1 Corinthians 8
“What to Eat?”
Sermon by
Mark A. Horne
Some of you may remember the story of the Teapot Dome Scandal. It is said that it kept newspapers ringing with indignation in the early 1920’s. It rocked the nation. Up until Watergate, nothing like it had ever happened before American public life. Here is what happened:
Albert B. Fall, secretary of the interior in Harding’s cabinet, was entrusted with the leasing of government oil reserves at Elk Hill and Teapot Dome – oil reserves that had been set aside for the future use of the Navy. Did Secretary Fall permit competitive bidding? No sir. He handed the fat juicy contract outright to his friend Edward L. Doheny. And what did Doheny do? He gave Secretary Fall what he was pleased to call a “loan” of one hundred thousand dollars. Then, in a high-handed manner, Secretary Fall ordered United States Marines into the district to drive off competitors whose adjacent wells were sapping oil out of the Elk Hill reserves. These competitors, driven off their grounds at the end of guns and bayonets, rushed into court – and blew the lid off the Teapot Dome scandal. A stench so vile that it ruined the Harding Administration, nauseated an entire nation, threatened to wreck the Republican Party, and put Albert B. Fall behind prison bars.
Fall was condemned viciously – condemned as few men in public life have ever been. Did he repent? Never! Years later Herbert Hoover intimidated in a public speech that President Harding’s death had been due to mental anxiety and worry because a friend had betrayed him. When Mrs. Fall heard that, she sprang from her chair, she wept, she shook her fists at God and screamed: “What! Harding betrayed by Fall? No! My husband never betrayed anyone. This whole house full of gold would not tempt my husband to do wrong. He is the one who has been betrayed and led to the slaughter and crucified.”
The Corinthian church had a stench in their midst as well, no pun intended, it was of burnt meat. The Corinthians had raised an issue with Paul that concerned idolatry. Though we don’t know the precise nature of their question, we learn in our passage this morning that it dealt with pagans, their feasts, and the meat that was being served there. However, Paul turns their question around and uses it to teach them about their sinful nature and the way we should treat our brothers and sisters in Christ.
There are three points to be made from our passage this morning:
1. We need to be cautious not to have too high of an esteem of what we think we know versus what our brothers and sisters know.
2. We should give thanks to God for what he teaches us in His Word about who He is and what He has done for us through Jesus Christ.
3. Because we know Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior we have to be considerate of our weaker brother and sisters who are not sure about certain things.
We need to be cautious not to have too high of an esteem of what we think we know versus what our brothers and sisters know. In verse 1 Paul addresses the sin of arrogance. We have seen this before and can be reminded of the council Paul gives about relying on our own wisdom that only comes from the world. He says in 3:19 that, “the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.”
Paul is saying in our passage this morning that our attitude can stand in the way of our relationship with God. You see it was a custom for the heathens in Paul’s day to make a feast of their pagan sacrifice. And the feasts were usually held in the temple where they had just made the sacrifice. Not only were they worshiping a god that did not exist, but they were also having a bar-b-Que as well. However, they did they have rules. One of them was not eating in private. It was considered profane not to share at their table any meat that they had sacrificed. And the Corinthians wondered what they should do if they were to be invited to such a feast. Since they knew there was no other God but the one true God, was it still ok to partake of something sacrificed to nothing.
Paul tells them their focus is wrong. The questions they are asking are wrong. They had allowed their conceited knowledge to turn into ignorance. We need to be reminded that those who know the most understand that they do not know most everything. We have to understand that when we think we know everything, we have much to learn from our other brothers and sisters, but most of all from God. We need to be less concerned about what we know than who knows us. As Paul says in verse 3, “if anyone knows God, this one is known by Him.”
When we love God and are acting like the Christians that we should, we will be charitable and not arrogant. We will seek God’s favor as our Lord did, by serving those in need; giving to those who are in need, accepting and loving those who we think are unacceptable and unloving. This is how we find pleasure in God. This is how we enjoy God forever. This is how we have joy in our life and not hatred and anger. Isn’t it better to have God’s approval than have a vain opinion of ourselves! Albert B. Fall had so high an opinion of himself that it carried over to his wife in the end. He thought he did no wrong, after all, no one was hurt. Only a little oil was being sacrificed. Only a little money was being allocated to friends.
That is why we should give thanks to God for what he teaches us in His Word about who He is and what He has done for us through Jesus Christ. We understand that the Christian life is more than knowing he is the only God and everything else is idol worship. We understand that the things in this world people worship, such as houses and cars and money and even friends and their own selves, are merely imaginary gods. These things have no divinity in them. They have nothing of a real godhead in them because they are nothing like our Father, our Savior, and our Comforter. We know that all things are of God, even the life we are living. We have a great privilege knowing who God is and our Mediator in Christ Jesus.
You see, what the Corinthian church was showing to the world was what John MacArthur calls a “needs” mentality. They thought they could be effective for the Lord and still have their “needs” met by eating the sacrificed food. Martyn Loyd Jones states it like this: “A presentation of the gospel chiefly in terms of its ability to fulfill man’s need of happiness and other blessings, and which fails to show that man’s wrong relationship to God ‘is much worse than everything else’ in his condition, may well receive a considerable though temporary success. A salvation conceived ‘not as something primarily that brings us to God but as something that gives us something’ requires no real conviction of sin in order to its acceptance. If we carry out our Christian life with such glibness and lightness then the result is to add to the unspiritualness and carelessness of the church. The true convert of Jesus always wants deliverance from the power as well as the guilt of sin.” I have to ask you this morning: are you partaking of an idol because you know that there is only one God and this makes it all right? Take note that your idol does not have to be tangible. It can be just as the Corinthian’s idol was – yourself. You can be partaking of your knowledge and your being “right” as a sacrifice to a nothing god. If you are doing this then you are adding to the unspiritualness and carelessness of the church.
And if you are eating such food, ask the one true God that you know for forgiveness for placing yourself above His will and His Word.
We have to remember that because we know Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior we have to be considerate of our weaker brother and sisters who are not sure about certain things. It was Alfred Adler who said, “it is the individual who is not interested in his fellow man that has the greatest difficulties in this life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring.” Adler was speaking from a secular point of view, but his implication has eternal significance in light of verses 7-13. Paul wanted the Corinthians to know that they were right in the fact that the meat they was eating had no significance since it was offered to a nothing god, but they were wrong because they were using their freedom of understanding truth as a way to take part in mischief, and it is that which might hurt a weaker brother or sister in Christ. In other words, just because they knew that the meat was ok from a spiritual standpoint, did not mean a new believer would see it as that.
It is believed that in Paul’s day some Christians still did not think an idol was nothing. They thought an idol was something. They may not have been as smart as these Corinthians or at least the were confused, or had not been taught any better. So what could happen to them if they saw a Christian eating sacrificed idol meat, their conscience became defiled. They think the thing being done is ok because a better Christian than them is doing it. And the next step for them is to follow example, but not by having true knowledge and then falling back into idol worship. We Christians have to be careful not to do anything that may occasion cause weaker Christian to defile their conscience. We must not do anything that may cause our weaker brother or sister to contract guilt of idolatry and pollute themselves.
Just because we can do something, like the Corinthians eating and drinking in the temple, and not have our faith shaken does not mean we are right in God’s eyes. Just because we can be angry with someone or wear the skimpiest clothes because it is trendy, and our faith in Jesus stay as strong as ever; does not mean it is good for those who may be watching us wanting to know themselves how to live the right Christian way. We have to ask ourselves, better yet God, is what we are doing or how we are acting recommending another to Christ Jesus?
As verse 9 states, we must be careful how we use our liberty. We cannot abuse the freedom we have from our knowledge of grace. We must be cautious because we do not want to be a stumbling block to our weak brothers and sisters. We must always deny ourselves rather than endanger their souls.
During the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, General Lee began to retreat south while a huge storm pummeled the soldiers. When Lee reached the Potomac with his defeated army he found a swollen, impassible river in front of him, and a vicious Union Army behind him. Lee was trapped. He could not escape. President Lincoln got the report and knew that it was a heaven-sent opportunity to capture Lee and end the war immediately. He ordered General Meade not to call council of war but to attack Lee immediately. What did General Meade do? He did the exact opposite of what he was told. He refused point blank to attack Lee and Lee escaped over the Potomac.
History says that President Lincoln was furious. So furious that he sat down and wrote this letter:
My Dear General,
I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee’s escape. He was in our easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is the war has been prolonged indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, how could you possibly do so south of the river, when you take with you very few – no more than two-thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable to expect and I do not expect that you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and now I am distressed immeasurably because of it.
What do you suppose Meade did when he saw the letter? If you don’t know, Meade never saw the letter. Lincoln never mailed it. Lincoln denied his own ambitious, prideful soul rather than dishearten one of his top Generals who was bathing in blood as he sat comfortably in the white house.
Paul asks the Corinthians in verse 11 and we must ask ourselves, are allowing our pride to be the instrument that harms others? If Christ has so much passion and compassion as to die for us, should we not deny ourselves for the sake of our brothers and sisters? Are we encompassing so little of the Spirit of the Redeemer to allow a bother or sister to perish than to abridge ourselves our liberty? Shall we be void of compassion for those who Christ has shown so much? Shall we sin against Christ who suffered for us?
We must not so rigorously claim our own rights as to allow hurt to a brother or sister’s soul and so injure our Redeemer who died for that brother or sister and us. We must be careful not to cause another brother or sister to sin, and in doing so we must be careful not to sin ourselves!
Let Us Pray: Dear Heavenly Father, We know we are sinful in your sight. We know we are stumbling blocks to each other. Forgive us when we cause our brother of sister to sin. Forgive us when we do not deny ourselves for the sake of our brother or sister’s weakness, whatever that may be. Help us not to make pride an idol so we place ourselves above you. We give thanks that you are the one true God and it is only through grace we are saved in Jesus Christ. Help us accept truth as it is presented in your Word and not allow our arrogance to keep us from a right relationship with you. In your Son’s Holy and Most Precious name, Amen.