FREE IN CHRIST: LIBERAL IN CONSIDERATION — CONSERVATIVE IN LIBERTY

January 29th, 2006
Jeff Taylor

Text:     1 Corinthians 8
Note:
1 Corinthians 8 was read twice by Brad Lepp: once earlier in service with little inflection, then just before sermon with a sardonic, even slightly caustic tone.

1 Corinthians 8 (NIV)
1Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge.[a] Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. 3But the man who loves God is known by God.

4So 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. 5For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), 6yet 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.

7But 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. 8But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

9Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10For 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? 11So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13Therefore, 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.
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Voices. Different voices. Different voices speaking the same words with a different tone and affect. Which is right? Which is Paul’s voice? Or God’s? The dispassionately patient? The ironic and slightly caustic? The sound of the voice can communicate so much. It’s like the difference between hearing a gorgeous piece of music, or just seeing the spots on the page. How did various Corinthian believers first hear these words? How did these words effect them? Were some relieved to have an answer to their question? Were some sorry they asked? How did Paul feel having to write this letter from a Roman prison. (Think what we would have lost if Paul had not been forced by imprisonment to write these letters?) Voices. Different voices.

We asked Brad to do this reading in two different voices; he wants you to know he isn’t angry at us and hasn’t lost his mind — he was acting. Thank you, Brad, for bringing your musical imagination to this text.

Different voices. I don’t know which emoticons Paul would have chosen in writing this passage. His affection for these believers is clear, and yet he also chides them: “Shall I come to you with a rod . . ?” Has sort of a “Don’t make me take off my apostolic belt!” feel, doesn’t it? In one respect it doesn’t much matter what Paul’s intended tone was: the logic of his argument is the same either way. But hearing scriptures in different tonal voices can sometimes help us hear something totally new in familiar words. Now, what’s even more interesting to me than how he addresses the Corinthians is which Corinthians he chooses to address — we’ll come back to that soon.

But just for a few more moments, let’s pursue this idea of different voices and let’s let it be a metaphor for the different ways in which this one apostle deals with this one issue depending on who he’s talking to, and what his roll is in that conversation. Here the Corinthians have asked about whether or not eating meat previously offered to idols is okay. Paul’s short answer on this occasion is, “Yes, since idols are not real gods, there is no offense to the one true God in eating such meat.” This is rather stunning coming from a man who would have had to be on anyone’s list of the top-five most jewish Jews of the mid-first century. (Almost as amazing as the fact that God chose him to be the evangelist for us gentiles in the first place.)

Here Paul agrees even with those he thinks are being wind bags, that idols are not real. This is pretty much what Paul says whenever he is asked for his personal view on the subject. Writing (again, from prison) to the largely gentile church at Collossae, Paul says “let no one pass judgment on you concerning food or drink. . . . These are only a shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.” Actually, Paul seems to speak with one voice on this matter so far. Where are the alleged other voices?

One comes to the fore when Paul speaks not just for himself, but for the larger church and the Holy Spirit. Remember that famous conference in Jerusalem when Jewish believers tried to get their heads around the idea that people could believe in Yeshua, the Messiah, without being Jewish. In the end they decided that gentile believers wouldn’t have to be circumcised; but they did write them to observe “these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been offered to idols . . .” And it was Paul who delivered this decision to the gentile believers. And yet, now writing from prison , he apparently doesn’t see this restriction as “necessary.”

Is Paul a hypocrite, or has he changed his mind? I would say neither: rather, when he delivered the message of restriction from the Jerusalem conference, he was doing exactly what he now asks the Corinthians to do: he was submitting his personal will and freedom to “what seemed good to [the church] and the Holy Spirit.”

Yes, in Christ we are free! But . . . free for what? For what purpose? Paul’s answer here is: our freedom is for building up the whole church, not for puffing up individuals. Our freedom in Christ is not merely a gift for us, it is a gift to us for others. Our freedom in Christ is to be a means for us to serve each other.

This leads us to my point that, what’s really rather striking about this text is who Paul addresses. He seems to be picking on the wrong people. Here we have a bunch of Christians who apparently will do things they believe are wrong and feel guilty about just because of peer pressure, or merely because they see someone else doing it. Shouldn’t Paul admonish those with such weak consciences to strengthen them? “Don’t be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds in Christ Jesus” — why doesn’t he write something like that to these people?! Instead, he criticizes the people he agrees with about idols. Why? Why? . . .

Because they have become arrogant. They are full of hot air. They are puffed up with intellectual superiority. They go around quoting the latest erudite slogans: “All posses knowledge,” and “idols have no real existence.” [sarcastically:] These people know better than to worry about silly superstitions concerning idols; their minds have been liberated from all such ignorance. [end sarcasm]

Paul (no intellectual slouch himself) takes these folks to school! He gives them a serious verbal smack-down: “If anyone imagines they know something, they don’t yet know what they should. But if anyone loves God, then they know God.” Wow, that’s not what they were expecting Paul to say; he’s a liberal on this issue, he’s supposed to agree with . . . Oh, wait, . . . . I’m sorry. . . . Actually, I misread that last part: the bit about, “if anyone loves God, they know God”? Apparently Paul actually wrote, “If anyone loves God, they are known by God.”

We are known by God? That’s a sign that we love God? That’s a bit twisted, isn’t it? How does that give us power to be in the driver’s seat in our relationship with God? This rather puts us in our place, doesn’
t it? It is in submission to God that we grow in love. Our knowledge about or even of God is not that important; at least not in this passage. Even if our theology is well reasoned, if it does not lead us to love and sacrifice for each other, it is as if God can’t recognize us as his children — he can’t see the family resemblance.

The Corinthian’s can certainly say they are free to eat meat offered to idols or go to civic functions in the temples in which those idols were worshipped; but it certainly isn’t necessary for a believer to do so either. To insist on one’s “right” to do so knowing other believers will be hurt by that choice and possibly led into ethical confusion seems quite self-serving. True, it would have taken some effort to avoid buying meat offered to idols: it was commonly sold in the markets; or to avoid going in the temples which tended to serve as venues for public events, much the way churches and schools do in our society. Some effort would have been required to abstain. But that price of inconvenience seems insignificant compared to the cost of a fellow believer’s conscience and the unity of the church. Love for one another trumps knowledge, as Paul will echo later in this letter “if I have all knowledge . . but have not love, I just sound like a noisy gong.”

We want to know what we are free to do. I do. But Paul and the Spirit want to know how we’ll use our freedom to build love in the family — this family. Paul turns to his fellow Christian sophisticates (with whom he agrees on the food & idols question) and asks: how liberal can you be in consideration? How conservative can you be with your liberty for the sake of those for whom Christ died?

We Mennonites have always placed a high value on the Christian community: we have atradition of close community living; we do church leadership rather more democratically than some; we interpret the bible together; we make covenants of mutual discipleship and even accountability to each other. But we also live in western culture (quickly becoming a worldwide culture) that prizes independence, and personal freedom. Our culture is fast becoming a stranger to notions of community accountability, and moral, ethical, and economic responsibility for each other. The idea of submitting to the needs and general will of others is anathema in much of our culture. How is that changing our church? How is it shaping you and me?

Paul was willing to take to the gentiles a message on behalf of Jewish believers that he personally didn’t see as absolutely “necessary,” and here he asks the Corinthians he agrees with to submit to those he doesn’t agree with. So, . . . who are we to refuse to submit to one another as we discern what seems best to the Holy Spirit?

Are we likely to disagree over meat offered to idols? I can’t see that one coming up anytime soon. So what can we get from this scripture? If the meat & idols issue is irrelevant to us; what is relevant?

I should interrupt myself at this point to say that there is at least one other category of believer that Paul doesn’t deal with in this passage: that is, believers whose consciences say not to eat meat offered to idols and who follow their consciences and don’t eat it. If there is no danger that my having a meal at the local temple dedicated to a nonexistent god will cause any other believer to do the same against their own conscience, then do I have to worry about them at all; or am I free to eat and socialize as I like, simply agreeing to disagree with an equally strong-conscienced believer?

Let me pose some hypothetical conflicts of conscience that might, at least in part, be analogous to those the Corinthians were dealing with. You will have others you could add to this list:

What if I feel free in my conscience to enjoy music, art, and film that may not exactly espouse Chrisitan values, but which I take as simply descriptive of the situation of the artist. Now a sister or brother in the faith finds that same music, art, or film disrespectful, debasing, and a danger to the spirit. What is my obligation to that person and the church as a whole? Indeed, those who were here last night witnessed first hand what happened when I attempted some art that must not have been edifying for the church: God intervened and used the CD player, the modern Dues ex machina, to rescue the church. But really, what is our obligation to one another? “Knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.

How about the person who comes to faith and wishes to join a Mennonite church while in the midst of military service? We could ask our brothers and sisters in Virginia how they deal with such matters of conscience in their context. “Knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.

I admit to you that I enjoy an occasional wee sip of wine, . . . and Bailey’s Irish Creme, . . . . okay and that liqueur with the Elephant on the label. But when is it okay to serve alcohol? What if there are alcoholics struggling to stay free from this powerful enemy. Will I forgo alcohol for their sake? Will I boycott the aldohol industry altogether? How can we tell who the recovering alcoholics are? Or the potential new ones? Have I ever unwittingly offered a drink to someone fighting for their life against alcohol? What’s the right way to express my freedom in Christ? “Knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.

What if I am free in my conscience that I have chosen a life-mate and have been mutually chosen, but do not see a need to make it official with a ceremony and declaration of marriage. After all, even the state will consider us married after a couple of years. Should I let someone else’s hang-ups determine my actions? If we always give in to the most restrictive voices, how will the church grow and change? Has Christ not set us free from the law? “Knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.

If a congregation feels free to explore difficult issues and come to conclusions or non-conclusions that challenge others in their wider fellowship, are they free to set aside other’s expressions of concern (especially the less well-informed ones), or should they act in such a way as to keep the unity of the faith? Are we obliged to shape our decisions at least in part, in response to the “weaker brother.” OTOH, if our opponents express their views strongly, should we assume that their consciences are strong and cannot be harmed by us? Or . . . does the wider believing community have a corporate conscience? If so, can that be harmed? “Knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.

These are just afew examples of things that we either already have or likely will one day deal with in our relationships with other believers. What would you add to the list? I won’t offer solutions here; that’s something we do and have done together. And we probably cannot create a general procedural rule that will fit all situations. But let’s not let the complications of each case distract us from the guiding principle: “Knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.

Paul and the Spirit do not ask us to agree on everything. Rather, we are asked to build other up in love; to be liberal in consideration and submission wherever possible; to be conservative in exercising our liberty in Christ wherever that will serve our sisters and brothers. Be at peace: we will never perfectly know the mind of God; but if we defer to one another in love for God, we will be known by God. Amen.