March 11, 2018

• Idol Food

  Love strengthens the church:  1 Corinthians 8 1-13     

  

  1 corinthians 8

   Now regarding your question about food that has been offered to idols. Yes, we know that “we all have knowledge” about this issue. But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church. ² Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much. ³ But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes.^[a]

  ⁴ So, what about eating meat that has been offered to idols? Well, we all know that an idol is not really a god and that there is only one God.⁵ There may be so-called gods both in heaven and on earth, and some people actually worship many gods and many lords. ⁶ But for us,

  There is one God, the Father,
  by whom all things were created,
  and for whom we live.
  And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ,
  through whom all things were created,
  and through whom we live.

  ⁷ However, not all believers know this. Some are accustomed to thinking of idols as being real, so when they eat food that has been offered to idols, they think of it as the worship of real gods, and their weak consciences are violated. ⁸ It’s true that we can’t win God’s approval by what we eat. We don’t lose anything if we don’t eat it, and we don’t gain anything if we do.

  ⁹ But you must be careful so that your freedom does not cause others with a weaker conscience to stumble. ¹⁰ For if others see you—with your “superior knowledge”—eating in the temple of an idol, won’t they be encouraged to violate their conscience by eating food that has been offered to an idol? ¹¹ So because of your superior knowledge, a weak believer^[b] for whom Christ died will be destroyed. ¹² And when you sin against other believers^[c] by encouraging them to do something they believe is wrong, you are sinning against Christ. ¹³ So if what I eat causes another believer to sin, I will never eat meat again as long as I live—for I don’t want to cause another believer to stumble.

  The Word of God for the people of God- Thanks be to God!

  How many of you remember Paul Harvey? Paul hosted a show called the Rest of the Story!

  So, let’s look closer at what is going on here.  To put this in perspective, Paul would kind of be like their District Superintendent is to us today.  Paul had planted the church and turned it over, and after he left the people in the church are having disputes that they want Paul to settle for them.

  Factions had begun to form and each made their case and wanted Paul to declare them to be right and the other wrong.

  The Corinth church was planted amid sin city, where the temple of Athena, the love goddess, employed 1000 priestess who served as prostitutes and it was common for meat sold in the marketplace to have been consecrated as a sacrifice to false gods prior to its sale.

  The Jews would have nothing to do with such meat, wary of “unclean” food-handling practices and believing that to partake of consecrated meat was to give tacit approval of idol worship—kind of a “second-hand” idolatry.

  The former pagans who worshipped at the temple and had now left and declared Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior didn’t want any part of anything to do with these temple sacrifices

  The Gentiles rejected the notion that such meat was tainted and held that they could eat meat sacrificed to idols without endorsing idolatry—they had not actually offered the sacrifice, after all.

  So, as Paul Harvey would say, that’s the rest of the story. What the controversy was about.

  Paul clarifies the teaching on this subject. First, he says that eating meat offered to an idol is not immoral, because “an idol is nothing at all.” An idol is an inanimate object. The meat itself is amoral. But meat isn’t the issue it is? It is the fracturing of relationships.

  And Paul is trying to bring them back to the main thing. See church, it’s never about the meat, never about the organ, piano, guitar, drum set or even a YouTube video that doesn’t quite get it right, is it? We sometimes do it accapela at Starford, just because! No, it is about glorifying our God and enjoying our relationship with Him together as His church and taking His love out to others.

  In essentials, UNITY In non-essentials, LIBERTY In all things, LOVE

  See, our faith is relational church, and we are the body of Christ, not the Lone Ranger of Christ. We were created in the Image of God and to be in relationship with Him and with each other. So, what’s all this have to do with us Pastor John?

  What we believe has implications church, especially what we believe about the body of Christ.

  This message is as applicable to us, as it was to Corinth.

  See Church Genesis 1: 26 tells we were created in God’s image and that has implications. How are we created in His Image? While God is a spirit, we resemble God because we are cognitive, emotional, intimate, creative and relational beings.

  God is relational, therefore, God made us relational to be in His Image.

  The third aspect of our being made in His image is He made us to be representative of Him. As He is over all, in Genesis 1:28, He blessed us and then gave us the responsibility to be the caretaker of His creation

  Being created in the image of God we were created to be relational being, as God is relational. I love the way C.s Lewis puts it. “In Christianity God is not a static thing, but a dynamic pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if your think me not irreverent a kind of dance.  Cornelius Plantinga develops this further, noting that The Father, Son and Holy Spirit glorify one another. The persons within God exalt one another, commune with one another, defer to one another, Each divine being harbors the others at the center of His being. In constant movement of overture and acceptance, each person envelops and encircles the others. God’s interior life therefore overflows with regard to others

  The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are characterized in their very essence by mutually self-giving love. None insists that the other revolve around them, rather each voluntarily circles around the others.

  Church if this is what God is like then the truth bristles and explodes with life-shaping glorious implications for us. If this world was made by our Triune God, relationships of love are what life is really all about how you view God.

  So why would a triune God create a world? If he were a unipersonal God you might say he created the world so he can have being who give him worshipful love and that would give him joy.

  But the triune God already had that and he received love in himself in a far purer form, more powerful form than we human being can ever give him.

  So why would he create us?  He must have created to give us joy, not get it. He must have created us to invite us into the divine dance to say, if you glorify me, if you center your life on me, if you find me beautiful for who I am myself, then you will step into this dance, which is what I made you for.

  You are not made just to believe in me or to be spiritual in some general way, not just to pray or get some inspiration when times are tough.  You are made to center everything in your life on me, to think of everything in terms of your relationship with me. To serve me unconditionally, that where you find your joy. That’s what the dance is all about church!

  So, church, as members of the body of Christ, we are to be partakers in this dance and that is what Paul is telling us here when he says,

  Yes, we know that “we all have knowledge” about this issue. But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church. ² Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much. ³ But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognize. See Love strengthens the church!

  As we prepare to church, where are we as His people?

  Are you in the dance or do you believe God is out there somewhere? Are you in the dance or do you just pray to God every so often when you’re in trouble? Are you in the dance or are you looking around for someone to orbit around you?

  If life is a divine dance then you need more than anything to be in it. That’s what you were built for. You were made to enter a divine dance with the Trinity. Amen

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