Acts 15:28-29
The Christians in Corinth were
between a rock and a hard place! Food that had been sacrificed to idols was
very common but the church council held some years before in Jerusalem had
decreed that Christians should ‘abstain from what has been sacrificed to
idols’. The passage at the start of this Reflection is from the letter
to churches explaining this.
Given Israel’s sad history of
idolatry, it is easy to understand this prohibition but observing it was easier
said than done outside Jerusalem. In all the other cities in the Roman Empire, food
sacrificed to idols was commonplace and often indistinguishable from
any other food. Any left over from civic and religious ceremonies could find
its way into the markets, to be sold cheaply. Affluent Christians would be prevented from attending civic functions and poorer Christians would not be able to
buy the cheapest meat in the market.
Guests in private homes could
well be served the food routinely. Slaves would not be able to eat the food
from their masters’ households and freemen would not be able to attend trade
functions and might, as a result, be barred from their occupations.
Eating this food identified with
idolatry was the touchstone of society in across the Roman Empire. In this, it
fulfilled much the same function as money in ‘Western’ society today.
Money is the modern idol! Economic theory is regarded as a primary means of
studying and explaining human life; capitalism is seen as the way to
meet people’s needs and fulfil their ambitions. Almost everything has a price
tag and it is difficult to value anything except as financial cost. Psychology has
empowered consumerism to exploit basic human needs like security, self-esteem
and significance to bypass people’s rationale and manipulate them into buying
what they neither need nor previously wanted.
When we say that ‘money
talks’, it is not a metaphor. Money is always
at the back of our thinking, operating in the background, many steps removed
from the action, like a pagan idol. And as the best ‘gods’ have always done, money lures,
drives and traps people with promises freedom, security, purpose, power,
happiness.
Although the prohibition against
food sacrificed to idols was clear, and many Christians in Corinth sincerely wished to avoid
it entirely, that made life very difficult for them. So they asked Paul for
help.
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Scripture
quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright
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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.
