Dr. James H. Robinson, a great black preacher in New York, tells of how he
use to sit on the steps of the public library in Knoxville. He would watch the
white people go in, and he would be filled with resentment because he wanted to
read and learn, but the doors were closed to blacks. He came to hate white
people, and he would look up at the high water tower and wish he could poison it
and kill all the white people in Knoxville. There were 3 reasons he never did it.
1.He didn't have the poison. 2. He was afraid of high places. 3. He could never
figure out how he could keep from the drinking the same water. The complexity
of his evil scheme is what prevented it from becoming a reality. Thank God for
complexity. If evil was always easy there would be even more of it, and a man
like Dr. Robinson may never have become a child of God and a servant of the
kingdom.
Complexity is a comfort. Much of our security in this life is based on
complexity. Man has devised locks and alarms to protect his possessions. Vaults
and guards protect his banks, and numerous methods are devised to make it too
complex for robbery. But complexity is also a challenge. People love to go into
politics and wrestle with the complex issues of society. They strive to come up
with a plan that benefits the majority. Scientists love to labor with the near
infinite complexity of diseases to figure out a way to conquer them. Most of the
challenges of our world that motivate people to dedicate their lives to a cause are
based on the reality of complexity.
Complexity is a comfort and a challenge, but it can also be a curse. If every
Christian had the same background, the same culture and the same personality,
life would be so much simpler. It may be boring, but it would be simple.
Needless to say, this is not the way life really is. Christians have all different
backgrounds, and they come out of radically different cultures. Their
personalities are like fingerprints, and no two are exactly alike. This can be a
comfort and a challenge, but history forces us to face up to the fact that this
complexity can also be a curse. It is a curse because people don't like other
people to be different. They like it when all Christians see everything from the
same perspective. If the viewpoints get too diverse there is suspicion that
somebody is on the wrong track.
This was the problem in the church of Corinth. Some of the Christians there
felt it was no problem whatever to eat meat offered idols. After all, the idols did
not really exist, and so it is a meaningless ritual that does nothing to the meat by
being offered to an idol, and so why be uptight about it? Giving it up was almost
like becoming a vegetarian, for practically all meat was offered to some idol. If
your pagan family, which you came out of to become a Christian, invited you to
a wedding, a funeral, or just a family picnic or social, you would be served meat
that had been offered to an idol. It was a part of the pagan culture.
Many Christians had no problem with relating to their pagan family and friends by
eating this meat offered to idols. Life would have been so simple if other
Christians had not taken an opposite view.
These Christians said that the idols are real, and that they represent real evil
spirits and demons. Therefore, the Christian cannot be loyal to Christ and still
eat meat that has been offered to his opponents in the spirit world. They had an
conscience that was sensitive to this issue, and they were offended by Christians
who had the audacity to profess the name of Christ and then indulge in eating
such desecrated meat. This is where the curse of complexity comes in and which
explains why people love westerns so much. In a western the good guys and the
bad guys are so obvious. You always know whose side to be on. It is such
satisfying simplicity, and it helps us escape from the real world where things are
not so simple.
The Corinthians Christians were on two different sides of this issue, as
Christians often are on most controversial issues. Each group thought the other
group must be a pack of mutations and misfits in the body of Christ. It was no
minor matter limited to a handful of Christians. This was a major conflict in the
church. At the first church council described in Acts 15 the leaders of the
church, with Paul present, came to the conclusion that this was one of the things
Gentile Christians would have to do, and that is to abstain from meat offered to
idols. The problem was that this was the Jewish leader's telling the Gentiles
what was good for them. It was the Jewish conscience trying to impose itself on
the Gentile conscience. Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles, and he did not go
along with this decision.
Had Paul agreed with the decision he would have just told the Christians
who were eating meat offered to idols to stop doing it immediately. Paul did not
do this, however, but in fact, he defended the wisdom of those who recognized it
ought not to even be an issue because strong Christians can eat it with no less
loyalty to Christ because he knows the idols do not exist. Paul does not say that
these Gentiles need to conform to Jewish convictions, but he does say that love
demands that they be sensitive to other Gentiles who have a weak conscience on
this issue. If it is a matter of legalism, Paul was on the side of those who chose
liberty. But if it was a matter of love, Paul was on the side of those who chose to
limit their liberty for the sake of the weak.
So is it right to eat meat offered to idols? Paul says, "Yes and no." We don't
like this answer, for we like a simple black and white decision. But the
complexity of life will not allow Paul to be superficially simple. It all depends on
whether the issue is one of legalism or love. This is a crucial distinction in
knowing the will of God in areas where Christians disagree and see from
opposite perspectives. Whether I am obligated to surrender my conviction or
fight for it all depends on this distinction. Those who do not bother to make this
distinction use this passage in a way that makes it a denial of all Paul fought for
in the early church.
Paul clearly tells the strong-minded Christians that love demands that they
limit their liberty in Christ in order to protect their weaker brothers who are
supersensitive and need support. The Christian who will not make a sacrifice
for the sake of another Christian's security is a poor specimen of a Christian.
Those who take this out of a context of love and put it into a context of legalism
are obscuring Paul's message, and they are using it for blackmail to get their
own way. Paul is not giving every legalistic fanatic the right to force the church
to conform to his convictions. If this is what Paul is saying, it is a direct
contradiction to all he fought for, and all that Jesus fought against with the
Pharisees.
Many sermons have been preached on how the strong are to give way to the
weak, but few have practiced it, for it would lead to the absurd conclusion that
the church is to be guided by its most ignorant, weak and incompetent members.
Those least set free by Christ, and most in bondage to the old life would be the
pace setters. This would mean that if you had one sensitive saint in your
fellowship who was brought up to believe you should never eat out on Sunday,
and never go for a drive on Sunday, and never watch TV on Sunday, you would
all have to conform to this legalistic conviction less they be offended.
Paul would say to this, "O you foolish Christians. You are not under the
law, but you are free in Christ. Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery and
turn Christianity into a form of Phariseeism." Paul opposed Peter to his face
because Peter had a sensitive conscience, and he was backing away from eating
with Gentiles. Paul did not say, "I don't want to offend your sensitive conscience
Peter." On the contrary, he condemned Peter for letting the Jewish sensitivity
weaken his stand for Gentile equality. Paul would not tolerate a legalistic
conscience trying to regulate the liberty we have in Christ.
Paul followed in the steps of Jesus who shattered the legalism of the
Pharisees. He broke all of their ceremonial laws, and he ignored their Sabbath
laws that hindered his ministry of healing and doing good. They were so
offended that they crucified them, but Jesus did not back off from the battle for
religious liberty. The New Testament nowhere supports the idea that Christians
are to conform to the minds of legalistic people. History shows that every step of
progress in the church has been opposed by the sensitive conscience of legalistic
people.
Musical instruments were fought by those who said it is immoral to praise
God with a mere thing when the Bible says, "Let all that has breath praise the
Lord." Christians fought back and not only used all things to praise God, but
even adapted secular tunes with which to do it. Battles have been fought over
almost everything including colored glass, heat in the church and communion
cups. If strong Christians would have feared to offend the sensitivities of
legalistic Christians the church would still be in the dark ages, or never even
gotten that far. It would still be nothing more than an exclusive Jewish church.
Many Christians who are truly godly feel it is evil to vote. Are we to give up
our support for the best leaders we can vote for because we do not want to
offend these brothers? Many Christians feel it is a lack of faith to buy insurance.
Are we to leave our loved ones unprotected because of their conviction? We
could go on endlessly with all the areas of life where Christians have different
convictions, but the point should already be clear. When it comes to issues of
legalism, the Christian is not only not under obligation to conform to the
conscience of another, he is obligated to fight in order to change and overcome
that conscience. He is to pursue the liberty we have in Christ in order to
promote it and preserve it for the good of others.
Eating meat offered to idols is a legalistic issue between Jews and Gentiles,
and so Paul takes his stand with the Gentiles. As a matter of right Paul would
say the Gentile Christians have freedom to eat that meat without feeling guilty.
Paul was opposed to any law demanding that Gentile Christians conform to
Judaism, but because life is complex this issue is more than just a matter of
legalism. It has personal ramifications that go beyond the battle of legalism, and
make it a matter of love. In this chapter Paul is not concerned about Peter's
feelings, or how the council of leaders in Jerusalem feels. They are mature
Christians, and Paul will deal with them on the level of debate and argument as
to what is legitimate in Christian liberty. But here Paul is concerned about the
pagan believers who have just recently come out of their idolatry to faith in
Christ.
In verse 7 he refers to those who are the center of his concern, and they are
those who do not have a clear grasp of the unreality of other gods. They have for
all their lives believed in these gods, and for them to eat the meat dedicated to
these gods is to feel guilty of disloyalty to Christ. Their conscience has been
programmed, and for them to eat this meat is like stealing from their neighbor.
They feel guilty and their conscience bothers them, for they sense they have
sinned. If this sensitive person sees other more mature Christians eating this
meat he is encouraged to go ahead also, even though he feels it is wrong. This
violation of his conscience will damage his spiritual life. He is by this act
rejecting the Lordship of Christ, for to him it is claiming another god over Jesus.
This could very easily lead to new Christians returning to their pagan ways
and be lost to the church permanently. It happens all the time all over the world
in the lives of those who come out of a pagan culture and then slip back into it.
This is an altogether issue than someone who is trying to force you to conform to
their legalistic conviction. Here are people who do not have roots. They are in
an unstable transition, and they can be easily led astray. Paul is saying that
Christian love demands that the strong Christian be sensitive to these people.
Love demands that strong Christians be willing to sacrifice some of their liberty
for the sake of these weaker believers until they too become strong. This is how
love makes the simple complex.
