Lessons from Paul's Experience in Corinth

The early Church community in Corinth had lots and lots of questions and problems. Paul stayed in Corinth for several years and then he left to start other Churches. The First Letter to the Corinthians is written by Paul from Ephesus to address some of the myriad issues that the early disciples faced.

1 Corinthians 8.1-13 is a discussion of one of these issues. To set this problem in context, in the ancient world, both in Greek culture and in other cultures, you had a ritual for everything. Not only big events like the coming of age of a young person or a funeral, but for little things too. You literally couldn't do anything without having some sort of ritual. Most of these rituals involved the sacrifice or other use of food. In many religious acts, you couldn't eat the food after the ritual, or the ritual would be invalidated. So the food was sold to markets, which resold the food to customers.

Here is the problem for the early Church: was it idolatry to eat the food in the markets that had been used in sacrifice to idols? Did the eating of this food someone make the early disciples participants in these rituals, and thereby participants in idolatry?

Paul's answer is simple: eating such food is not a problem, because the idols are not real. There is only one God; the God of salvation who has created all things and redeemed us in Jesus. The other idols who are worshiped do not exist. They are just wood and metal objects and are figments of the adherent's imagination. You literally cannot worship the other gods of Greek culture because they do not exist. So go ahead and eat the food that had been sacrificed to idols if you want.

We don't literally worship metal and stone objects anymore, but we still have "idols" in our culture today that we spend lots of time preoccupied with. We don't worship status, materialism, power, and security, but these things have power over us, and we spend an inordinate amount of time focused upon these things. By analogy, Paul's advice for us is not to be preoccupied with these things because they have no power over us. They are illusions. Any time we spend focusing on these illusions is time wasted, because they are not real.

Paul makes another good point in 1 Corinthians 8.1-13. Although mature disciples will have no problem eating food in the marketplace that had been sacrificed to idols once they get the point that the idols are not real, Paul also advised the early disciples not to do anything that would disrupt the growth of other disciples who were not as mature in their faith yet. Many of the early disciples had grown up worshiping idols and participating in the rituals--although, as indicated above, this did not technically constitute idolatry, it was a waste of time and kept disciples from focusing upon what was most important. So Paul suggested to the early community that if eating food in the marketplace that had been sacrificed to idols continued to be a problem after his advice was read to the community, it was better for everyone to just stop eating such food.

Paul's advice about concern for other disciples is good. Sometimes in the Church we forget that we are a community, and in our discipleship, we need to be concerned not only for our own development, but the growth in grace of those who are in our community. We live in a culture that is all about the rights of the individual. We have forgotten that in the Church, we are called to be a community that is concerned for others, both inside and outside the walls of the Church. Discipleship is not an individual process, but a collective process. If the Church is engaging in a practice that might be detrimental to some, the Church should take this into consideration in how it goes about being the Church.