June 9, 2020
Introduction
Chapter 8 continues the discussion of issues raised in the Corinthians’ letter to Paul. The major concern in this section is whether to eat “food sacrificed to idols.” This was a divisive issue for Christian churches in the first century, which was part of a complex of disputes between Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus. Eating meat sacrificed to idols is prohibited in Acts 15:28-29 and is referred to as an improper practice in Revelation 2:14 and 20. A first century Christian manual of church order called the Didache says “concerning food, bear what you are able; but against that which is sacrificed to idols be exceedingly on your guard; for it is the service of dead gods.”
To understand this problem we need to remember that in the ancient world there was no “secular” space. Political, economic and social activities were all related to the gods. Gentiles from the higher classes who wanted to cultivate business contacts, celebrate important events, or have a say in public policy would often do so over meals adjacent to a temple. Sometimes these feasts were publicly visible so people could observe society’s leaders performing their charitable and civic duties, not unlike a televised event today such as the Oscar awards. As Richard Hays notes in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, for example,
The sanctuary of Asclepius in Corinth comprised both an area for cultic sacrifice and several dining rooms that opened onto a pleasant public courtyard. The wealthier Corinthians would have been invited to meals in such places as a regular part of their social life, to celebrate birthdays, weddings, healings attributed to the god, or other important occasions. Examples of such invitations have been preserved. For example: “Herais asks you to dine in the room of the Serapheion (= Asclepieion) at a banquet of the Lord Seraphis tomorrow the 11th from the 9th hour”
Hays, R. B. (2011). First Corinthians : Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Vol. Pbk. ed. Westminster John Knox Press.
It would have been difficult, then, for a higher-class Gentile to avoid meals where meat sacrificed to idols was offered. Further, many of them likely thought of the sacrifice as a formality. Although there was no secular space and the gods were everywhere, people were not necessarily more pious than they are today. Much like the opening prayer offered by the local Priest, Pastor, or Rabbi today at a Rotary Club beefsteak fundraising dinner, many attendees probably greeted the dedication to the idol with polite indifference.
As Hays also notes, however, meat was not usually available at all to lower-class Gentiles. They may only have received meat on special festival days when there was a general distribution of leftover food from the sacrifices. Hays suggests the poor might therefore have viewed the sacrificial meat with a special kind of awe rather than with the cynical shrug of the wealthy. Or, perhaps, we might suggest the poor just wanted something to eat and didn’t give a thought to any religious implications.
Pious Jews living in the Roman diaspora, of course, would have viewed eating meat sacrificed to idols as an idolatrous act, on top of other dietary prohibitions in the Jewish law concerning non-kosher meat. Pious Jews could organize their business and social affairs with their own celebrations related to their own places of worship. While this kind of separatism often created tension with surrounding communities, it was usually cautiously tolerated, so the cost of avoiding meat sacrificed to idols for them was not as immediate as it would have been for an upper class Gentile.
Acts 15 tells us that these disputes “brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate” with a group of Christians who were Pharisees and with others who wanted Gentile Christians to keep the Jewish law, including the requirement to be circumcised. These questions were addressed by a council of church leaders, which included Peter and Paul. Acts 15:12 says “[t]he whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them.” Eventually the council agreed that the Gentile Christians would not be required to keep the Jewish law, except for “the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.” (Acts 15:28-29). Some messengers were chosen by the council to accompany Paul and Barnabas to Antioch to deliver a letter with this ruling.
As the narrative proceeds in Acts, Paul continues his mission and eventually arrives in Corinth. (Acts 18.) Acts 18 describes conflict Paul ran into with the Jewish leaders in Corinth. Acts 18:11 says Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and six months. One of these disputes led to the beating of Sosthenes, an official in the Synagogue, who might be the same Sosthenes listed as co-author of 1 Corinthians (Acts 18:17). Paul then left for Syria and subsequently Apollos began his ministry — the Apollos with whom Paul contends 1 Corinthians (Acts 18:18-28).
It’s difficult to know for sure whether the events narrated in Acts 15-18 occurred before Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, although the references in Acts seem to suggest that was the case. If so, this would be particularly interesting, because Paul’s instructions about meat sacrificed to idols in 1 Corinthians are not nearly as clear cut as the restriction in the Jerusalem Council’s letter, which Acts 15 tells us Paul himself delivered to Antioch! This raises all sorts of text- and historical-critical questions about the purposes of the authors and editors of these possibly differing texts. Perhaps the account in Acts captures a bit less of the nuance in favor of a more straightforward report? Or, it may suggest that Paul took the message from the Jerusalem Council and sought to interpret it broadly for the Corinthian congregation. In any event, the depiction of Paul’s argument on behalf of the Gentiles before the Jerusalem Council fits his effort to bridge and contextualize the core Gospel message, which developed in the Jewish setting, for the Gentiles. Paul makes similar arguments in Romans 14 and in Galatians 5-6.
Paul’s “Soft” Rule: Chapter 8
Notice that, instead of stating a rule, Paul returns to the theme of “knowledge” that he introduced in Chapters 1-2. The more sophisticated members of the congregation at Corinth knew that idols are nothing. Perhaps their first phrase — “no idol in the world really exists” — reflects what they really thought even before they became Christians, when they had to listen to what they though were boring and silly invocations before digging into the lamb shank at the feast. Now they add to that an even more sophisticated twist from their new faith: “there is no God but one.” (8:4.) This phrase references the foundational Jewish prayer, the shema, “Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one.” Perhaps Apollos, the highly educated Jewish Christian teacher, had helped them make this connection.
Paul does not deny this knowledge, but he reminds the sophisticates that others in the congregation will lack it. He encourages them not to use their liberty in a way that will become a “stumbling block” to the weak. (“Stumbling block” is proskomma, literally a stone against which someone strikes their foot, used figuratively in moral literature as something that gets in the way or causes offense.) Notice that Paul also returns to the theme of ecclesiology — the nature of the church — that he surfaced in Chapters 1-2. To act without sensitivity to a weaker member of the community is not only a sin against that individual. Paul says that “when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.” (8:12.)
Some Discussion Questions on this Section
- Are there any social / cultural / economic practices in our context today that you think are analogous to eating meat sacrificed to idols in the first century Roman world? What is your ethical stance on those things?
- Imagine you are in fellowship with another Christian who believes it is idolatrous to salute the flag, stand at attention for the National Anthem, or take an oath in a judicial proceeding (many Anabaptist Christians hold such views). Imagine further that you personally think these practices are at best culturally valuable or at worst indifferent. Should you refrain from those practices entirely?
Paul’s Example: Chapter 9
In chapter 9, Paul continues the argument about forbearing the exercise of personal rights in favor of building up others. The example Paul uses seems odd and even a bit whiny. Paul says that as an Apostle he could demand the right to payment from the congregation for his work and to travel with a spouse. (9:3-6.) Paul seems to snipe at some of the other Apostles, including Peter, for traveling in what he views as a higher style than he and Barnabas.
But Paul also acknowledges that, like the Priests in the Jewish Temple, “the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel” (9:14). This text has often been used to argue for paid professional clergy. The nature of this professional status was disputed during the Reformation. Martin Luther, in particular, railed against Catholic monks who had taken vows of mendicant poverty, whom he viewed as pests and interlopers. In the Radical Reformation branch of the Reformation — against which Luther also railed! — some pietist movements began to argue against a separate paid clergy altogether, a view the persists in some such churches today. The Plymouth Brethren church I grew up in until my teen years taught that professional paid clergy were a distortion of the pure first century church. The pulpit and other pastoral ministries were entirely supplied by lay Elders. They argued that Paul’s tent-making example should be followed rather than his apparent statement about paid preachers.
The centerpiece of this section is a famous Pauline text:
For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.
1 Cor. 9:19-23
This is followed with a sports metaphor for the spiritual life: “Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one.” (9:24-25.) Paul, and other New Testament texts related to Paul, often employed sports and military metaphors of this sort. (Cf. Heb. 12:1, Phil. 2:16, Gal 2:2, Eph. 6:10-18, 2 Tim. 4:7.) The sports metaphor might have appealed particularly to the Corinthians because Corinth hosted the Isthmian Games, held regularly the year before and year after the Olympic Games. Perhaps the sports metaphor connects with the question of meat sacrificed to idols, since the Games would have been accompanied by feasts.
The sports metaphor concludes with an odd statement: “So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.” (9:26-27.) This text has at times been used to support ascetic spiritual practices. These can include benign, traditional practices such as occasional fasting, but they have also included extreme measures such as self-flagellation with whips. There was an infamous outbreak of flagellantism during the Black Plague in 14th Century Europe.
Some Discussion Questions on this Section
- We often hear that it is unhealthy and unwise to try to be “all things to all people.” Yet, that is exactly what Paul gives as an example! What do you think Paul means by this? In what way (if at all) is it a model for us today?
- Paul makes some rapid but subtle comments about “law” in the “all things to all people” text. How would you understand what Paul is saying here about “law?”
- Paul’s comments about the “rights” of ministers of the Gospel is not really the point of this chapter, but nevertheless, it is a touchstone for debates about the place of the clergy in the church and in society. Our Presbyterian polity takes a strong view of the Offices of the Church, and generally reserves that of “teaching elder” — Pastor — for trained professional clergy. Do you think this is a good model? What role do you think professional clergy can or should play in society more broadly?
- Presumably Paul’s sports / training metaphor was not meant to induce extreme practices such as those of the flagellants — or was it? Do you think the flagellants read Paul incorrectly? How might we apply this kind of metaphor to ourselves today?