Upholding Both Law & Liberty - Case in Point

I received a lot of feedback - mostly positive - on an article I wrote last Friday on the importance of upholding Christian liberty. Although several points were made in that article, the main point was that we cannot condemn moral choices on the basis of principle(s) alone. This is because principles are, by definition, generic (i.e. the application isn't specified).

The Scriptures identify in plain terms a number of sins (i.e. fornication, lust, idolatry, covetousness, etc.). We can condemn these things because the Scriptures condemn them. But can we condemn an activity on the sole basis that it may lead to lust or covetousness?  

I few years ago, I was studying the issue of Christian liberty in 1 Corinthians 8. I don't remember if I was just going through the book of 1 Corinthians or if something came up in my life that caused me to reexamine this chapter. Regardless the circumstances, my studies forced me into an awkward conflict with my own assumptions about moral laws.

In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul raises the issue of eating meat that had been offered to idols. Was it right or wrong to eat meat that had been offered to idols? In a more subtle way, he even addresses the act of eating in pagan temples. In a society where the culture and economy revolved around these pagan temples, I can imagine that there were all kinds of practical implications! How were these Christians to approach this?

As I restudied this chapter, it occurred to me that had I been an evangelist in Corinth in the first century, I would have condemned the act of going into pagan temples. Wouldn't such an act have epitomized "the appearance of evil?" Wouldn't people have assumed that you were going into the temple to worship the idol? Even with the eating of meat offered to idols, why on earth would you buy such meat when you had the choice to buy meat that hadn't been offered to idols? In other words, if I were to approach the activities outlined in 1 Corinthians 8 in the same way that I approach a lot of these moral issues today, I would have to condemn them!

And yet that's not what Paul did...

In 1 Corinthians 8:4-8, the apostle Paul explained to the Corinthian brethren that even though the meat had been offered to idols, it was just meat. While some couldn't eat the meat without violating their weak conscience (vs. 7), "food does not commend us to God; for neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse" (vs. 8). So while it may have been wrong for certain Christians to eat this meat, it wasn’t inherently wrong.

Then, in vss. 10-12, Paul alludes to the act of going into the pagan temples. He writes…

"For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak be emboldened to eat those things offered to idols? And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? But when you thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.”

Paul wasn't arguing that it was inherently sinful to enter a pagan temple to eat. We know this for two reasons.

1. The act of eating in the pagan temples only became sinful (vs. 12) if it negatively impacted weaker Christians. So it wasn’t the act of eating in the pagan temples that was sinful; it was the potential violation of this principle that was sinful. What if there were no weak brethren in the church? What if eating in the pagan temples was a problem in Corinth, but not in Ephesus?
2. The use of the word “knowledge” in verse 10 implies that the more mature Christians knew that the meat was just meat and the idols were nothing (vs. 4). This “knowledge” potentially allowed them to eat in the pagan temples without violating their own conscience. Technically, they were eating just another meal in just another building. It wasn’t an act of pagan worship for them as it may have been for the weaker Christians (those who lacked this knowledge).

If Paul wanted to make the point that it wasn’t inherently sinful to eat the meat offered to idols or to eat in the pagan temples, he could have easily done so. Instead, his point to the brethren in Corinth was that even though these acts were not inherently sinful – and thus in the realm of Christian liberty – there were vital principles at stake that, if broken, could result in sin.

If the apostle Paul didn’t outright condemn the act of eating in a pagan temple – something that seems so obviously wrong to me even now – then perhaps we ought to rethink our approach to issues today.

Now, I’m not saying that we can only teach on the principles and never speak about specific situations or activities where these principles might be at stake. In fact, Paul affirms as strongly as possibly in 1 Corinthians 8 that we MUST take these principles seriously! This is something that I want to address in my next article.

What I am saying is that we have to give our brethren room to grow. The "knowledge" that Paul speaks of in places like 1 Corinthians 8 - and the maturity he alludes to in a number of other places - is not a destination that everyone reaches as soon as they step out of the baptistery. It's a journey, and we're all at a different place along the way. So instead of pointing fingers and micromanaging the daily and/or moral choices of other brethren, let's help them grow in Christ...and ask them to help us in the same way.

"Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are pure, but it is evil for the man who eats with offense" (Rom. 14:19-20).