1 Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. 3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.
4 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.” 5 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
7 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. 8 Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. 9 But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 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? 11 And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. 12 Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.
— 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, ESV

When the going gets tough, the tough have a food fight.  At least that’s what John Belushi’s character “Bluto” did in Animal House.  Please do not try this at your school, home, or especially the next fellowship meal at your church!?

The young Christians at Corinth were fighting about many things, food being one of them.  So far in First Corinthians we have uncovered conflicts concerning leadership and unity (chapters 1-4), sex and immorality (chapter 5), love and lawsuits (chapter 6), and marriage and divorce (chapter 7).  Now, with chapter 8, Paul is addressing a fight about food and sacrifice.  

Food and Sacrifice

All food is first a sacrifice.

My wife, Andrea, and I engaged in a running debate for most of our marriage.  I was living to eat, she was eating to live.  Her philosophy finally won out, and I am healthier for it.  But while we now both eat to live, we would never eat living things.  

In order to eat, something has to die.  It may be an animal, it may be a vegetable, or it may be an already dead mineral.  No one eats living things, save for that gross little boy in elementary school who swallowed a live worm on a dare.  I couldn’t eat spaghetti for years.

So, food and sacrifice go together, since the beginning of biblical times.

Sacrifice and God

Food sacrificed to God is found in Scripture.

“In the beginning” (ref. Genesis 1:1), God made everything, including plants, animals, and man.  It was a vegetarian paradise, where only the plants were sacrificed to feed animals and man.  Then, things changed.

Man rebelled, sinned, and ran away from God.  God pursued, forgave, and commemorated the occasion by demonstrating the cost of redemption, the shedding of blood.  Plants don’t bleed, and since man was to be spared, an animal had to be sacrificed.  Its skin was used for clothing, its meat was used for the first outdoor barbecue in the Bible.  

Throughout the remainder of the Old Covenant, animals were sacrificed to God, then consumed by God’s priests and people for food.  Sometimes it was very formal, as outlined in Levitical law.  Sometimes it was informal, at family gatherings where the ax was sharpened, the beast was killed, the meat was cooked, thanks was given, and they all ate happily ever after.

The biblical sacrifices, especially at Passover and Yom Kippur, also preached.  They proclaimed, like the very first sacrifice, that the price of God’s remission of sin is the shedding of blood.  The animals served as a type, a representative, of a divine, sinless, sacrificial Savior who would come to really and fully atone for all the sin of all of God’s people.  

He came, in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  This fulfilled the Old Covenant; therefore, animal sacrifices are necessary no more.  The New Covenant food and sacrifice is the unleavened bread and sacred wine of Holy Communion, or the Lord’s Supper.  

Yet still, after the great sacrifice of our God and Savior Jesus Christ, after the inauguration of the New Covenant, after the establishment of New Testament churches, animal sacrifices continued, outside the church.  These were practiced by members of other religions, in the name of other gods, or idols.  

God and Idols

The distance between God and idols, or other gods, is infinite.  He exists.  They don’t.  

Greeks believed in Zeus, but he was merely a figment of Homer’s imagination.  The Romans believed in Venus, and while she makes for a dazzling statue at the Louvre, a lifeless stone is all she is.  Our God refuses to be idol-ized, but rather worshipped and followed.  False, non-existent gods are represented by idols.

In Corinth, such idols did abound.  Most of the citizens were adherents of the mythological system of Greco-Roman gods.  Real, visible idols were erected to these unreal, invisible gods.  And when an animal was slaughtered to provide meat for the marketplace, it was often sacrificed in the name of one of these false gods.  

Many of the members of the church at Corinth had sacrificed in the name of these false gods, before they entered into a relationship with the true and living God by grace through faith in Christ.  Some of the members, whom Paul calls “weak,” as a point of reference rather than a put down, still believed the false gods were real.  A few of the members gave up meat entirely, rather than risking a close encounter of the mephistophelian kind.  

Other members of the church at Corinth, perhaps more mature in their beliefs and unthreatened by gods who do not exist, walked right into meat markets and restaurants where it was well known that the goods were butchered in the name of false gods.  They were not spooked by idols, and enjoyed their steaks medium-rare.  

However, when one of the first group saw one of the second group shopping or eating in idolatrous meat markets, they became confused and offended.  This became yet another point of disunity in the church, and Paul was led by the Spirit to resolve it.  

Idols and Superstition

Idolatry is heresy.  Superstition is human.  Christians cannot be heretics, but they can be superstitious.

To be superstitious literally means to over-think a subject, to the point where you begin to believe the unbelievable.  In Corinth, those meat market idols were nothing, except to some Christians who thought they were something, something all Christians should avoid like the plague.  

Are there contemporary parallels?  

Some Christians participate in holiday traditions not exactly holy, but more secular in nature, at Christmas, Easter, and other times.  Others see the elves and bunnies as dangerous idols.  Some trick-or-treat on October 31, others pledge allegiance to a portrait of Martin Luther.

Some Christians enjoy all kinds of music, so-called secular music, like country or rock or jazz.  Others see idolatry in anything other than Christian music.  The church I joined when I first became a Christian in college railed against rock and roll music so much they convinced me to take all my albums and throw them in a dumpster.  To this day, I think it was the second stupidest thing I’ve ever done.  They’d be worth a small fortune on eBay?!

Some Christians drink anything you can put in a glass, be it tea or soda or beer or wine or whisky from Kentucky.  Others see idols made out of grain to form demon rum.  Yet eat, drink, and be merry is actually a biblical axiom (see Ecclesiastes).  

All the fuss in Corinth was about the food.  We are fortunate to have so many more things to fight about in our day?!  So how do we resolve these differences and maintain unity in the Lord’s church?

Superstition and Church

As you can see by now, this sermon is four parts explanation and one part exposition.  It addresses a complex problem, calling for comprehensive explanation.  But the answer to the problem lies not in the explanation, but in the exposition.

There will always be “food sacrificed to idols” in our world.  There will always be members of the church who are “weak” on the matter, not wrong, not bad, just different, maybe superstitious, over-thinking things a little bit.  Other members are more strong-minded on such subjects, not right, not better, just different, who understand the spiritual always overtakes the secular in any field.  

So, how can we keep the church together, unified, enjoying worship, making progress in spreading the gospel, when so many food fights are fermenting around every church on every corner?  

Love one another (vs. 1-2).  “Love” is more important than “knowledge.”  In the original language, agapé, sacrificial love, is more important than gnowskō, experiential knowledge.  Christians come from different experiences, which formulate different understandings about what to do with food, drink, holidays, etc.  Do not think your experience and understanding is superior to theirs.  Be humble, be  kind, love and let live.  

Love God (vs. 3-7).  Lean on God.  Let Him guide your experiences and tell you what to do, by His Spirit, word, and providence.  Live under the lordship of Christ, seeking to please Him in all you say and do.  Try not to be superstitious, for other gods simply do not exist.  

Don’t care about stuff (vs. 8).  It seems in this verse that God does not care what we eat, which is not totally true.  Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, so I am sure he cares about what goes into them.  But He really does not care whether you are a carnivore or a vegetarian, an imbiber or a teetotaler, a trick-or-treater or a Reformation nerd.  God gives you the freedom to decide when to hold them and when to fold them in matters not specifically spelled out in Scripture.  So don’t sweat the small stuff in life.

Do care about people (vs. 9-13, then back to vs. 1).  If your convictions cause a fellow church member consternations, then keep your convictions to yourself.  No one can tell you what to eat and drink, but God.  But God is also telling you who you can eat and drink in front of, and who you cannot.  

A real food fight is really not funny.  It is a terrible mess that someone has to clean up.  If and when it breaks out in the body of Christ, the whole body suffers, as does worship, as does evangelism, as does the whole program of God.  That’s why this chapter is important.  

All food is sacrifice.  To sacrifice is to worship God.  The God we worship does not coexist with idols, for idols don’t exist.  Idols don’t exist among Christians, but superstitions or extra-biblical beliefs do.  Hold to your own beliefs, but love God and one another more.  The unity of the church, and all of the purposes of the church, are at stake.