1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1
Please be seated. Turn in your copy of the scriptures to 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Today we’ll look at verses 23 through the end, and then we’ll also sneak chapter 11 verse 1 in on our passage.
Remember in our study of 1 Corinthians, I think for the last, I don’t know, let’s just say six messages in chapters eight, nine, and 10, the issue of meat offered to idols has sort of been a thing. So in the first part of chapter eight through now the last part of chapter 10, you have what are often called in liter, not literacy, Literature, bookends, the beginning bookend, meat offered to idols, what to do. And now the back bookend, meat offered to idols and what to do.
And you may think Paul is differing. Last time in chapters eight, he said, what is an idol? It’s not even a thing. So what is meat offered to idol? It’s nothing. So don’t worry about it. If it doesn’t bother you, eat it. Then we got into that section where he says, okay, if you’re in a temple, And it’s just come from the sacrifice. You better not eat it because what do we have to do with demons compared to the Lord’s Supper? But the big issue that he’s wanting to cover is, yes, as Christians, we have liberty. We’ve been freed from certain laws and certain expectations through Jesus. But the big deal is our liberty can never cancel out our love for our weaker brothers and sisters.
So we went through that long section where he says, as an apostle, I’ve given up some of my rights. And so he calls us, sometimes we must give up our rights that we have in Jesus for the sake of others, that they may hear and receive the gospel. So while this has been a long section, we want to wrap up today with some practical things that should help us.
Before we read, let’s do pray. Father, give us help and blessing to hear and receive the word. May it comfort and build up your saints in our most holy faith, and we pray that it may convince and convert sinners to salvation. Lord, we need your help, we need your spirit, so grant it now, we pray in Christ’s name, amen.
1 Corinthians 10, beginning at 23, Paul is going to give the Corinthians little mantra, all things are lawful, and then he’s gonna give another statement. He says, all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. For the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.
If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. But if someone says to you, this has been offered in sacrifice, then do not eat it. for the sake of the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience. I do not mean your conscience, but his. For why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks?
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many that they may be saved. Be imitators of me as I am of Christ. Amen.
This is God’s great and gracious word to us. So in the church at Corinth, you’ve got two camps. You’ve got two camps, the libertines and the legalists. You’ve also got two ethnicities. Maybe that’s a little bit general, but you’ve got Jews and Greeks or Jews and Gentiles. So you’ve got religious differences, but you also have ethnic differences, socioeconomic differences, and all the rest.
The Libertines would be those primarily Greeks and Gentiles, because they were never under the Old Testament law. And they would believe, rightly, that in Jesus Christ we are forgiven of all our sins, past, present, and future, and we are also freed from lots of the laws and rules in the Scripture, particularly ceremonial and the theocratic laws of Israel. Jesus fulfilled the moral law and so when Jesus looks at us, he sees us, those who have faith, he sees us as if we’ve never sinned and he sees us as if we always obeyed.
So you got the Libertines and they sing the song, free from the law, oh blessed condition, I can sin all I want and still get remission, right? That’s a bad song. So the Libertines did not think much about the source of meat. Where did it come from? Where has it been? Was it offered to idols? The Libertines were those who said, you know, we’re free from all this stuff. Doesn’t matter. Eat, eat, eat. Do, do, do. It’ll be just fine.
But then there’s the legalist. Probably in the Southern Christian context, we’ve bumped into legalists. You know, how long does your hair have to be? How long does your skirt have to be? You know, can you drink? Can you smoke? Can you cuss? Can you chew? Can you go with girls that do that? That kind of thing. So legalists think maybe the Pharisees too. They would be very scrupulous. Rules on top of rules. In fact, Paul will call them man-made customs. These legalists would be over scrupulous and they would think way too much about the meat.
Now, in our world, when it comes down to meat, we want to know, is it grass-fed, cage-free, ethically sourced? We want to know all that stuff. And if you’ve ever been around person, it can be obnoxious. So you know what it’s like in our time with maybe the vegetarian and whatever. People have their reasons and go for the gold if that’s you. But just don’t be obnoxious about it. You can imagine what it was like in the church, the libertines versus the legalist.
Well, what we want to do today is strike some kind of balance. We’ve got faith in Jesus. God sees us as if we’ve never sinned and as if we’ve always obeyed because Jesus paid for our sins on Calvary. His righteousness, his obedience is granted to us by faith. But we also have a heart change, at least we should, have a heart change to love the law of God and live the law of God. And what’s the essence of the law of God? It’s to love God and love neighbor. It’s to bring glory to God and to bring good of neighbor. And that’s really where this passage ends up.
Whatever you do, better glorify God and whatever you do, better show love to neighbor, be good for your neighbor. So we want to find our Christian lives in the balance, not the libertines, not the legalist. We want to serve others in love. We want to be like Paul, who back in chapter eight said, I will never eat meat. lest I make my brother stumble. We have to be willing, if it comes down to it, to give up some of our Christian freedom, some of our Christian rights, if it means saving or building up or encouraging, not discouraging or deceiving or destroying a Christian brother or sister. So how does this passage help us? You know, here we are in bigger, better Burlington, right? That’s what used to be on the license plates. We don’t have a meat market attached to a temple. We don’t have steakhouses attached to pagan worship. Our steakhouses are attached to Texas and Australia, I think. So we don’t really have to worry about that.
But how do we think as Christian believers, in light of the one another’s and scriptures, love one another, bear with one another? You know, being kind, gracious to one another. So how do we live the one and others, but also how do we live as a witness to outsiders? Well, this passage can help us.
Verse 23 and again in verse 24, we have a really good statement to remember. All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, the Corinthians would say, but Paul says all things do not build up. And so let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. And so we want to think about how this passage helps us seek the good of our neighbor, how to build up, glorify God, all the rest.
Well, the first thing we want to think about is meat market shopping. You probably never thought you’d come to church and hear instructions from the Bible on grocery shopping, but here you go. Verse 25 and verse 26. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. For the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.
So you’ve got Christians in Corinth, both Jews and Gentiles, who are surrounded by paganism. Now, no doubt the Jewish folks who would have scattered from Jerusalem and now maybe a second or third generation is growing up or living in Corinth, which is a pagan central city in the Roman Empire. They’ve probably stayed away from idols. In fact, some of their own Jewish laws, not the ones in the Bible, but the ones they made up, would help them be scrupulous in not eating things that have been offered to idols.
But what about the Greeks? Some Greeks, some Gentiles could say, it’s just meat, whatever. Let’s buy some, grill it out. Let’s eat it. Let’s have people over. The earth is the fullness, the Lords thereof, but you’ve got others who are maybe of a tender conscience. And so what’s Paul’s ruling? Well, in the past, he says, don’t go in the pagan temples and eat meat. That’s bad, right? You’re associating with demons. But here he says, if you go grocery shopping, don’t ask. Was it during the Bill Clinton years, the military thing, don’t ask, don’t tell? Somehow that came to mind. I don’t know why, but anyway, the meat thing. You’re grocery shopping, you’re pushing your buggy along and you get some meat. He says, don’t ask, just buy it, cook it and eat it. For the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.
Remember when God made the heavens and the earth and he put Adam and Eve in the garden and said, all the plants you can eat. And so they were good vegetarians for quite a while. The reason they didn’t eat meat is because you had to kill. And what didn’t happen until after sin? Death. So then after the flood, when Noah and his family get out of the ark, what did God say? eat it, kill it, eat it, it’s yours. And then, of course, you get to Leviticus and some of the ceremonial laws. If it, you know, had certain hooves or, you know, whatever, you couldn’t eat this, you could eat that, then it had to be cooked and eaten in a certain way. But the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. Later, Paul’s going to say, And if you sit down to eat, eat with thanksgiving and quit worrying about what other people think. So eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising questions. You never thought you’d be in Harris Teeter and wonder if a Bible verse could help you. But here goes.
Second, verse 27, it speaks of eating with unbelievers. So we got meat market shopping. Now we have eating with unbelievers. Verse 27, if one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. You could be a Jew or you could be a Gentile and you could be invited over to supper. Now, this isn’t necessarily a church friend supper. This could be a unbeliever’s house. Hospitality, big deal in those days and in that part of the world. Probably did business. Neighboring was a little different than now. They didn’t roll up in their garage with the door shutting in their nine foot privacy fence, never to speak to their neighbor, except if their dog left something on the lawn, that kind of thing. It was a bit more interactive of a society.
And so if in the world of hospitality, you get invited over to pagan neighbor’s house, don’t be standing out over the grill asking if the hot dogs are kosher. I mean, you probably should because you don’t want the mixed parts stuff. You know, you want the good hot dogs, the all beef franks or whatever. But if an unbeliever invites you and you are disposed to go, you don’t have a conscience issue, go and whatever’s on the plate, you know, fork, knife, thanksgiving to God and eat whatever is put before you without raising questions. Again, this is not something that really bothers us for religious reasons. We sit down to dinner and we ask, was it grass-fed, cage-free, ethically sourced? Is it organic and all the rest? And perhaps those are good questions in the right context. But most of you grew up where you had a plate put in front of you, your parents didn’t eat it or else. It’s going to be for breakfast the next day. and green beans and potatoes aren’t good the next morning. Pizza and a few other things can be, but most people don’t have trouble eating pizza. So go to the pagan house for dinner, eat. Okay, there’s that. That’s an easy one.
Now the third one gets a little more difficult. You come to verses 28 and 29. But if someone says to you, so you’re at supper at the pagan host house. If someone says to you, this has been offered in sacrifice, here’s the game changer. then do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience. I do not mean your conscience, but his. So you got these three case studies, meat market shopping, buy whatever you want, eat it. Earth is the Lord’s fullness thereof. Second case study, get invited over to pagan neighbor’s house, eat what’s in front of you. But the third case study is if you’re at a pagan neighbor’s house and somebody says, Hey, Christian, This meat has been offered to idols. There’s a test here.
Now, we don’t really deal with this in our own culture, but this is the nature of the beast, as it were, for Christians in this day. Christians were known for being sort of a sect, a sect from that guy over in Judah and Jerusalem, also part of the Roman Empire, and they do some things a little differently. And this was sort of a test, or at least it could be, hey, you Christians are scrupulous in what you believe and how you live. And so if a Christian, knowing the meat was offered to idol, ate it, think back to what we looked at Paul saying last week, you better not eat it because it’s connected to demons. And remember that connection to the Lord’s Supper? If we’re eating and drinking the body of the Lord and we’re participating in that, then why would we go sit and eat and drink what has been offered to pagans and participate in that?
So here’s the situation. You’re at pagan friend’s house. You got your fork and your knife in hand, and you’re about to dig in because verse 27 says, go and eat. But then the test comes, the whisper, this has been offered to idols in sacrifice. Paul is very clear here. Don’t eat. And you don’t eat for the sake of the conscience of the one who has informed you because they will see you as a believer doing something that is against your Christian values.
I know this is all over the place, and Paul is, you know, a rule for this situation, a rule for that. But you get the idea here. If it’s going to cause an unbeliever a poor witness, you want to put down your knife and put down your fork and diet for the evening. And he says very clearly, it’s not for their sake of your conscience, it’s for the sake of his, the believer or the host or the unbeliever, the host. And so there’s that principle.
Well, a fourth thing we should think of verses 29 and 30, give us some thoughts about freedom of conscience. So after these three case studies, Paul just launches into a little brief diatribe. Why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced? Because of that for which I gave thanks.
I don’t know if you can remember this far back, but we talked maybe back at chapter eight about God alone is Lord of the conscience. There’s this Christian liberty that we possess. Jesus Christ has freed us from our sins by paying for them. He’s freed us from the tyranny of sin because he’s strong-armed Satan. and going to take care of him fully and finally at the last day. But we are we are not under laws and we are not bound by other people’s consciences.
But again, in our Southern Christian context, you know, people will look at us sometimes when we do things. And as Paul says here, our liberty is determined by someone else’s conscience. Oh, you shouldn’t be doing that. Well, says you, right? I’ve thought this through. I believe these things. I’ve determined that it’s okay in my life to do this or that. So why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience?
We live in tyranny sometimes by what people think or believe about us or what we should and shouldn’t be doing. Paul says, why am I denounced? I sat down, I gave thanks. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. And I’m going to enjoy this thing. And you know, there’s things in the South that are taboo, you know, drinking and smoking and playing cards. And I know that’s an old joke, but we live under that tyranny, don’t we?
And I don’t want to get into what you should eat or what you should drink or whatever all those things are. But those are not issues when you go outside of the Southern Christian context. You go up north and you’ll see Christians drinking alcohol and they don’t think a bit of it, or you’ll see other things that might be taboo in the Southern Christian context just aren’t an issue. And you’ll see that in other places around the world. But we’ve got ourselves so locked in on these perhaps legalistic rules. And so this is a good verse to encourage us. Why should our liberty, that’s been granted to us in Jesus. Why should it be determined by someone else’s conscience? Think through what you believe and what is true and then live out of it to the glory of God. Now, don’t live out of it to the hurt of others. That’s against love. But don’t take people’s judgment necessarily to heart. If you have thought about it, you’ve prayed about it, you’ve determined in your mind and in your heart a thing to be a blessing from God, then go for the gold. But do remember, there are occasions where love would prohibit our liberty.
But this freedom of conscience is something that we should think of a bit. There’s a chapter in our Confession of Faith on Christian liberty. And there’s a wonderful statement, God alone is Lord of the conscience. And he’s left men free from the tyranny of others. And so we have to take great care, yes, to come to our own places and positions of belief and practice in our own lives, because God has left our consciences free from the consciences of others. But then we should also live in love towards others.
Well, then finally, fifth, there’s four principles that pop up in this passage. So how do we live in light of Christian liberty, also the responsibility to love others? So we love God, do things to the glory of God. We love neighbors and we try to do good for them. What are three principles for all this?
Well, verse 31, 32, 33, and then chapter one, or verse one of chapter 11, tell us this, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, due to the glory of God. That’s kind of the glory of God principle.
Second, verse 32, give no offense to Jews, Greeks, or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many. So the second principle is the good of others.
A third principle, at the end of 33, but that many may be saved. So there’s a salvation principle.
And then finally, verse 1 of chapter 11, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. So four principles here. One is the glory of God. Is the thing that I wish to do going to bring glory to God or not? Pretty cut and dry, isn’t it? How do you bring glory to God? You do what he commands. Where do you find his commands? They’re in the Bible. So if you want to glorify God, don’t make up stuff that you think will glorify him because it probably won’t. But do what he says and there he’ll be glorified.
And our thoughts on the Christian duty to good works. Christian duty to good works, not to earn salvation, we can’t, Jesus did that already, but our good works out of love for Christ and love for God, honor to God, thankfulness to him for salvation. We wanna do things that are commanded by God that bring him glory, do good to others.
So is what I’m going to do going to glorify God and secondly, do good to others? That’s the second principle. Does my action consider the needs of others and serve their spiritual good? That’s a really good question to ask. So am I gonna sit down and eat meat when it’s going to offend someone? Okay, let’s go to our Southern context. If somebody knows that I dance, play cards, or drink, and those are the typical joke things, but we’ll just throw them in as an example. If those things are going to hurt my neighbor, my Christian love would say, I’m not gonna do it for their sake. It’s going to be for the good of others. And then the salvation of sinners. You’ve got the pagan who’s invited you over to supper, throws some meat on the grill. You’re about to take a bite into this juicy, I mean, you’re right there, you’ve cut it. There’s the drip, the meat, everything, the smell. By the way, it’s been offered to idols. Why do you not eat? Perhaps that they may be saved because you are scrupulous in the right way to obey God.
And so it’s good in some cases to refrain from something because it may lead to the opportunity to save others. That’s why it’s good for us as believers to sort of run diagnostics in the circles that we swim in. You listen, you understand people, you get to know them, you live in relationship with them, and you know what will hurt them and what will help them. and you’re willing to love them and to help them into the kingdom of God by perhaps giving up some of your own freedoms and blessings that you have in Jesus that may be perfectly possible and right to do in other settings and circumstances.
What does Paul say? I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many that many may be saved.
Well, the final principle, the imitation of Jesus Christ. Think on Jesus. We’re approaching Advent. We’re approaching Christmas. You know, we’ll think of all the Christmas songs, all the Advent songs. We’ll think of sin in the world and Jesus leaving heaven to come to earth. The incarnation will be thinking of what he came to do. But think about what it took for Jesus to come. Not necessarily the immaculate conception, as we might call it, the conception of Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary, born of the Spirit, not an earthly father, so sin wasn’t passed along.
But think about what Jesus left. We sing a song sometimes. Thou who was rich beyond all splendor for our sakes became poor. That’s actually from 2 Corinthians. When we get there, we’ll land on that passage where he says, Jesus, who was rich in heaven, for our sakes, became poor in order that we might become rich. And so Jesus, his exaltation, his life of glory in heaven, was willing to give that up and humiliate himself by coming in the form of a human being, living under the law, Uh, he was born in a low condition, you know, born to a poor family, was born in a stable, uh, live sort of a peasant’s life when he had his earthly ministry.
What is it? The son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the son of man, nothing. And so what did Jesus do? He left his rich position in glory. and became a servant. And what do we know about Jesus? Well, he came to seek and to save the lost. He came to give up his rights as the everlasting, eternal son of God. And he gave up those rights to become man and to take on human flesh and to become a servant.
And what did he do while he was a servant? This will help you think through how we should live for others. He considered others better than himself. He suffered. He took. He took many costly sacrifices to save the lost. We’re a people of comfort. We’re a people of, I guess we could call it rights. We’re a people who we count the cost. And generally after counting the cost, we say, well, my calculator is burning here. It’s a little too hot. And so we don’t wash feet. We don’t seek and save the lost. We don’t hobnob with sinners and all the rest. We have a very antiseptic life. Not so with Jesus. He gave up everything, reputation and comfort and all the rest. In fact, the book of Philippians says of Jesus, he emptied himself. He took up the basin. He took up the towel. He took up the cross. And he came to save sinners.
And so how do we triage the Christian life? Well, will it bring glory to God? Will it be for the good of others? Will it perhaps give me opportunity to lead someone to salvation? But the big one. Am I imitating Jesus along the way?
One of the best memory verses I think from this passage you can have is maybe a daily mantra. All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful or edifying. All things are lawful, but not all things build up. And so we don’t want to seek our own good, but we want to be seekers of the good of our neighbor.
And so let’s go now to God and ask for his help. Lord, we think of how the Lord Jesus went through the countryside preaching the good news of the kingdom. And many people were excited about the good news, but they were unwilling to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow.
And Lord, that’s the tug in our hearts today. We want you. We want salvation. We want heaven. but we want our own life, and it’s hard to take up the basin and towel. It’s hard to give up things that we dearly think are ours, our rights, in order to love others. And so work in our minds and hearts today to think about these principles, these practical things, and help us be a blessing to others. We ask in the name of Christ, our savior, amen.
We want to respond to God’s word number 432. We give thee but thine own.