Now concerning food offered to idols: we
know that ‘all of us possess knowledge’. This ‘knowledge’ puffs up, but love
builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as
he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. Therefore, as to
the eating of food offered to idols, we know that ‘an idol has no real
existence’, and that ‘there is no God but one’. For although there may be
so-called gods in heaven or on earth – as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many
‘lords’ – 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. However, not all possess this knowledge… But take care
that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak…
1 Corinthians 8:1-9
In his
first letter to the Christians living in Corinth, St Paul tackles many
practical issues, including immorality and dishonesty. Some were easy to deal
with, like the man living as if married with his mother or stepmother and the business
people cheating each other. Other issues were much harder, because there was no
clear ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, like attitudes towards marriage and divorce.
One
issue, which hardly seems relevant today, was whether Christians could eat meat
that had previously been sacrificed to idols. But, because Babylon manifests
itself in different guises, looking at what Paul wrote about that will help us
understand how to handle money today.
To eat
food sacrificed to an idol – a pagan ‘god’ – was, according to popular wisdom
in Corinth, to unite yourself with that god. The physical action was, to many,
infused with spiritual meaning and the food was very common and almost
impossible to distinguish from any other food.
In
major civic ceremonies, any sacrificed food not eaten in the subsequent feast
could find its way into the markets to be sold, usually more cheaply than other
food. In people’s homes, guests could well be served food that had been sacrificed
earlier in the day.
If Christians could not eat the meat, they would have
great difficulty trying to buy food that had not been sacrificed. Their freedom
to attend civic functions and to accept personal hospitality would be greatly
hindered: they would have been driven to the fringes of society. It would also
have had a devastating impact on their ability to work: slaves would not be
able to eat the food from their masters’ households; freemen would not be able
to attend trade functions and might, as a result, be barred from their
occupations.
Meat sacrificed to idols was therefore the touchstone of Corinthian society in much the same was as money is today in our consumer society. I will continue this thought tomorrow.
_____________________________________________
You
have been sent this e-mail because you subscribed to Reflections on God & Money.
Copyright © All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans
2013.
Scripture
quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright
© 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
Handling
money and dealing with debt can be complicated and neither the author nor
anyone else involved in the production of these Reflections is responsible for
any action you take, or fail to take, based on what is written here. You are
invited to put a link on your website to these Reflections. You are welcome to
copy these Reflections for personal study or for circulation to family and
friends on a non-profit basis. For any other purpose, whether or not for
profit, you will require written permission in advance from the author before
copying, reproducing or transmitting extracts in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or using any
information storage and retrieval system.
