What do I imply then? That food offered to idols
is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans
sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be
participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of
demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
1 Corinthians
10:15-22
As he works towards his conclusions about whether
Christians should eat food sacrificed to idols, Paul seems to contradict
himself. He knows that people may assume this, and so makes it clear that there
is no contradiction when he says that although there is nothing to the idols,
that the pagan gods do not really exist, that does not mean that people who
worship them are not courting spiritual forces – that is, demons!
St Paul begins
his point, however, with reference to the Christian’s own feast to remember Jesus that we now
call by various names: the Lord’s Supper, because the Lord Jesus initiated it; Communion, which
is an older translation of the word ‘participation’ in the passage at the start
of today’s Reflection; Eucharist, which is from a Greek word meaning thanksgiving; Mass, which is an English word derived from something that used to be said in Latin towards the end of an ancient service. Some of the Christians in Corinth had taken to extreme the
belief that the idols did not really exist and so not only ate food sacrificed
but even attended the ceremonies.
When
Christians share bread and wine together, in remembrance of Jesus, it is not a commemoration
devoid of spiritual significance. Christian theologians may differ as to quite
what the significance is but, in some way and to some degree, the participants partake
of something more than simple bread and wine – something that involves a unity with Jesus
himself.
Paul mentions this because he wishes to make the point that just because the idols were empty symbols, and so eating meat sacrificed to them could not unite the eaters with them, it did not necessarily follow there was no spiritual dimension to the act. Whatever the people who worshiped at the pagan temples may have thought they are doing, and even though they were worshipping nothing that really existed, they were, albeit inadvertently, worshipping false gods – the demons.
Paul mentions this because he wishes to make the point that just because the idols were empty symbols, and so eating meat sacrificed to them could not unite the eaters with them, it did not necessarily follow there was no spiritual dimension to the act. Whatever the people who worshiped at the pagan temples may have thought they are doing, and even though they were worshipping nothing that really existed, they were, albeit inadvertently, worshipping false gods – the demons.
So why do it
At the very least, it was disloyal to the Lord
whose ‘feast’ they did enjoy!
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