Intro Story – The Chauffeur
A very well respected Nobel prize-winning physicist was asked to travel the country and lecture on some of his current theories. His sponsors provided a limousine and a chauffeur. Night after night, city after city the physicist gave the exact same lecture.
After all the miles on the road the physicist and the chauffeur became good friends.One night while driving to the next town the chauffeur says, "You know doc, I’m getting tired of hearing the same speech night after night.” The physicist says, “you know, I’m getting tired of giving the same speech night after night.”
The chauffeur exclaims I’ve heard your speech so many times I bet I could give the speech and no one would know the difference. I bet your right. The physicist thinks for awhile and says, I tell you what, to make tomorrow night interesting, I’m going to let you do the speech; I’ll do the driving – you wear the tux and I’ll wear your chauffeur’s outfit.
According to plan the next night the chauffeur wears the tuxedo and the physicist drive the limo. The chauffeur gave the speech and the physicist sits in the back.
The chauffeur delivered the speech so well, that he finished a few minutes early. As he goes to his seat at the head table the emcee stands up and says, "Since we have a few minutes left, I’m going to open the floor for any questions for our venerable guest."
The first person stands up and asks a very intricate and complicated question concerning a principle in physics. The physicist who is still sitting in the back – panics. He could easily answer the question but there is no way in the world the chauffeur could.He knows they are sunk.
The chauffeur, as calm as could be smiles and replies. The question you pose sir is quite easy and elementary – in fact it is so easy that anyone should be able to answer it. And to prove my point I am going to let my chauffeur come up to the microphone and do just that.
Some questions are easy to answer, and some are difficult.
Some questions are annoying, others irritating.
Some questions are important to living the Christian life
Some questions are very, important to living the Christian life,
but at first glance appear irrelevant
Like the one we have posed to us this morning in our Scriptures
Is it ok to eat meat sacrificed to idols. I haven’t checked with the butcher at Costco this week, but I think it is pretty safe to say – they do not carry a line of sacrificial meat.
If you’re like me, you probably tend to gloss over sections like what we have read today. In your bible reading as they appear irrelevant and outdated, but again I need to say – the bible is a very practical book and yes this is very applicable for us this morning. Scripture is designed to work for real life. So let’s take a look.
First we need to remember that the Corinthians wrote to Paul asking a series of questions, and he is answering some of their questions at this point. We do not have the letter, nor do we know the contents of the letter, but we can ascertain some of the letter by the answers that Paul is giving. So here in chapter 8 he is answering a very practical question for the Corinthians. Can we eat meat sacrificed to idols? His answer deals specifically with this, but his answer isn’t only about eating or not eating meat, he is answering a deeper question behind the question of eating meat. It has more to do with our self awareness as Christians. We see, we feel, we touch, we analyze and we do understand spiritual principles…to a degree. See today Paul is telling the Corinthians – you think you know, ut you only know part and are not fully aware awareness of the spiritual nature of things.
If you have you Bibles open to 1 cor 8, glance at the first verse with me,
1Cor. 8:1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
What is Paul saying here? In the original Greek he says meat offered to idols. He starts off by addressing an issue about eating food sacrificed to idols, but then talks about knowledge and love. Is there some disconnect? Actually no. The Corinthians think the real issue is can they eat meat sacrificed to idols, but that is not the real issue. So Paul moves past their issue and moves to the real issue – quickly: Eating meat sacrificed to idols is a symptom. As a fever is a symptom – when the real problem is an infection.
The symptom is can we eat meat sacrificed to idols. The deeper issue is an attitude problem. Their attitude is that they are quite informed and being informed makes them spiritual So Paul says your puffed up.
Another way to translate it is: your arrogant.
These folks are saying, "We know the reality about idols – they are not for real so we will act accordingly, we will eat meat sacrificed to idols – because idols are not real. So it makes no difference.
We have to Understand how everyday life worked in Corinth – there was no Safeway in Corinth – for better or worse. So they bought their food in an open market – like the Saturday Market. Most of the meat sold at the market was sacrificed to idols. So this was a very real question for them. An animal brought to temple, sacrificed, some given to priests and patrons, some sold in the city market.
A dietician was once addressing a large audience in Chicago. "The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is awful. Soft drinks erode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. Vegetables can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the long-term harm caused by the germs in our drinking water."
"But there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and we all have, or will, eat it. Can anyone here tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?"
A 75-year-old man in the front row stood up and said, "Wedding cake."
This issue wasn’t whether the food was dangerous to one’s health – but was it spiritual? If I eat meat sacrificed to a pagan god – am I spiritual or am I sinning?
Not only was this meat almost unavoidable in the marketplace, it turns out the pagan temples were the center of social life.
There were no real restaurants
No zoo
No mall
No H2Oasis
The pagan temples pretty much covered all that ground. Most celebrations were held there.
Typical invitation
Found at the cult of Asclepius – a prominent temple in Corinth
Chaeremon requests your company at the table of the lord Sarapis at the Sarapeum tomorrow, the 15th at 9’oclock, where the first birthday of our daughter is to be celebrated at a meal in the Sarapeum.
Even if I am invited over for dinner at a neighbors – I would run into this problem? Is this ok? Are they not participating in pagan worship in some small way by partaking of this meat?
So some members of the Corinthian church are saying, "Yes it is ok to eat the meat. We know there is only one God. We know these idols are just stone. The issue is irrelevant – just enjoy your steak.
Paul agrees, 8 But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.
And Paul says yes….but he also says… .no
Verse 4
We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one.
Chapter 10:19
19 Do I mean then that a sacrifice offered to an idol is anything,
or that an idol is anything?
Yes these folks are right – other gods do not exist. Idols are just a hunk of rock -
there is no Isis
there is no Diane
there is no Shiva
there is no Allah…..
There is one God – seen in the trinity – Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Period.
Other gods. Nadda So if you eat the meat you are not participating in worshiping another god, or there are no other gods. That is not much of a stretch is it? Because we, like the Corinthians tend to look at outward things to confirm our spirituality.
But there is more to it. Eating meat sacrificed to idols is neither here nor there……to a point. Remember the real issue isn’t about eating meat – that’s a symptom. The problem is deeper - its their attitude, and our attitude.
Here are two strong points that hit home with us:
1. The Lord’s Supper, Communion, is much more than just a ceremony.
2. Other gods do not exists – but other spiritual being do.
Chapter 10 deals with the communion issue. We believe that when we hold communion, the presence of Christ is with us in a special way. Yet so do the pagans. At the pagan temples in Corinth, when patrons ate a meal at the temple. They believed the god was present in a special way, and Paul tells us eating at the pagan temple is participating in the communion of the pagan god.
For example – Hindus when the offer devotions to Shiva. We know that the statue is not Shiva – but simply a statue of Shiva. But they believe that the spirit of Shiva is there in their devotion, this is another communion. But there is one communion for Christians – Christ, none other and to participate in such is dishonoring to Jesus Christ and to enter into another communion by extension participating in a worship service at a Hindu temple, at a Buddhist temple, at a Mormon temple is entering into another communion.
You cannot be a Hindu / Christian, Buddhist / Christian, Islamic / Christian - each of these are incompatible, each of these are contradictory and mutually exclusive. You cannot believe in one God
and many gods at the same time or believe there is one Spirit of God –
yet we can become divine with that God and believe that we need to be saved from our sins and at the same time deny the existence of sin.
Is there one God –Father Son Holy Spirit – or not? The bible does not give or even insinuate that there is another paradigm. If you had a discussion with Paul and asked, "Isn’t it ok to go with a friend to a Buddhist temple to worship or a Hindu temple to worship. It is all the same God. He would say you’re nuts. These religious paradigms are mutually exclusive. There is one God, one communion. Period. You’re standing on shaky ground if you think otherwise.
And yes Hinduism was known in the Roman world at this time.
Now this may be hard to swallow and might sound narrow minded,
but this is what Scripture is telling us. Does St Paul understand spiritual issues? Or does Oprah understand them better?
But he goes even further than denying the existence of these other gods. He says something very harsh for are modern ears.
Chapter 10:20
20 No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons,
not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons.
21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too;
you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.
So back to Corinth. Eating the food at the temple of Isis is irrelevant on one level, because Isis does not exist, but Paul says what is behind this Isis cult, he says, demonic beings. Why they draw others away from God to worship other things. Participating in Isis Worship is participating in demonic worship - Modern terms – the occult.
I think Voodoo would be something we could easily connect with occultic worship.
He is warning us today: worshiping at these pagan temples – I mentioned some today, is an affront to God. It is entering into another communion. We cannot do this. It will provoke jealousy in God towards us. That is a pretty strong statement, not something I want to personally experience.
Furthermore, hough I may understand that there is no godly power in Shiva. That a stature of Shiva – is a just that a statue, but others may not see that distinction that is so clear to me. And us dabbling in it has a very high chance of leading others astray and I am very much at fault if I do so. I need to watch my attitude.
Paul tells us that yes we get it. These people with their images and gods, they mean nothing. But we only get part of it...and that can be very dangerous. Our arrogance can undo us, because there is a spiritual element there that we cannot see nor comprehend.
His argument in short is this: There is only one God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). No other God exist. There are other spiritual beings – which are not of God. If we participate in something that is incompatible with the Spirit of God, then it is not of God, and then it must be of something else of another spirit, and that spirit is not of God.
May our knowledge and understanding of spiritual things not get in the way of an understanding and awareness of deeper spiritual things.
