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1 Corinthians 8:1-13 (September 19, 2004)

Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 8:6 But we know that there is only one God, the Father, who created everything, and we exist for him. And there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom God made everything and through whom we have been given life.

Scripture quotation taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright© 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

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Core Value:  U-Unique relationship with Jesus Christ.  We celebrate that God reaches out to us in Jesus Christ, recognizing that we are all on unique spiritual journeys.  We encourage people to grow in their relationship with Christ and we offer a variety of ways to express and develop that relationship.  (Ephesians 2:4-10)

     In this chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul addresses a topic unknown to us: meat sacrificed to idols.  However, through this passage, Paul teaches us how to make moral decisions about our choices in life.  While allowing for the importance of individual knowledge, Paul explains that these moral decisions cannot be made apart from the community of faith, whose special knowledge involves being known and loved by God.  As we experience God’s love, we are filled with love for others on this faith journey.  This love for others, Paul argues, should determine our actions, even if it means limiting our own “rights.”

     As we saw last week, one faction in the Corinthian church insisted on their “rights” as social superiors to others.  In today’s reading, we see another example of this faction demanding their way and refusing to care about younger Christians.  These “strong” Christians knew that idols had no real power, whereas younger Christians, who probably once worshiped these other “gods,” thought the power of idols to be very real and dangerous.  Corinth was filled with temples to various “gods,” where people made animal sacrifices.  The temple workers sent the remaining meat from the animals to be sold in the marketplace.  Therefore, most of the meat sold in the Corinthian marketplace came from animals which had been sacrificed to idols.  Because the faction with “special knowledge” knew that idols had no power over God, they felt free to eat the meat in the marketplace.  But, the younger Christians felt that they were betraying God by eating such meat.

     This issue of meat further divided the church between wealthy and poor.  The poor rarely ate meat anyway, so staying away from it did not have much impact.  The wealthy, however, ate meat frequently at club or guild dinners, where they expanded their influence and made business connections.  They, therefore, felt that they had to “right” to eat meat, since refraining from meat would cause their business and social relationships to suffer.

     Paul admonished the people in this faction, instructing them to limit their “freedom” or “rights” for the sake of others.  He rebuked them for allowing their knowledge to build themselves up, instead of allowing love to build up the whole body.  Love keeps knowledge in perspective, Paul reminded them, and besides, we are not saved by our knowledge but by God’s grace.  That one fact, that Jesus Christ died for each person, binds us together in community.  We may not agree with every decision other people make, but we agree that Christ died for each of us.

     In this passage, Paul recognized that each person has their own unique relationship with Jesus Christ.  People understand sin differently.  Some felt that eating meat offered to idols was a sin while others did not.  Paul, in essence, defined sin differently than commonly thought.  Sin, for many people, constitutes a moral category of behaviors that can be listed.  In Paul’s argument, sin is any action that separates us from God or from other people in community.  This definition results in expanding sin to include social interactions, and allowing for people to have different perspectives on defining sin.  Paul invites us to understand unity not as believing the same things or agreeing on everything, but by loving all and subsuming our rights for the good of the whole.

Questions for Reflection

For further study:  Reading other scripture often helps us interpret the passage we are reading.  Read these passages for further study.  Acts 10.  John 1.  1 Corinthians 13, especially verses 8-12.  Romans 14.  Ephesians 2:4-10.

For next week:  Read 1 Corinthians 3:5-9.  How have you been Christ’s partner in ministry with others here at Skyline?
 

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Last modified: 02/11/08