were well loved
in the Roman Empire. So they're not
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going to Gallio to have him decide
questions about their law. They're going to
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him to have questions decided about his
law. And what do they mean?
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Well, the Jews had received a
special exemptions not to participate, or allowing
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them not to participate in emperor worship. The imperial cult was growing faster and
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faster, especially in places like Corinth
that we're all about Rome, Rome,
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Rome, Rome, and we're getting
more and more excited about Rome all the
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time. We're becoming more and more
attached Rome all the time. And this
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imperial cult in which the emperor and
his family and those both deceased and present,
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they were calling people to worship them, and indeed they had temples and
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sacrifices and priests and priestesses, a
whole system of religion built around the worshiping
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of the Emperor. The Jews protested
this right, because you only worship God
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alone, and they protested it so
much and so strongly that the Roman Empire
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said enough, will give you an
exemption. Amazing, wonderful, it's good,
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really good that they did that.
Well, so they pressed against the
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Roman the government. The Roman government
gave them an exception. So here's what's
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happening with Gallio. They go before
his this proconsul and they say Paul is
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teaching that this Christ, that Jesus, is the Christ and in doing so
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he's undermining the imperial called he's undermining
emperor worship. He's going against your law,
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yes, the one that we have
an exemption from, but he's not
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one of us and you need to
prosecute him. Does that make sense?
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They're taking him and they're saying prosecute
him for persuading, and this word there
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probably means something a little more like
in the context here, something like misleading
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or seducing people to leave. This
is kind of like a treasonous, the
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sort of seditious thing to leave the
Roman ethic, the Roman called the Roman
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everything, and start going after this
Jesus. So here's what happens. So
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what does was Gallio going to say? Right? So Paul's about to open
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his mouth. He's about and you
can imagine what Paul might say right.
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What he talked about the relationship of
the Queen Jesus and the and the Jewish
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people? Is the son of Abraham
and the fulfillment of the Messianic prospecies and
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all this sort of stuff? Will
never find out because when Paul was about
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to open his mouth, Gallio speaks
and he says to the Jews. If
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it were a matter of wrongdoing or
vicious crime, O Jews, I'd have
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reason to accept your complaint, but
since it's a matter of questions about words
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and names and your own law,
see to it yourselves. I refuse to
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be a judge of these kinds of
things. Now there's a couple things to
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notice here. Basically, I'll end
with the end. What Gallio is saying
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is that I see them, these
Christians, basically is one of you,
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this is your this is a Jewish
deal, and so move on. I
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have no this has nothing, no
place here. So the effect of this
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is that Gaulio extends, in the
Jewish mind, extends to Christians the same
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exemption that Jews have. So now
Christians are not under the same kind of
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pressure, at least within the province
of a Chaa, to worship, at
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least according to law. They can't
be prosecuted by this, because Gallio has
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said it, and the only one
that can overturn that ruling is the emperor
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himself. And the likelihood of the
Jews getting a hearing before the emperor,
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you'd have to be a Roman citizen. All kinds of other things. It's
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just not going to happen, and
it didn't happen. So gallio this makes
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this huge decision to not even hear
the case and by not hearing the case,
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the Christians receive this exemption. There
seems, in my mind any way,
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to be a mistranslation here in Verse
Fifteen, when it says questions about
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words, he says, since it's
a matter of questions about words and names
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and your own law. We did, we can guess what he means by
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names, right, Jesus and Christ
and your own law and their relationship and
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that sort of thing. But what
does he mean by words? It's not
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really clear, is it, unless, of course, he means this the
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word word there number one. It's
singular and not plural. Names is plural,
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but words is not. In the
Greek it's law, which is singular.
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I'm so he says here. Instead
of words, he says it is
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a matter of questions about a word. Now word, of course, can
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mean all kinds of things, but
there is this one very specific and some
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time in infrequent definition, but it
fits the context here perfectly. Sometimes the
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word law US can mean a declaration
of immunity and freedom from something and that
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seems to exactly fit the context the
governor is saying. But since it is
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a matter about this declaration of immunity, this thing that we have in Christ
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and these things concerning your law,
this is a Jewish thing, this is
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a Jewish matter. I'm not going
to touch it. So let's move on.
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And he drives them out of the
council. All right. So why
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all that? Thank you for bearing
with me in that. What that helps
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us to understand is that when we
get to this passage in Corinth, after
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Paul has left, you know,
a year and a half, two years
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later, these Christians are not under
legal pressure to eat food offered or to
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not eat food offer battles. They
have freedom in that according to the law,
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according to Gallio's pronouncement. So why
then, this is the question.
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Why then, are Christians trying to
eat food sacrifice idols? What's going on
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here? What's that? What would
what would even cause this, this conflict?
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And the answer is that in Rome
at this time, in the midst
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of this imperial call to and all
these sort of things, this is where
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business happened, this is where work
happened. There were tempt there were big
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games that were going on, kind
of like the Olympics. There were feasts
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that were going on, there were
parties that were going on, the emperor,
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worship and Rome, and being Rome
was all tied up in food and
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dining, in these sort of things. You'd go sacrifice your ox, for
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example, or the post of the
feast would sacrifice the AC to the emperor
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and everyone would lift up their drinks, such to the emperor, the the
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vine, emperor and worship, and
then everyone would sit down at the table
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and eat, and there you smell
the food and taste and here's where deals
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would happen and money would be exchanged
and all these kinds of things of society,
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of culture and life would happen.
To avoid those kinds of things would
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mean getting left out. To not
go to the parties, to not do
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the networking, to not make the
connections, meant that you were going to
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be left behind. So how do
you navigate that as a Christian? Paul
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tells you and tells us, the
Bible tells us really clearly. He'll say
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in chapter ten flee from idolatry.
have nothing to do with it. And
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so, as a Christian, you
could kind of think in your mind okay,
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I'm going to go to this party. I'm not going to go before
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the altar and I don't even have
to write. I'm not even required to
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do all that sacrificing stuff. I'm
a Christian, Gallio set. It's fine,
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I'm good there. And it's also
true. This is the reasoning Paul
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talks about in First Corinthians A.
It's also true that, and I don't
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really isn't anything at all, is
it? These people? They think the
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emperor is a God. I know
he's not a God. I know that
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Apollos not at these so called Guy
I know they're not God's if I'm eating
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this food, to me it's just
food, it's just the piece of meat
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well given to me by God,
Him, the Real God, the God
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himself. This guy over here,
he may have sacrificed it and whatever,
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and that's his deal, but for
me I'm just enjoying a nice cut of
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meat and making the connections I need
to make and prospering my business and trying
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to get a fair hearing at the
next trial and whatever. And you're there
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for and so you can imagine in
the Christian mind how you could, with
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good and truth theological knowledge, navigate
your way into a situation where you are
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sitting at one of these feasts,
at one of these parties and in good
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conscience, being wise, being cautious, not participating in everything, but eating
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food offers sacrificed to idols. And
so what does Paul say about this?
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Nice says in verse for as the
eating of food offered idols. We know
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that an idol has no real existence
and that there is no god, but
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one God. Food is food.
You're not well, let me keep reading.
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First five, for although there may
be many socalled or there may be
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so called Gods in heaven or on
Earth, as indeed there are many gods
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and many lords, yet for us
there is one God. So this is
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what he says. He goes on
to say in Verse Eight, Food Will
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Not commend us to God. We
are no worse off if we do not
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eat and no better off if we
do. He's a son, so saying,
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if you want to eat the food, eat the food. It doesn't
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hurt you to take it. It
doesn't hurt you, or it doesn't bless
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you or help you in some way
not to take it. It doesn't matter.
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Okay, however, and then Paul
adds a how a big however,
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he says in verse seven. Not
all possessed this knowledge, but some,
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through former association with idols, eat
food as really offered to an idol.
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So here is this person, this
Christian and immature, a young Christian,
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who has lived a life of idolatry, who's lived a life of going to
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the temples and going to these parties
and going to these feasts. They've eaten
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the meat and they've not just eaten
it as food, they've eaten it it's
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worshiped to the emperor, is worshiped
her as worship to a police and others,
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and then they look over there and
they see you eating the meat.
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They're like, I thought we were
Christians, I thought we were to worship
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the one true living God. What
are you doing? And that sort of
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stress and anxiety and fear that a
young, young Christian and immature Christian that
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hasn't sorted through all these things yet
and just sees idolatry. That's all they
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see and they see a brother or
sister participating in that, that could cause
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them to stumble. Well, maybe
I guess this is okay, maybe we
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don't have to worship Jesus. Is
the one true God. Maybe we can
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give ourselves over to the things of
this world and the emperor and whatnot,
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to gain the things of this world. And so Paul says in Verse Nine,
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Take Care that this right of yours
does not somehow become a stumbling block
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to the weak. For if anyone
sees you, you who have knowledge,
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eating in an idol's temple, will
he not be encouraged, if his conscience
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is eat, to offer or to
eat food offered to idols, and to
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take what he said before as though
they were truly something big, because they
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were truly God's or something like that? And so the conclusion he draws in
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verse eleven. And so by your
knowledge, this very weak person is destroyed,
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the brother for whom Christ died.
Paul says in another place that when
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we when we know something, or
let me put it this way, when
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we believe that something is wrong and
we do it anyway, even if it's
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not actually wrong, we sin.
Like if you believe they'll use this.
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So example, if you believe in
the bottom of your heart that riding a
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bicycle is a sin and then you
go and ride a bicycle, you sin,
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even though riding a bicycle of course, is not a sin. The
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SIN is not in the bicycle riding
itself, it's in the doing something that
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you believed was wrong. If your
conscience says don't do it and you go,
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I'm going to do it anyway,
the Bible says that's a sin.
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So obviously we want to do two
things. One, we don't want to
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sin against our conscience and too,
we want to calibrate our consciences so that
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they're neither over sensitive nor under sensitive, that they don't say things or sins
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which aren't sins and aren't hard against
sins which are sins. We want to
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calibrate them so that they align perfectly
and are perfectly sensitive to God's will and
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then to act accordingly. But in
our relationships, but we're not on the
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same page, we're not on the
same place. And what Paul is saying
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here is it's not just about you. It's not just about your right,
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though you do have a right.
It's not just about your freedom, though
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you do have freedom. We have
a responsibility to care for one another.
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And so, though food won't commend
you to God, you're no worse off
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if you eat it or if you
don't. We are worse off if we
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cause our brothers and our sisters to
sin. And so Paul says. Just
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put the point really clearly in verse
thirteen. Therefore, if food makes my
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brother stumble, I will never eat
me lest I make my brother's stumble.
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Now how we apply this is complicated, even as this own situation is complicated.
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If you ask now concerning food sacrifice
to idols, yes or no,
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like we saw in the previous chapters, Paul doesn't say yes or no.
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If you give a blanket yes,
yes, food sacrifice to idols, what
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do you risk? Will you risk
causing a brother or sister to stumble?
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You risk defiling them, defiling their
conscience. You risk being in somewhat responsible
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for that. But if you give
a blanket no, no, food sacrifice
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to idols, you risk binding consciences
and freedom where it is allowed. So
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what do you do if it's neither
a total yes or a total no,
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what do you do? Well,
the answer is you get your priorities right
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in your head and then you act
according to wisdom in the context. And
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what are the priorities in this particular
situation? One is there's only one true
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God and two, we ought to
love our brothers and sisters. That's it,
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it. And so in that context
he applies it to the specific situation
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with idols and thinking through that and
and it and as it relates to these
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brothers and sisters. And so,
as you think through morally challenging situation in
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your life, what should I do
and what shouldn't I do? These have
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to be a priorities for you as
well. All of us, I suspect,
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have been found ourselves in situations where
we've had to decide what am I
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going to do? How is this
going to look? What's how's this going
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to affect my reputation? And sometimes
you might call it one way and sometimes
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you might call it another, and
you might be wrong in both or right
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in both, or wrong and one
and right in the other. We need
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to pray for wisdom, don't we? These things are hard. They require
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a lot of thought and sensitivity and
a lot of seeking God in his word.
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I think this passage also teaches us
what one other thing which I'll conclude
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with here, and that has to
do with just the use of knowledge in
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general. This is how Paul begins, right he says all of us possess
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knowledge, and when he speaks there. I think he's thinking about worldly kind
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of of knowledge. But even if
it's more than that, there is a
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danger of it puffing us up and
making us prideful. To know the truth
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is a good thing, but isn't
there aren't there ways in which, our
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knowledge of the truth, we then
use it to hurt other people, to
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put them in difficult situations, to
not love but instead be conceded and for
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ourselves. And though the knowledge may
be good, are use of it is
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not good. So how are we
to know? How are we to not
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abuse and guard ourselves against that abuse? And it comes from realizing how much
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God has revealed to us in Christ. It really does. If you would
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turn with me to one other place, this is in your hymnals. Will
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sing this hymn in a moment and
I want you to look at it with
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me, because I think this expresses
this well, a hymn four hundred and
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seventy we the conclusion here is that
we are better able to act and live
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within this world, to know how
we ought to love when we first remember
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and know how God first loved us. It humbles us in a way to
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know what God has done for us, to know not just that he's the
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one true God, but that one
true God, our one true God,
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came into this world, became a
man, Jesus, who died on a
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cross and forget to forgive us our
sins. That death of the son of
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God and then his subsequent resurrection from
the dead puts us in a place where
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we don't have to fear Rome or
any other government. The Lord's victory in
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the Cross puts us in a place
where we can try to do good in
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the courts and in our businesses and
in our families and culture and life and
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be successful there, but at the
same time hold it with a loose grasp.
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Knowing that we belong to Jesus Christ
allows us to go to those places
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and go. You know what,
if I can't go to this place,
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if my business falls apart, if
this ultimately costs my life, not to
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participate in the things of this culture
because they're too compromising or whatever, I'm
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going to be okay. If it
means that I have to love. I'm
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going to love my brother my sister
in Christ, even though they're not quite
357
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all right in their heads and in
their hearts yet. I'm going to be
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okay I'm okay to bind myself in
freedom. I'm okay to Louse, or
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I'm okay to bind my own freedom. I'm okay to lose the things of
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this world. I'm okay to give
up my rights because I have everything I
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need in Christ. Miss Hymn expresses
that each end, each verse, ends
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with a not till then how much
I owe, except with a slight variation
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in the last one, and each
one helps us to have us a sense
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for what Christ has done for us
and how we relate to this world.
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Take the first verse, for example. When this world is passing done,
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when has sunk yawn glaring son,
when we stand with Christ on high looking
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o'er life's history, then Lord shall
I fully know, not till then,
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how much I owe. We will. We have this knowledge in a sense
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now, but when we come into
heaven, when we come and we see
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the world passing away, that's when
we'll go okay, now I really get
371
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it. And if we're going to
really get it and understand it, then
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we can begin to get it and
understand it here and now. We can
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begin to see the world fading away, we can get in to see it's
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setting son, we can begin to
see the glories of Christ and live accordingly.
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Firse two, when I hear the
wicked call on the rocks and the
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hills to fall, when I see
them start and shrink on the fiery day,
377
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Lose Brink, then Lord shall I
fully know, not till then,
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how much I owe. It is
because of what we owe God in Christ,
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because of this great gift that he
has given to us and love,
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that we don't have to fear the
wicked, unrighteous, unjust people of this
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world. We can know that God
will set it right in the Great Day
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of Judgment. When I stand verse
three, when I stand before the throne
383
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dressed in beauty not my own,
when I see thee as thou are,
384
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Love Thee with unsinning heart, then, Lord shall I fully know, not
385
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till then, how much I owe. When the Praise of Heaven I hear
386
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loud as Thunders to the ear,
loud as many waters, noise, sweet
387
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as Harp's melodious voice. Then,
Lord shall I fully know, not till
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then, how much I owe.
Chosen Not for good, and me wakened
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up from wrath to flee, hidden
in the saviors side by the spirit sanctified
390
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teach me Lord on Earth, to
show by my love how much I owe
391
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so, brothers and sisters, we
can fix, I'll put it that way,
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our idolatrous problems by looking to Christ, by looking to him as the
393
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one true God. When we follow
him and of him alone, we're no
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longer captured by the idols of this
world. And it's also to looking to
395
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Christ and the love that we have
received in him, the forgiveness of our
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sins, the promises of heaven and
all the rest. It's when we know
397
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that love that that we can begin
to let go of ourselves, even died
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to ourselves, as the scriptures say, and show to others that love that
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he showed us. May The Lord
Grant these things in us as we come
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to a better knowledge and understanding of
him. Let's pray our heavenly father
