Paul continues in the substantive points he has to say. With each of these, we can infer that the issue somehow caused division within the church of Corinth. Going further, we can also perhaps speculate that these substantive issues were some of the things that the people were trying to resolve in the civil courts.
Here, Paul clarifies the freedom of eating meat. We saw a very high level of freedom after Christ's ministry and the Vision of Peter. Paul scales it back.
People were afraid of eating meat that had been offered to idols. Perhaps they believed that by doing so, they were:
1. Ritually participating in idolatry
2. Economically supporting idolatry
3. Eating and infusing themselves with something demonic
4. Condoning idolatry
Regardless of their rationale, Paul says that it is OK to food offered to idols because idols are nothing. However, he clarifies that other believers might not realize this, thus to avoid division and causing brothers to sin, one should avoid eating meat offered to idols if it would be a problem for one's spiritual brother.
On one hand, the issue of food offered to idols has little relevance today. However, I think there some timeless principals at play here. First, we should embrace unity in Christ at the cost of some freedom. Second, we should also not intentionally anger people with the foods we eat or do not. A modern corollary to food before idols is perhaps eating food organic, free-range, vegetarian, or even nut-allergies. So, the question remains is do we embrace community with what we eat or do we cause division?
A side note, Paul makes an interesting comment in that he says that there are many "gods" and many "lords", but there is only one God and one Lord. (v. 5-6)
No comments:
Post a Comment