Food Sacrificed to Idols

I've been reading this book lately called Eat Well: A Food Road Map. It is published by an organization called Culture is Not Optional. It is a pretty good read; the compile a bunch of essays, art, poems and book recommendations that all have to do with how we eat. There are some that have to do with sustainability, others about the way we eat and the biblical basis for how we should, others about eating locally, etc.

Yesterday I was reading one titled "Food Sacrificed to Idols". It was taking a look at the passage in 1 Corinthians where Paul addresses that exact issue, which was raised by the people of Corinth. In this letter we see Paul responding to the questions of the people about whether they should eat meat that has been sacrificed by pagans to their idols in the temple. When I first read this part of Corinthians I thought: If they think eating that meat is that big a deal then why don't they just not eat the meat from the temple? But it is not that easy. The temple was one of the main sources of meat for the city. The temple was the restaurant, the butcher in Corinth. So Paul warns the people not to be a Christian and go into the temple and take part of eating that meat which they know was just sacrificed to pagan idols.

However, Paul does not tell the people of Corinth to become vegetarians. He simply says there are some people that cannot get over the fact that the meat was sacrificed to an idol and that mind set defiles the meat for them. But then he says that there are some where that is not an issue for them, they know that food "does not bring them closer to God, no worse if we do not eat, no better if we do."

Paul doesn't want the folks who get it to influence the others to just go around eating the meat in the temple. He ends the section by saying: "Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall."

I think this is a chapter that can be over looked. It is so easy to just look at it and say okay, don't eat meat sacrificed to idols or don't influence those that don't have as much knowledge as you do to sin.

In the Eat Well book there was a lot of focus on Paul talking about knowledge. Paul starts off the chapter by saying: "We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." In some ways it is hard to even see how this relates to sacrificing food to idols. Paul just rambles on a little bit about knowledge and love before he goes on to address what the Corinthians were really asking. But it is amazing to see how in those two sentences he sets up the whole passage.

Paul tells us that we are not to lord our knowledge over other people and use that as a way of telling them what to do. In order for us to really help, to really show those who are "weaker" sometimes we have to put aside all the knowledge that we have about something and show them the way through love.

In the book there was an example about a couple and their young son. The son was convinced that there was a boar that lived in his room. Every night the boar would come out and keep the kid from being able to go to sleep. So his parents would come into the kids room and check out the situation until he was able to fall back asleep. Instead of the parents getting up every night and telling the kid that the boar did not exist they would chase him around the house until he left, they would capture him and toss him out the window, and then finally they drew a lifesize picture of it and burned the picture in the backyard getting rid of the boar for good. If the parents had gotten up every night and insisted that the boar was imaginary, or did not exist or tried to rationalize with the child, the boar would have still been a reality to the kid every night.

In this story the parents did not try to hold their knowledge over their son, but instead loved him and gave into his reality in order show him the truth. That is what Paul asks us to do, it may have to do with food here in 1 Corinthians, but can easily be applied to every part of life. We are inpatient and try to use our knowledge to tell them all in one time, thinking they will get it. But knowledge puffs up while love builds up....