- You know as Christians we
understand that the Bible is the guide that we use
to direct our conduct and that has been the same idea ever since God's word became available to mankind, the ability
to read it and understand and discern what is God's will for us. However, this doesn't mean that
we are always able to do it. The problem with human beings
is even if we understand what God's will is, sometimes
we don't always have the ability to carry out what it says. But we do use it to
determine if what we've done is right or wrong. It is a guide in that sense. A lot of times it's easy. The point I'm getting at is
sometimes it's easy to figure out which way we should
go, what's the right thing, what's the wrong thing. Murder, right or wrong? Well, you know that's not a hard one. Thou shalt not kill. Murder's an easy one. How about adultery? A little bit of adultery is you know, adultery in moderation, no I don't think so. So you know you get the
idea that adultery is wrong. It's an easy one to figure out. Lying, stealing, we know
that those things are wrong and we don't have to have a big debate. I've never seen a debate in
our brotherhood, for example, big debate tonight. We're going to debate whether
lying is right or wrong. We kind of know those things. The Bible is pretty
clear about those things. Not only the things
that we ought not to do, the things we ought to do. To love others, is that right or wrong? Well, you know, there's so
much teaching, especially in the New Testament
about loving one another, loving our enemies, so
that's a no brainer, loving other people. How about worshiping,
God, is that a good thing? Yes, it is a good thing. When giving reasons why
someone ought to do something or not to do something, we
can usually point to the Bible and say that this is what
the Bible says or this is how the Bible directs us. Many times, it is black and white. Murder, adultery, stealing,
you know it is black and white. We don't have to have a
long debate to figure out if what we're doing is right and wrong. Now as I said, we may not
agree or we may not be able to do what it says, but
at least it's clear. We don't have to worry
about are we understanding what the Bible says about
a particular subject. But problems begin to arise
when we go into the Bible and it requires us to use judgment or discretion in order to get our answer. Judgment or discretion, that's what I mean when I talk about judgment. Judgment, for example. Judgment is where we make a decision based on the general principles found
in the Bible because there are no specifics to guide us. There are no thou shalt do
this, or thou shalt do that. There are a lot of subject
where we don't have a specific instruction and one example that I use for this is birth control. You might think birth
control, why use that? Well, when I was teaching
or preaching in Canada and Montreal especially,
birth control was a big issue, because many people who had
become members of the church had once been Catholic and
for them, the birth control issue was like a big issue. Is it right or is it wrong? There's no, there's no
chapter and verse that says, thou shalt not use birth
control or thou shalt use, you know, there's no chapter and verse. You have to make a judgment call based on general principles in the Bible. For example, thou shalt not murder, Exodus 20, tells us, for example, that we have to respect existing life. So there's a broad principle,
where we find the idea of abortion, well there's
some people use abortion as their method of birth control. We can see from a general
principle in the Bible that we have to resect life
so that give us some guidance in our decision making on birth control. It also says thou shalt
love your neighbor as who? As yourself. You have to love yourself, so
that gives you some guidelines as far as maintaining the health
of the mother, for example. Also, the Bible gives us some
direction as to the ability of the parents to raise,
perhaps, more children. In 1 Timothy 5:8, Paul talks
about the high priority of being able to care for your own family. You have to take general
principles in order to come to a conclusion about a
subject that may not be clearly defined in the Bible. The Bible provides broad principles to help us make a judgment call. That's one thing, when you
have to make a judgment call. Another thing is discretion. Discretion is where we make
a decision based, not only on the broad principles found
in the Bible, because there are no specifics, but also
we factor in the effect that our decision will
have on other people, especially Christians. So the decisions based
on discretion are usually the most difficult to make
because they're different for each person and they require a great amount of self-sacrifice. They usually involve things
that are not in themselves bad, but maybe interpreted as being
evil or perhaps un-Christian or unorthodox by others. That's why you have to use discretion. The dilemma is usually
expressed like this. Why should I deny myself
and you fill in the blank, whatever, why should I deny
myself blank, just because it might offend somebody else. So you might be wondering, why
am I talking about all this? Because Paul received
this kind of question from the Corinthians, why
should I deny myself blank just because it might
offend somebody else? So he gets this kind of
question from the Corinthians and in 1 Corinthians 8,
he tells them how to deal with issues that require
the use of discretion, because as much as we'd like
for the Bible to be black and white about everything, not everything is answered with a black
and white response. In 1 Corinthians 8, verses 1 to 13, he talks
about this problem. Now just a little background,
again about the situation there, in those days, in
Greece, there were many pagan temples to various Gods
and each one of the temples had its own ceremonies
including animal sacrifices. Now the interesting thing about
pagan sacrifices was this. Unlike the Jewish sacrificial
system, where the animal was destroyed and its remains
were used by the priests and the Levites and even the
person offering the sacrifice, in other words, the lamb was
killed, but it was also eaten. It was used by the priest and the Levites and the ones offering sacrifices. Pagan sacrifice was not like this. Pagan animal sacrifices
often found the meat from the animals sold in public markets after the pagan rituals were over. For the pagans using animal sacrifices, the sacrificed animal was
not eaten, was not required to be eaten like it was in Jewish sacrificial system. That's an important difference that we have to understand here. They would sacrifice the
animal and then the animals were just set off to market. The problem then was that
there were some Christians who were buying meat at the
market where some of this type of meat had originally been
used in pagan sacrifice. Now the problem arose in
the church there in Corinth when some Christians disapproved
of this and they were offended because they felt
that their Christian brethren were, in some indirect
way, involving themselves in pagan worship. In other words, they were assuming, if you went to the market
and you bought some meat, I mean, who knows if that
cut of lamb, if that piece of meat there versus
that piece of meat there. There was no way of knowing
which had been sacrificed in pagan worship. It's just that some of the
meat mixed in with the others may have been sacrificed to animals. Some disapproved. They said boy if you're
doing this, you're enabling, if you wish, pagan sacrifice
in some indirect way. If you buy this kind of meat, they said, you're part of the system,
you're supporting that system. Therefore, they were offended
and there became a kind of a division that rose
up among the church. And you might say well
that's, thankfully we don't have that problem today, right. Well I can tell you there's
some Christians who will not shop at certain stores, for
example, because that company pays benefits to the
partners of gay employees. I'll give you an example. The company that was probably the first to supply benefits to the partners of gay employees was the Disney company. The Disney company,
ratio wise, has probably more gay employees than any
other corporation in America. And yet, does that mean we're not going to watch The Lion King? See what I'm saying? You're going to the movies? You're letting your children
watch The Lion King? Well, boy, that's produced by
the company that has practices that I don't agree with and
you're indirectly supporting a company that, you're
supporting gay rights. So you know, I could
repeat this example over and over again, you know. Someone that supports some
company that sells hardware, whatever, to the military
and they're pacifists and they're saying, well,
I don't agree with war. I believe that all killing is wrong. We should never be involved
in war and you're buying a blender from a company
that also has contracts with the military. You're indirectly supporting
war and I'm against war. You see, it's very easy to go
down that road, even today. In teaching then, Paul
deals with two issues here. The first is the specific issue. The specific issue and the
specific issue is the following. Is eating this meat a sin? That's the specific issue. This was the debate that the
brethren were having and Paul addresses this in different
places in the chapter, in verses 4 to 6 and in verse 7 to 8. Concerning this question of
sin, he says three things. So let's go to chapter
8, beginning in verse 4. He says, therefore concerning
the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know
that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and
that there is no God but one. For even if there ar
so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as
indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for
us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are
all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus
Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him. So the first thing he says
about it is that only those who practice idolatry
are guilty of idolatry. The ones that go to the
pagan temple and worship at the pagan temple and
participate in the pagan sacrifice, he says, they are the ones
that are guilty of idolatry. There's a reason for that,
because Christians recognize only God and only his son,
Jesus Christ, as the Son of God. For Christians, idols are
nothing more than wood and stone and meat used in whatever
way is only meat, as far as the Christian is concerned. When that Christian goes
to the store and he buys a pound of hamburger or whatever. For him, that's just hamburger, 'cause he doesn't believe in idols. Christians eat with the
understanding that all food comes from God, regardless of
what men may do or think about the meat in between time. That's not on them. Second thing he says, this
time in verse 7, he says, however not all men have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed
to the idol until now, eat food as if it were
sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience
being weak is defiled. The second thing he says
is not everybody is used to this idea, especially
Greek Christians, who have been raised to see
idolatry and its practices as an important part of life. Not everybody thinks,
listen, there's only one God, only Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Not everybody thinks that way. Not everybody's been raised that way. For a former idolater,
meat sacrifices to an idol has been tainted and his
conscience cannot help but see it as an offense against the true God. Basically he's saying, here's the truth. There's not such thing
as an idol and the sin is on the idolater, but then
he says, but not everybody thinks that way, because of
the way they were raised, because of their experiences. Of course, one problem here
could have been the different backgrounds between the
Jews and the Greeks who were in the same congregation. The Jews, who grew up
and then were converted to Christianity, they had
no problems with idolatry. That was not part of their
heritage, their ancient heritage maybe, they had fallen idolatry
but by New Testament times, the Jews were not guilty of idolatry. They knew who the true God were. They knew they worshiped
the true God, the revelation of Jesus was simply added onto that. But for a Greek, for a
Gentile, this was new stuff. He had or she had grown
up worshiping many Gods, offering meat sacrifices to
idols throughout their lives. So Paul then says a third
thing about this issue, in verse 8. He says, but food will
not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat. Paul repeats a principle that
Jesus taught in Mark 7:19. Basically that food does
not have the power to make you pleasing or not pleasing to God. God loves vegans. God loves vegetarians. God loves meat eaters. What you eat does not make you
better or worse before God. Now from a health perspective,
perhaps, not to eat too much meat or whatever,
but as far as holiness is concerned, you cannot become more holy by giving up eating meat. You are not unholy because
you happen to enjoy a t-bone. It has no power to do that type of thing. The Pharisees taught
that if a Gentile touched a certain food that a Jew
who later purchased and ate, in other words if a
Gentile handled the food at the market and the Jew
came and bought that food, whether it was meat or
vegetables or whatever, then the Jew would become impure. He or she would need to purify themselves before going on to worship. Such was the stricture
of the Pharisaic laws. Jesus taught that food,
all by itself, did not have the ability to purify you
or to make you impure. It's just food, and depending
on your size and your health, you're free to regulate how much. Maybe you need to eat less food. Some people need to eat more food. But it doesn't have the power
to make you holy in any way. Paul repeats this idea here,
stating that you couldn't catch immorality, you can't catch it. It's not a virus. You cannot catch idolatry,
like a disease from food. Food is neutral. In other words, it's just meat. In response to the specific
issues of sinfulness, Paul says, basically the
sin belongs to the idolaters and cannot be transferred
to the Christians through the meat. An idolater's sin,
because they serve idols. Christians are righteous
because they serve Christ, irregardless of what they eat. That was the specific, right,
we said he's going to answer the specific question, is it a
sin if we eat meat sacrificed to idols and he answers that question with a specific answer, no it is not. Then he gives some reasons why. Now he moves on to the broad principle. And the broad principle is
this, what do you do when something isn't a sin
but your conscience feels like it's a sin? See that's a trickier idea. Sometimes we feel guilty and
rightly so because according to the Bible, we're doing something wrong. If you embezzle your
company and you feel guilty, well, you should. If you cheat on your taxes,
and you fail to report income, and you just cheat, so you
don't have to pay too many taxes and then after, you're
kind of feeling guilty. Well, you should, that's what
your conscience is there for, to make you feel guilty
when you do something wrong. But sometimes we feel guilty
and the Bible doesn't condemn, necessarily, our activities,
just our conscience. That happens a lot. This was the problem here. Paul has told them that there's
no sin in eating this meat, but there are still some in
the church who feel guilty about it and what do we do about that. Again, his teaching is kind
of spread out throughout this chapter, but he
does give three answers, three specific ideas to
this particular problem. First of all, we have
to go back chapter 8, in verse 1, 2 and 3, so let's read 1, 2 and 3. First thing he says is that
love is higher than knowledge. So verse 1, 2, and 3 says,
now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know
that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant,
but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know, but if anyone loves
God, he is known by Him. So I repeat, Paul says, first
of all, love is a higher virtue than knowledge. You know he is giving them
knowledge about the legality of what they are doing. Technically, they are
not wrong if they eat. That's knowledge from God,
but the guiding principle for our knowledge, he says, is love. Love is what directs knowledge and God knows the ones who love him because it is
evident in their actions. God knows the one that love him because they're acting out of love. They're using their knowledge but they're acting out of love. So those who love God use
God in their application of knowledge and his point
is that we have knowledge is not what pleases God. It's how we use knowledge
that pleases God. There are a lot of
smarty-alecs in the world, but not all of them are pleasing to God. Christians, through grace, use love to guide their knowledge. Second thing he says, this
time in verses 9 to 12, he says Christians through grace have received license to love. In other words, we've
received from God permission to love other people. Let's read verses 9 to 12 this time. He says, but take care
lest this liberty of yours, this liberty means you've
received knowledge, you've been freed from the
stricture of thou shalt not eat this meat. You're free now, you have this knowledge. Listen to what he says, But
take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow
become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees
you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol's temple,
will not his conscience, if he is weak, be
strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? For through your knowledge
he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And thus, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their
conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Tricky situation. You know, he says you have
knowledge and this knowledge has given you liberty,
freedom in this case, to eat, but be careful that you don't
use your freedom selfishly. God gives us liberty and freedom
and license but our license is not to indulge ourselves. Our license is to be used
for loving other people. In this instant, Paul describes
a hypothetical situation. He says what if you used
this freedom to indulge in this food and a brother with a weak conscience copies you. You know the idea as well,
if he can do it, I can do it. But in doing so, he realizes
that his conscience will just not permit it and he feels worse. Paul doesn't say it but the
danger is that he may fall away or continue to do a lawful
thing but because he has a guilty conscience
for him, a lawful thing has become a sin, right? Even if you do something
that is permitted but you go against your own conscience,
for you, that's a sin. In addition to this, Paul
says that in disregarding his weak condition and
providing him with the excuse to violate his own conscience
and thus sin, you also are guilt of sin, you pushed him into doing this, he's saying. So those who love God are
free to live in Christ as they choose, but this
freedom doesn't allow them to be free from the
responsibility of caring for other people and
caring for their souls. All right, he goes on,
another question, verse 13, how far do we go? So let's read verse 13, he
says, Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble,
I will never eat meat again, that I might not cause
my brother to stumble. And so here he's answering
the unasked question, how far do we go with this? The fear here is that
people will take advantage if we give up what we are
allowed to do every time somebody objects under
the heading of offense. Now you can't do that
because that offends me. In other words, what good is
freedom if we are prisoners of other people's weaknesses? What good is it? What good is it that I'm
free to eat and drink and do whatever I like in Christ, you know, things permitted. What good is that freedom if
every time I'm doing something, someone says, no, no, you
can't do that 'cause I will not permit myself to do it. So if I won't permit me to do
it, then I won't permit you to do it and so some of
the brethren are saying, well, what good's this freedom? Now in Romans chapter 14, and
I want you to kind of stay in 1 Corinthians there but
just flip over to Romans, while you're at it. Chapter 14: 3 and 4, Paul gives further instruction to help avoid this kind of situation. 14:3 and 4, he says, Let not him who eats regard with contempt him who
does not eat, and let not him who does not eat judge him who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge
the servant of another? To his own master he stands
or falls; and stand he will, for the Lord is able to make him stand. So it seems that this was a problem in the Roman church as well. Paul is kind of speaking
to two groups here. He says those who are
strong, the strong are those who exercise their Christian
liberty in good conscience doing things that are not wrong. Christian freedom doesn't
mean you're free to sin. It means you're free, you
know, nobody can tell you don't touch, don't eat,
don't drink, don't do this. Nobody's your boss. The Bible is your guide
and if the Bible permits you something, then you're
permitted that thing. Those who are strong, those
people, they shouldn't be impatient and unloving or
unkind to those who are weak in conscience and are
unable to permit themselves the same things. Now there's, you know what
he's saying, no name-calling, no accusations of legalism or narrow-mindedness or immaturity. He's talking to the strong. He says you people are
strong, don't look down on the people who are weak. Don't call them names, don't, you know, and then those who he refers to as weak, those that can't permit
themselves things that are permissible because
of their background, their weak conscience, whatever. He says those people, you
should not act like judges over the actions of other Christians. He says to them who made you the judge? You don't get to judge your brother. God will judge your brother
and your brother will stand or fall, he'll be judged
innocent or guilty by God, not by you. You have no right to judge
your brother in things that are not sinful. Obviously if your brother
sins, the Bible says go to him, reprove him, encourage him. He says, you're not allowed
to judge the actions of other Christians and here's
the key, especially when their criticism cannot be
soundly supported by God's word. You know, you have some boy
over here, he's married, he's got three kids, but
he's got a girlfriend in another town and you find out about it. Well, that's called adultery. You better go see your brother
then and you better talk to him and say, brother,
you know, what you're doing and I know what you're
doing and I can show you, chapter and verse, Exodus 20, thou shalt not commit adultery. This is wrong. You have to stop. But unless you can support
it with the scriptures, you have to be very careful, Paul says. Now here's the thing. A lot of times, it's not a question of truly being offended or stumbling. Paul says that to make someone
stumble or to offend them means to influence them
to do something that their own conscience will not permit. That's the Biblical explanation
of offense or stumbling. Sometimes the strong use
Christian freedom as an excuse to act or indulge in worldly
activities, like gambling, for example, or vices, without feeling guilty. They say well, I'm under grace. I can do this. God will permit me a little,
you know, I can cross the line 'cause I'm under grace. Sometimes the strong, you
know, they use their freedom just a little too,
they're a little too free. They think freedom means I
have the freedom to indulge in vices without consequences and the sin there, believe
it or not, the sin there is not indulging in the vice. The sin there is pride to
think that you're so special that God will permit you
to sin without consequence. And then on the other hand, the weak, they often say
that they are offended when in reality, they're
just uncomfortable or they're jealous because
someone is doing something that they will not
permit themselves to do, but they twist the scriptures
or they use tradition as their basis of argument. I mean, I've been working in
the church for a long time as a Minister and I've
had people say to me, well, that offends me. I don't know, young people
have a lock in, let's just say. Young people have a lock
in on a Friday night, lots of supervision, boys
over here, girls over there. You know what I mean, it's all
done properly and you know, we're just trying to get
to be together and so on and so forth and someone says, you know, I'm not comfortable with that idea. Someone will come up and say I'm not comfortable with that idea. Really? Yeah, that offends me. No, no, I'm sorry. You may be uncomfortable with
it and so on and so forth, but Biblically, this is not
provoking you to do something that is a sin for you. You're just uncomfortable with
it because you're not used to it or maybe that's not he
way you think things ought to run, but a true sin, you know, when we criticize another for their actions and we claim
that we've been offended, it better be because A, a
true sin, according the Bible has been committed and B, we have been provoked to violate our own conscience by the
influence of another's actions. That's what offense means,
according to the Bible. If not, then we're merely
judging our brothers and sisters according to our own
standards, not God's standards. So when we say I'm offended,
we're usually saying, well, according to my standard, this is not okay. When it comes to that
in that in the church, we have to be willing
to, what is it we say, agree to to disagree. Both the weak and the strong
should leave the judging to God because it is God who
will save both the strong and the weak according to
his grace, not according to one's relative strength or weakness, because the strong are not
any more saved than the weak. Both of them are saved
in exactly the same way, they both need the grace of God. So in the end, we have to
go as far as we need to in order to guarantee that
our actions do not contribute to the destruction of another soul. That may not always be fair,
but it'll always be right. In the end, we want to do what's right and not just what's permitted,
not just what's fair. So, not everything in
Christianity is black and white. Sometimes we have to make
decisions and sometimes we have to make decision
using 1, judgment, assessing what we know about
the word of God and making the best decision we can,
given the circumstances. Do we sell the house and move over here for the new job or not. We want to do God's will, so
we have to use a judgment call. And B, sometimes we have to
use discretion, not only using what we know about the Bible,
but measuring the impact of our decision on the
faith of someone else. For example, do I take job A or job B? Do we sell the house and
move to X place so I can get a better job and it'll pay $20,000 more? Well, sounds good, but then
you start, you look at the town that you're going to for example. Oh, there's no church there. That doesn't happen much in the
United States, certainly not in the southern, pretty
much any town you go to here has got a congregation of the church but up in Canada, for example. You know, somebody will move
to a town that'll have 50,000 people or something, there isn't a church for 100 miles or 200, 300 miles. So now you, hmm, I've
got three young kids. I've got a wife and a family. I don't know anybody. There are no members of the church there. There isn't even a church there. Now what I'm weighing is
hmm, $20,000 more in salary, no church life. I stop going to church. Can we survive just the
family having worship by ourselves, every Sunday. Hmm, I could do it one Sunday
or two, but could I do it one year, year in and year out? Do I have the ability to
start a church if there isn't? You know, that's discretion. That's how you use it. Paul teaches that we must not only consider what is lawful,
in order to please God, we must decide what is loving as well. Is that really loving
my children and my wife to isolate them from other Christians? You see? We need to remember that
when God chose to save us, he didn't do it based on the law, 'cause according to the law,
we should have been condemned and left to suffer in hell
if it was according the law. If salvation was based on
the law, then all of us would have to be perfect in order to be saved. Right, no sin? You can be saved according
to the law, you mustn't break it, not even one time. That's how Jesus did it. Jesus was risen from the dead not because of the grace of God. He was risen from the dead why? No sin. He was perfect according to
the law, and so because he was perfect, according
to the law, sin, death, could not hold him. But that's not the case with us. None of us can be or will
ever be perfect according to the law and have and
be saved in that way. When God chose to save us, he didn't do it on fairness either, not based on fairness. We always, we use that, that's not fair. We say to God, that's not fair. You know, I worked hard,
I did my best at my job, you know, blah, blah, blah. I helped this other person that came in. I tutored them and I mentored
them and I really gave to them and then they
got promoted ahead of me, and now they're firing me. [laughing] You know,
we're having a company, what do they call it, a
down-sizing and the guy that I mentored and helped
to go up in the company, he's the one that's
down-sizing me out of a job. God, that's not fair. Isn't that what we say to
him all the, it's not fair. And God says, well, you know what? It wasn't fair that Jesus, who did no sin, who always obeyed, should
suffer punishment for my sin. That's not fair either,
but God didn't save us based on fairness. He based his decision on
love, what was necessary in order to guarantee the
salvation of our souls, love and that's the basis upon which our decisions should be made. We need to ask God to
forgive us and to help us to mature spiritually. If we violated our own
conscience, it's okay to say to God, please forgive me. I violated my own conscience. It's okay to say to God,
please forgive me for that. And a good additional prayers,
please expand my conscience. Please, Lord, help me to enjoy the things that are lawful for me without guilt. And usually that involves him working on another part of your personality. We need to mature spiritually
if we've encouraged, by our actions, someone else
to violate their conscience. Or if we've accused others
of sin for actions that are not really sin but just
things we just don't like. That bugs me. I don't like that. Or we've been impatient with
brethren who don't enjoy the same level of freedom
in Christ that we do. It's easy to, the word is to despise. It's easy to despise our
brothers because either they have more freedom
than us or they refuse to use the freedom that they have. But our relationship with
one another is always based in love, not in
law, not in fairness. It's based in love and with love, love permits all good things. Okay, that's Paul, 1 Corinthians, 8. We move on and upwards.
