ordinary christianity for the world.
Corinth, A Church Divided, 1 Corinthians 8:1-6
Poetic Praise
Gilding The Lilly
1 Corinthians 8:1-6
Paul now turns his attention from the concerns of marriage and families to worship. "But concerning the sacrifices to idols, we know that we all have knowledge" (v. 1). The context, "sacrifices to idols," involves holiday meals that were consecrated by false gods and celebrated by most everyone in the community. These religious and social events provided all of the usual friendship, fellowship and family time together that was and is enjoyed by people all over the world. Who can argue against the values and virtues of friendship, fellowship and family.
Yet, new Christians in Corinth began to worry that the consecration of the food at such events by what they now understood in the light of Christ to be false gods might be offensive or counterproductive to their new faith in Christ. It's a real concern because all genuine converts gain a new sensitivity about offending Christ and a genuine concern for growing in grace and sanctification. Understandably, people don't want to put stumbling blocks in their own way.
They began asking if it was okay to join in such celebrations because they all had friends and family members who would host such events and would (and did) invite them to attend. No doubt, they had been attending such events for years prior to their conversion, so their sudden absence would be a concern to those friends and family members who expected them to attend. That is the context of this chapter. They were concerned that such events constituted false worship or worship of false gods. In any case it is important to see that worship was the central concern.
The first thing that Paul addressed was knowledge (gnosis). No doubt, all the various religious sects and their many philosophies taught some form of knowledge as the first step toward God. We know that the various Gnostics placed such importance upon special or secret knowledge. They taught that worshiping or understanding God required some special knowledge. And apart from that knowledge people were ignorant of things divine.
Note that Paul is still working on his very first consideration regarding the Corinthians — "For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:17-18). Though the words knowledge and wisdom are different, Paul is still talking about the same subject — the deceit of worldly wisdom, knowledge or Greek categories of thought.
Paul has been trying to demonstrate that there are two distinct and opposing kinds of knowledge or wisdom. The ESV translates the verse well, "If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know." (v. 2). Other translations use the word think -- "If anyone thinks that he knows something." Matthew Henry makes the point that Paul was arguing against those whose knowledge had been gained by experience. Those who had practiced divine gnosis believed that they were in a superior position because they relied upon their own personal experience. They were probably arguing that Paul didn't know what he was talking about because he was not a practitioner of gnosis. So, how could he know about something with which he had no experience? It is a familiar argument.
Kent Hovind deals with it well when he considers a similar argument that is used to justify the use of drugs and alcohol. He says that it is not necessary to get run over by a truck in order to know that getting run over by a truck is not a good thing. It is a simple argument, and points to the false understanding that personal experience is required for knowledge to be true. Personal experience might enhance one's knowledge, and then again it just might skew genuine knowledge because personal experience is dependent upon one's own subjectivity. Again, subjectivity is not a problem unless it is confused with objectivity.
A good example of this kind of confusion is found in the saying, "love is blind." The subjectivity, hope and pleasure of romantic involvement changes the way we see things. Of course the saying refers to romantic attachment and not to Godly love. For we know that God is love and God is not blind. Nonetheless, those who find themselves romantically attached to a person (or thing) often justify their attachment in some amazingly creative ways. Dennis Peacocke says it this way, "the mind justifies what the heart chooses." In other words, people can justify anything because the mind conforms itself to the desires of the heart.
Paul said that people who get imagination and knowledge confused don't know a thing as they ought. He suggested that there is a proper or better kind of knowledge than knowledge based on experience. And what might that be?
Knowledge based upon Christ, upon Scripture. Why is it better? Because it is not based on or dependent on our own limited subjectivity. It is not based upon our own desires. Rather, biblical knowledge is based on the knowledge of God and interpreted or understood through the eyes of faithful Christians over thousands of years in many different cultural contexts. Biblical knowledge is as close as we human beings can come to absolute objectivity. This is the knowledge that all people ought to know. The word ought implies moral superiority. Paul is suggesting that biblical knowledge is superior knowledge.
The other night my brother, David, was talking about the difference between ethics and morality. He recently heard someone argue that the difference between them is that the ethical person knows what not to do, but the moral person simply refuses to do it. The implication is that there is a difference between knowledge in terms of abstract classification and knowledge in terms of practical application. The ethical person, while knowing what he should not do, nonetheless often goes to great lengths to find ways to justify such action or to bend the rules legally. The moral person, on the other hand, will accept the fact that the action should not be done and will work to avoid doing it. He knows as he ought to know and avoids what he ought to avoid and does what he ought to do.
The ethical person has abstract knowledge about what is right and wrong and has an intellectual understanding. His thinking is effected by his moral values. In other words, his morality determines the way in which he thinks about a thing. Whereas the moral person has concrete or visceral knowledge about what is right and wrong and has a behavioral understanding. His behavior is effected by his morality. In other words, his morality determines the way in which he behaves toward a thing. One modifies thought, the other modifies behavior.
Paul says that knowledge puffs a person up. It inflates the ego. It makes people feel smart, even superior — which makes people want to tell others about what they know. For instance, if I can tell you something you don't know, something new, then I can feel superior to you. It strokes the ego to be a dispenser of knowledge. This is the dynamic that drives gossip. Gossip often masquerades as news. So, when we pass "news" about this or that person along, we often do so because it reinforces our sense of superiority. Those who pass the "news" on are in the superior position. News too often flies on the wings of pride.
In contrast to this, Paul tells us that love (agape) builds up, love — charity — edifies. The Greek is oikodomeo, which literally means to be a house builder. Love is constructive. Edify does not mean what many Christians think it means. Many people think that Christian edification means spiritual or emotional encouragement — being nice, kind, supportive. The popular Christian radio station, K-love, understands itself to be involved in a ministry of edification. And, though I like some of the music they play, their format is sentimentalism in the name of Christian edification. It's goal is to make people feel good, not to impart biblical truth. They think that they are edifying by being positive, by making people feel good about themselves.
But biblical edification is not always positive, nor does the word mean to encourage. It can sometimes suggest encouragement, but the central meaning of the word is not encourage, but instruct. The word edify is from a Latin root that means to instruct or improve spiritually. One dictionary defines edify as to "make understand." So, edification is not merely encouragement. It is spiritual instruction — discipline — that perseveres in spiritual improvement and understanding. Edification is the effort to make people understand something correctly. Growth in grace and sanctification is not a magic pill. It requires discipline, effort.
Paul describes his own sanctification with racing language. "Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified" (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).
Paul turns our common understanding of love on its head in verse 8, "But if anyone loves God, he is known by God." It is not that we must understand God before we can love Him, but that our love for God is dependent upon His knowledge of us. John said it this way, "We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). In other words, our love of God is a response to God's love for us. It is dependent upon God's love for us. Our love of God is a reflected image of God's love for us. God's love for us is not sentimental. It is real. It is covenantal. It is not based upon God's feelings for us, but upon God's commitment to His own mercy, truth and righteousness — His covenant.
Because God's love for His people is not based upon His feelings, but upon His covenant commitment, our love for God must not be based upon our feelings, but upon our covenant commitment, as well. And here is true love, true worship. True love of God — covenantal love — produces worship.
Of course, worship includes what happens when Christians gather on Sunday mornings, but it is much more than that. Genuine worship of God is the activity of covenant faithfulness every day. To worship God is to respond to God's covenant faithfulness, it is to reflect God's covenant faithfulness back to Him through covenant faithfulness of our own. To worship God is to grow in grace and sanctification, to grow in our knowledge of God, to grow in our faithful obedience to God, to grow in Christian responsibility and maturity.
"Therefore," Paul begins verse 4, concluding what has preceded. The first three verses of chapter 8 establish the ground or basis of what follows. Because our love of God is based upon our mutual covenantal faithfulness, God's covenantal faithfulness toward us and our covenantal faithfulness toward God, a faithfulness that impacts everything that we say and do as Christians, then that covenantal faithfulness must also guide our approach and behavior with regard to the holiday festivities previously mentioned.
The Corinthians had been invited to attend certain holiday festivities where the food served had been blessed or consecrated to other gods. It had been "offered to idols" (v. 4). Should faithful Christians eat such food and participate in such events or not?
Paul responded by reminding the Corinthians that the idols in question were not real. They were not gods at all. They were false gods — illusions of the mind, imaginary. Thus, they had no real power or effect in the world. They were nothing. The God of Scripture is the only real God.
Verses 5 & 6, then are understood to be parenthetical explanations of how it is that the world proclaims that there are many Gods, whereas Scripture proclaims that there is only one God. Verse 5 tells us two important things. First, that the many god's of the Greek and Roman pantheons are merely "so-called gods." In other words, they are gods only in name, but not in function. And secondly, that of these so-called gods "there are many ... and many 'lords.'" In other words, many people are involved in the authority structures of these so-called gods. But in spite of all of this, Christians know that there is only one true God. Those who worship other gods are mistaken.
When Paul said, "yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist" (v. 6), he did not mean that there is one God for Christians and many gods for other people. He did not mean that it was true for Christians to believe in one God and that it was true for others to believe in many gods. He was not speaking relatively. He meant that for those who understand the truth — Christians, there is only one God, the God of Scripture.
The remainder of Paul's sentence tells us that we exist for God, for God's purposes and not our own. And that we exist through God, through Jesus Christ. He equates God and Jesus Christ and says that they are one. And that our own lives have been created by God and for God. We are not our own. In chapter 6 Paul said, "do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). We are not our own. We belong to God, and God does with us whatever He desires.
Christians are not free in the sense that they can do whatever they want. Christians are free to want what God wants for them. We are free to be what God has created us to be. We are free to do what God wants us to do. We are not our own, but are owned by Another.
We cannot improve upon God's creation. At best we can be what God has called us to be in Christ. And through Christ we can work to irradicate sin, but only as we participate in God's redemption plan. We cannot improve upon God's redemption.
All of this is to say that we must be who God has called us to be, do what God has called us to do, and worship as God has called us to worship. To do more or less is faithlessness. "The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them" (Deuteronomy 28:12-14).
This is Paul's concern in chapter eight.
