In chapter 10 Paul continues the discussion of eating meat sacrificed to idols. This chapter can be a bit confusing because it seems in some ways to pull back from the more flexible approach to this problem in chapters 8 and 9. Remember, though, that this is a letter, not a philosophical treatise. Even though it\u2019s a special form of correspondence, much more formal than a dashed-off note, it does sometimes contain streams of thought that meander, connect, and trail off in various places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the same time, we can also see an improvised principle in chapter 10 that ties things together: eating meat sacrificed to idols in the context of certain kinds of religious-cultic practices should be avoided, but eating meat purchased in the marketplace at a private meal is a matter of indifference, even if that meat had been previously sacrificed to an idol. The reticence about cultic practices is consistent with, and rooted in, Paul\u2019s figural use of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Jewish confession of one God. The freedom to eat any meat bought in the marketplace, however, was a radical break from Jewish practices. In this way, Paul connects the Corinthian church \u2014 and by extension, the church wherever both Jews and Gentiles meet together \u2014 to the story and heritage of Israel, while also acknowledging the new character of a community that incorporates the Gentiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the most significant aspects of Paul\u2019s ethical improvisation about meat sacrificed to idols is easy to miss. In 10:1, Paul refers to the Hebrews as \u201cour ancestors.\u201d For Paul and other Jews, this was of course core to their identity. Yet Paul is writing not only to Jews, but also to Gentiles in the church at Corinth. By identifying the Hebrews as the ancestors of everyone in the church, Paul plays on one of the central themes in the theology of all of his letters: Israel is the root and the Church is the branch. Between Jews and the ekkelesia <\/em>of Christ, there is no fundamental division. Israel and the Church are one people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This theme is more implicit than directly stated in 1 Corinthians. It is stated most plainly in Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans. Romans 1-11 has often been misunderstood as a tract about the problem of individual sin and as a statement about God\u2019s election of some individuals to salvation. Themes relating to individual sin and salvation are present in Romans 1-11, but that is not the main point of Paul\u2019s argument there. In that text, Paul, a pious Jew, agonizes over why most of his fellow Jews have not recognized Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. His conclusion is that God has allowed Israel\u2019s heart to be hardened for a time so that the Gentiles could be incorporated into the community of God\u2019s Kingdom. Paul\u2019s arguments about election in Romans 1-11 are primarily about corporate <\/em>election, and Paul\u2019s ultimate conclusion is that, in a way that God has not yet fully revealed, Israel will<\/em> come to recognize Jesus, so that \u2014 surprisingly \u2014 God\u2019s eschatological Kingdom will include both <\/em>the Jews and<\/em> the Gentiles.\/1\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are at least two important conclusions we can draw from Paul\u2019s theological vision concerning Israel and the Church. The first is that Paul\u2019s theology does not<\/em> entail supercessionism \u2014 in fact, Paul\u2019s theology entails exactly the opposite. \u201cSupercessionism\u201d is the notion that the Church replaces<\/em> Israel in God\u2019s economy of salvation. Paul would respond to such a claim with a stock phrase he often used: me genoito<\/em>! No way! May it never be!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately supercessionist theology has a long history in the Church, from the early church through the Reformation and into modern times. The Holocaust, including the complicity of much of the German church in the Holocaust, prompted a reappraisal of this tradition, including contemporary scholarship about the Jewishness of both Jesus and Paul. For Paul, the Gentile Church is grafted in as a branch onto the root of Israel. For Christians to persecute Jews is literally to shoot ourselves in the heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, significant differences remain between the community of Israel that does not (yet) recognize Jesus and the Church, both Gentile and Jewish, that does acknowledge Jesus as Lord and Christ. We can\u2019t pretend that difference doesn\u2019t matter \u2014 and it definitely mattered for Paul. But as between these communities, this is an intra-family difference, not a fundamental division. And, from the perspective of Pauline theology, it is a difference that we in the Church should fully expect will one day be mutually overcome, joyfully and peaceably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second theme we can draw from Paul\u2019s theological vision, which is explicit in 1 Corinthians 10, is that Israel\u2019s story is our story<\/em>. At the start of chapter 10, Paul draws on the story of Israel\u2019s exodus from Egypt as a figure of the Church\u2019s current circumstances. This kind of figural reading of the Hebrew Scriptures is a common motif in Paul\u2019s letters. (See Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul <\/a>(New Haven: Yale Univ. Press 1993.)) Theology is a form of narrative, and the stories of Israel provide the basic narrative themes through which the Church can identify itself and shape its corporate life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can see how closely, and idiosyncratically, Paul uses the exodus narrative in verse 4: \u201cFor they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.\u201d Paul here refers to a story that is only partially present in the canonical sources of the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy). The Jewish sages wondered how the children of Israel found water to drink when they spent forty years wandering in the desert after leaving Egypt and before entering the promised land. In Exodus 17:6, God provided water when Moses strikes a rock with his staff. The sages concluded that God had miraculously caused this rock to follow the people from place to place as they wandered. Paul picks up on that story and then embellishes it further by identifying the rock with Christ!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul\u2019s identification of the wandering rock (or well) with Christ is not meant literally. Paul doesn\u2019t suggest that the rock was an early incarnation of Christ. He does, however, suggest that in God\u2019s provision for Israel Christ was already spiritually present and active in Israel\u2019s story. The story of redemption unfolds in history but is already present before it is fully known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some Discussion Questions on this Section:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The arc of any compelling narrative involves a central crisis. A central crisis in the narrative of the Hebrew Scriptures is idolatry. The first commandment on the tables given by God to Moses is \u201cyou shall have no other gods before me\u201d and the second, third, and fourth commandments relate to making idols, misusing God\u2019s (YHWY) name, and keeping the sabbath. (Exodus 20:1-8; Deut. 5:6-16.) These commandments, often depicted as residing on the \u201cfirst tablet\u201d of the law, are the foundation for the commandments on the \u201csecond tablet\u201d concerning murder, theft, false testimony, adultery, and coveting. (The fifth commandment to \u201chonor your father and mother\u201d has been viewed as a transitional commandment that links the first and second tablets.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The foundation for all of Israel\u2019s ethics therefore was the recognition that God alone was God. This foundation is reflected in the central Jewish prayer, the shema<\/em>: \u201cHear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one.\u201d (Deut. 6:4.) In Deuteronomy 6, the shema<\/em> is followed by the basic commandment that precedes all the other detailed provisions of the law: \u201cLove the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.\u201d (Deut 6:5.) Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, from the exodus all the way through the exile, the Hebrews often fail to keep this central commanding principle and thereby lose God\u2019s blessing and incur God\u2019s judgment.\/2\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul alludes to one such infamous episode in verses 6-10 \u2014 the golden calf. (Exodus 32.) Instead of waiting patiently for Moses to return from the mountain with God\u2019s instructions, the people, led by Moses\u2019 brother Aaron, create an idol, a golden calf, and worship it. Exodus tells us that after building the idol, \u201cthey sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.\u201d (Exodus 32:6.) The fallout from this event was fierce: according to Exodus 32, Moses made the people drink water with bits of the ground up idol, and then, under Moses\u2019 command, the Levites (the Priestly tribe) who had not worshiped the golden calf, killed 3,000 of the people (a civil war? Exodus 32:19-29.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul connects this central theme in Israel\u2019s story to the Corinthian church in relation to eating meat sacrificed to idols. In chapters 8 and 9, Paul focused on why the \u201cstronger\u201d members should refrain from eating idol meat if it would hurt the \u201cweaker\u201d members. In chapter 10, Paul asserts a prohibition against eating idol meat because to eat such meat is to practice idolatry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Paul has already agreed with the \u201cstronger\u201d members of the Corinthian church that the gods represented by the pagan idols are not real. If that is the case, and the \u201cstronger\u201d members in their wisdom know this, how can they be charged with idolatry? Paul warns them that even in their strength they will be tested. God will give them the strength to endure the testing, but they should not presume they are above the possibility of failure. (10:12-13.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The test of idol meat, Paul says, is dangerous because the reality behind the pagan idols are not gods by \u201cdemons.\u201d (10:20.) To participate in these rituals therefore is a particularly gross form of idolatry \u2014 one that twists what should be worship of God into worship of demons. The parallel is even more important because the form of worship is a meal. The meal of the demons in eating pagan idol meat is a horrible perversion of the meal of the Lord\u2019s supper. (10:21.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reference to \u201cdemons\u201d here is unsettling for modern readers. As we previously discussed concerning Paul\u2019s reference to \u201csatan\u201d (5:5), Paul lived in a world in which there was no \u201csecular\u201d space. There were elaborate angeologies and demonologies in some of the Jewish Second Temple literature, but Paul does not get into that kind of detail here. He simply asserts that the pagan temple feasts are devoted to \u201cdemons.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul then shifts gears from concerns about idolatry and demons to a more conciliatory mode. He returns to the basic principle of chapters 8 and 9: \u201cdo not seek your own advantage but that of the other.\u201d (10:24.) He then gives permission to eat any meat purchased in the market, even at the home of an unbeliever, and even if the meat may have previously been sacrificed to an idol. The only admonition is to avoid eating if someone raises the questions whether the follower of Jesus should be eating such meat. (11:23-30.) Otherwise, the principle of conscience is that someone else\u2019s conscience should not provide the measure of judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The notions of \u201cconscience\u201d and \u201cliberty\u201d (or \u201cfreedom\u201d) here are important in Paul\u2019s thought, in earlier Greek philosophy, and in the history of Christian ethics. \u201cConscience\u201d is synderesis<\/em> and \u201cfreedom\u201d is eleutheria<\/em>. You shouldn\u2019t think of synderesis<\/em> merely as some kind of feeling. The concept is much broader. It entails the innate human capacity know the first principles of right action prior to discursive reasoning. That innate human capacity is not, at least for the Greek philosopher Aristotle and later for the Christian theologian Thomas Aquinas, just an abstract impression. Rather, it is a capacity to form habits of life that enable a person to perceive the right course of action. Eleutheria <\/em>in ancient Greek thought was the personification of liberty, associated with the goddess Artemis. But the concept meant primarily the status of not being a slave. It was used in connection with Greek political philosophy of democracy to denote a citizen of the commonwealth. (See, e.g., Mogens Herman Hansen, Democratic Freedom and the Concept of Freedom in Plato and Aristotle<\/a><\/em>, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 50:1-27 (2010)). This was not a libertarian<\/em> concept of freedom, meaning merely the freedom to make one choice rather than another. It was a concept tied to membership in the commonweal \u2014 a freedom \u201cfor\u201d as much as a freedom \u201cfrom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even with these qualifications about the concepts behind synderesis<\/em> and eleutheria<\/em>, this is a major concession to the \u201cstronger\u201d members, who also must have been among the wealthier classes if they were able to attend meals in homes at which meat was served. In fact, we could imagine that the person raising a concern might be a servant (slave) who was also part of the ekklesia<\/em> and who was horrified that another, wealthier member of the ekklesia<\/em> was eating this food. Alternatively, or in addition, we can imagine the Jewish members of the ekklesia <\/em>objecting \u2014 for them, eating meat from the market that was sacrificed to an idol was not kosher and was as much a participation in idolatry as participating in a pagan temple feast. For the Jewish members, the Torah<\/em> gave commands on these points that could not be qualified by appeals to synderesis <\/em>and eleutheria<\/em>.\/3\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n Paul concludes this section with a summary principle: \u201cwhether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.\u201d (10:31.) This principle entails giving no offense to anyone and always seeking the welfare of others \u2014 in imitation of Paul, but even more basically, in imitation of Christ. (10:22 \u2013 11:1.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In light of this broader principle as it relates to the question of idolatry and conscience, it could be helpful to remember that the temple feasts were public or semi-public events that connected to the Roman elites\u2019 understanding of what held their culture together and gave their place in society legitimacy. Whatever exactly Paul had in mind by his reference to \u201cdemons,\u201d throughout his letters he pictures the \u201cpowers\u201d of this world in contrast to the Kingdom of God. For a follower of Jesus, a worshiper of the God of Israel, to partake in a public temple feast, was to engage in performative rituals that gave legitimacy to a system of powers that opposed the peace and justice of the Kingdom of God. A meal in a private home, however, was simply an act of friendship. This was what Jesus himself did \u2014 he ate with \u201csinners.\u201d Participating in a public ritual that stands against God\u2019s Kingdom dishonors God and is idolatrous; participating in a private friendly meal enacts God\u2019s Kingdom and glorifies God. That, at least, seems to be what Paul had in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some Discussion Questions on this Section:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \/1\/ An important point of clarification here: \u201cIsrael\u201d means the ethnic-cultural-religious-political community that can be identified as heirs of God\u2019s covenants in the Hebrew Scriptures with Moses, Abraham, and David. From the time of the early church through today, this means the disapora of Rabbinic Judaism in all of its forms. It does not<\/em> mean the modern nation-state of Israel. Whatever other views one might hold about the modern nation-state of Israel, the \u201cLeft Behind\u201d type of Zionist theology that identifies the modern nation-state of Israel with Biblical \u201cprophecy\u201d is bad Biblical exegesis and bad theology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \/2\/ From a historical-critical perspective, these strong statements about idolatry and the oneness of God likely were drawn out and emphasized within the canonical texts of the Hebrew Scriptures as they took their final shape during the Babylonian Exile. Worship among the early Hebrews might always have been more syncretistic than the commandments suggest. In various places even in the canonical texts, God (YHWY) does not always seem to be depicted as the only \u201cgod.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \/3\/ We should not, however, imagine that pious Jews viewed the Torah <\/em>without any flexibility at all. The Rabbis engaged in extensive debates that provided glosses on the Torah<\/em> and made distinctions based on specific cases. These debates formed the mishnah<\/em>, or oral law, which was later redacted and incorporated into the Talmud<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Introduction In chapter 10 Paul continues the discussion of eating meat sacrificed to idols. This chapter can be a bit confusing because it seems in some ways to pull back from the more flexible approach to this problem in chapters 8 and 9. Remember, though, that this is a letter, not a philosophical treatise. Even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[93,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1-corinthians","category-biblical-studies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Tissot_Moses_Destroys_the_Tables_of_the_Ten_Commandments.jpg?fit=398%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-TR","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3465,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3463\/revisions\/3465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Narrative Crisis: Idolatry<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Notes<\/h4>\n\n\n\n