Sermon Tone Analysis

Let’s talk about food sacrificed to idols, shall we?

This doesn’t seem to be anything we really need to talk about does it?

No one woke up this morning hoping to hear a really good sermon on food sacrificed to idols.

This is not immediately relevant today.

This isn’t even a little relevant, is it?

Tell me, when’s the last time you wondered if the burger you were eating came from a cow that had been sacrificed to idols in a pagan temple?

I pray your answer is never; though if this was a situation we faced today, the application would be much easier to reach.

In Paul’s day, sacrifice to the gods was an essential part of life.

Each town or city had plenty of shrines to local gods and goddesses, to Apollo or Venus, and, in Paul’s day, more and more to the Roman emperor and members of his family.

What people did there at those shrines was come with animals for sacrifice.

When the animal was killed, it would be cooked, and the family (depending on what sort of ritual it was) might have a meal with the sacrificial meat as the centerpiece.

However, there was usually more meat than the worshippers could eat, and so other people would come to the temple and share in the food which had been offered to whichever god it was offered to.

But, even that would fail to use up all the sacrificed meat.

So the temple officials would take what was left to the market where it would be sold in the normal way.

In fact, most of the meat available for sale in a city like Corinth would have been offered in sacrifice.

For that reason, some Jews in the ancient world, in places where they couldn’t or didn’t have a butcher of their own, refused to eat meat at all.

They didn’t want to be involved, even one step removed, in the worship of idols, of man-made gods and goddesses.

They knew, after all, that there was one and only one God—Yahweh, the Lord, the Creator of the world.

When I came to this text, I was, believe it or not, really excited because, at first blush, this text seems to be about idols.

Boy, howdy, now...I could preach a real barn-burner of a sermon on idolatry to all you idolaters out there and this idolater standing before you.

But 1 Corinthians 8 isn’t about idols, not really.

Idolatry is the background, but not the substance; it’s the context, but not the main point.

If we come to a text, a passage of scripture in the Bible and don’t work hard to get to the author’s intended meaning (the A.I.M. of the passage), then we can easily read our thoughts into the passage rather than letting the passage speak for itself.

And that does no one any good; you don’t want my thoughts and opinions any more that I do.

You want God’s Word to speak through me or whomever’s preaching.

What’s important then, what’s imperative is that we work hard, that we dig down deep to see what God’s Word means and to find what it has to say to us today.

That barn-burner of a sermon on idolatry will have to wait until we hit 1 Corinthians 10.

This text, this chapter is not about idols and idolatry as such.

It’s about knowledge and love; about deference shown to one another; about love for God and about honor given to Christ Jesus—far better topics than idols.

>If you have your Bible (and I hope you do) please turn with me to 1 Corinthians 8.

And if you’re able and willing, please stand with me for the reading of God’s Holy Word, out of reverence for Him:

May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Word!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Here again we find yet another division among the believers in Corinth.

Remember, this city is very large and very diverse.

When Paul came preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News about the One who came to die for the sins of His people, Paul was preaching to a mixed-bag of people: some Jews, some Gentiles; some Jewish in their religious affiliation, and many, many pagans who worshipped false gods and worthless idols.

So this topic, like so many other topics in this letter, is divisive.

There would be those among the Corinthian church who believed that it was their right to eat whatever they wanted, especially when they considered cutting themselves off from everyone else in Corinth.

“There’s nothing wrong with that meat; it’s just meat.

And if we don’t eat that meat, we will have virtually no contact with anyone, and no opportunity to witness to them.”

And then there were those who would have several fundamental objections in eating food that had been offered to idols: a). it was tainted with idolatry, b). the pagans wouldn’t have paid a tithe on it, and c). it probably wasn’t killed in the right way.

“No way we can eat that meat; it is not just meat.

If we eat that meat, we will number ourselves among the pagans; we’ll be just like the idol worshippers; God is not pleased or honored by such offering, and if we eat their idol food, we will blend right in with them, giving us no opportunity to witness to them.”

I would imagine, like me, you can see both sides.

Both sides have valid arguments.

Both sides are concerned with issues apart from the food itself.

Neither side is wrong.

It’s a tricky topic.

It’s as tricky as it is divisive.

So Paul gives the Church (then and now) a principle, a truth, and a consideration.

Overriding Principle: Love Builds Up

To this divisive and tricky issue, Paul teaches what matters most—contrary to what many thought (and think)—what matters most is love, not knowledge.

“We all possess knowledge” is apparently a catch-phrase of some of the Corinthians (that’s why it’s placed in quotations).

To this Paul says, “I’m afraid you don’t know that knowledge puffs up.”

Knowledge on its own only puffs up, leaving one like an inflated balloon.

A Christian needs to be filled with love, because love builds up.

“Prick a balloon and it bursts; lean on a wall and it holds your weight.”

Paul’s not condemning knowledge, but he is saying that true agape-love should control and characterize knowledge.

Love must accompany knowledge.

The spirit in which we say what is right (or what is wrong) is just as important as the knowledge we possess.

Godet: “Knowledge devoid of love and of power to build up, when we look at it [closely], is not even true knowledge.”

When a Christian’s character is controlled by love and is growing in true knowledge, he is no longer concerned so much with how well he knows God, as we being known by God.

True knowledge doesn’t lead to pride in what we know, but to humility about what we don’t know.

One approach to religion among the Corinthians was almost entirely self-centered (look to most world religions and large swaths of Christianity today).

People would essentially ask questions like, “How far can I go?” and “What’s in it for me?”

There’s no love in a self-centered and selfish form of religious knowledge.

Knowledge about the ritual and religious origins of a chunk of meat, either in the market or at the dinner table, will achieve nothing to build up the faith of fellow Christians.

The important matter is the impact on my brother or sister because of what I might do in this situation.

If, on the other hand, I carefully work out how my fellow Christians will react to my behavior and decide accordingly how I will behave, I will build up the body of Christ.

We should strive to check our behavior by asking, “Is anyone brought closer to God by this?

Are Christians strengthened in their faith by this?

When a Christian is compelled, not by knowledge, but by love; when a Christian’s knowledge radiates and is released by love, he is clearly demonstrating that he knows God and that God knows him.

As N.T. Wright says, “What matters is not your knowledge about this or that, or even about God and the gods; what matters is God’s knowledge of you, and the way you will be aware of that is by the love you find for God deep in your own heart and mind.”

We cannot be most concerned with what we know and with what our knowledge affords us.

We have to be most concerned that our knowledge comes from love and is covered by love from top to bottom.

Love is going to feature prominently throughout this chapter and, really, throughout the rest of the book.

So when faced with tricky issues, divisive issues, the overriding principle for us to live out is love—love for God and love for others.

The overriding principle is love.

>The fundamental truth is that there is One True God.

Fundamental Truth: There is One True God

It was obvious to some in Corinth that all that funny business about other gods was just a farse.

It was all ridiculous.

An idol is nothing at all...

Paul agrees, certainly.

He also endorses their other statement, wholeheartedly: there is no God but one.

However, it’s also perfectly true that there are many “gods” and many “lords”—

If we take the phrase—there is no God but one—some could argue that everyone is just worshipping the same God, but by different names and in different ways.

Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims, if there is no God but one, are then worshipping the same God that we worship.

And that’s not the case.

There is one true God, and a number of false gods.

It’s true that an idol is nothing at all in the world—just a hunk of wood or stone or metal that people choose to worship, but make no mistake: there are many, many different false “gods” that people worship; many, many idols that people today (religious people and religious leaders) worship.

This is why verse 6 is as crucial as it is beautiful:

There may be many so-called gods in heaven or on earth, but notice that Paul talks about God the Father and Jesus Christ as equal in status and authority.

They have differing functions:

The Father is the one from whom all things come.

He is the source and origin and purpose of our existence.

Jesus Christ is the agent and mediator, the one through whom everything and everyone comes into existence.

The “we” in this passage refers to Christians only—Jesus is the bridge to God, the go-between, the mediator, the way to God.

Paul will not be shifted from this fundamental truth, and neither will we.

There are fundamental and irreconcilable differences between the God who is Father of Lord Jesus Christ and all the false, silly, ineffectual “gods” worshipped in all other religions.

Paul is not content with offering simple rules, a set of dos and don’ts to guide the Corinthians Christians through the difficulties of living as people of the true God in a world full of other gods.