Reflections on God and Money: Leaving the Idolatry of Money (Day 6)

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’… However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.

Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.

1 Corinthians 8:4-13

Paul agrees with the conclusion that idols have no real existence but points out that not everyone knows this. After explaining that knowledge puffs up but love builds up, Paul explains how eating food sacrificed to idols may undermine the faith of ‘weak’ Christians whose limited understanding of spiritual issues cannot give them peace of mind about eating it. There could be many reasons for this.

Some might have previously, before becoming Christians, worshipped idols and not yet arrived at a place in their thinking where they could quite believe that there is nothing to them. Or they may have attended the pagan feasts, got drunk and had sex with the temple prostitutes, so that, in their minds, one thing inevitably led to another.

Paul wrote, ‘If food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble’. That is love: the love that identifies true disciples of Jesus. Do we let those sorts of considerations affect our lifestyle choices?

We have a right to the homes we choose and the cars we drive, but what do our choices convey to Christians less well off than we are? We have a right to choose the sorts of clothes we wear but what do our clothes and fashion accessories say about us? That we are theologically sound or fully signed up to the values and priorities of the consumer society?

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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.

Friday, 6 December 2013

Leaving the Idolatry of Money (Day 6)