Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.Last Wednesday was an amazing day! I had worked up some extra hours at the office, including a Saturday morning, and had enough to take the day off to escape to Lake Louise. Just me, my skis and the mountains. While that, in and of itself, was a spectacular experience, I want write about what happened during the car ride home and at 20's Worship that evening.
1 Corinthians 8:1
One of the coolest things about having an iPod is that I can load a whole shwack of sermons onto it and engage my audio-learning mind while driving or running or doing other mentally mundane tasks. On my way home from Lake Louise, I listened to Joshua Harris' message on 1 Corintians 8:1. Now, sacrificing food to idols is not something that happens a whole lot in the 21st century in Canada, but the parallels hit quite close to home.
Eating food sacrificed to idols in the culture of Paul's day was quite common place. It seems that some Christians saw that those idols were nothing, so "sacrificing" food to them meant nothing and eating that food was no big deal. Other Christians didn't make that connection or had a background such that idol sacrifices was a big deal and for them. That second group of Christians viewed eating that food as sin. Paul's point was that the knowledge that the idol sacrifice was actually meaningless would tend to "puff up" those who had that knowledge. Love, on the other hand would build up. So, despite the fact that eating food sacrificed to idols was "permissible" (1 Corinthians 6:12), if our indulgence in such a pleasure caused trouble for a fellow believer, we are called to love that person and parade about our so called "right" to eat that food.
Now that's just a very brief summary, and I would recommend that you give it a listen. That message was enough to get me thinking about what things I feel I have the "right" to do that other Christians perceive as off-limits. When I got to 20's Worship, Pastor Steve was talking about the same thing! He based his message off of a different passage in 1 Corinthians (which I can't recall), but the key point was the same: there are some gray areas in morality about which honest Christians disagree. These gray areas are not topics like murder or adultery, but things like alcohol consumption, dancing, secular music and the like.
Now, the fact that I heard two people give nearly the same message on the same day may just be coincidence, but I'm going to assume that God was trying to tell me something or at least get me to think about some things. Here are a few topics that came to mind:
- Alcohol consumption
I think I'm pretty clear where I stand on this one. It doesn't bother me too much if friends have an appropriate amount of alcohol in a controlled setting and are smart about their driving habits afterwards. On the other hand, I can totally see why some people would dry a line in the sand and say no to alcohol anytime. I rarely have any, but that's manly because I don't like the taste or I'm too cheap. Clearly, getting drunk and losing one's inhibitions is sinful, but there is a lot of gray area in the middle and I can respect people wherever they are on that spectrum. Praise God that he has given me grace there!
- Skiing/biking/hiking etc time/money spent
Well, this one hits pretty close to the heart doesn't it? I have to be honest about the fact that I spend a lot of my resources and time on my past times. I'm passionate about them. I love them. Yet, while I do draw nearer to God when I do them and they make me really happy, they can become quite inward focused. My idea of a spectacular bike ride is me, my bike, mile after mile of single track and no bears. There's not a lot of "love you neighbor" involved and it's true that the money that I spend on that bike could have been used to feed the starving masses in Africa.
I suspect that some Christians would feel that my expenditures are uncalled for. I am comfortable with them though realize that I should keep an eye on them and make sure that I still give the money God asks for to the appropriate ministry. - Yoga
Now, here's something where I fall on the other side of the fence. I'm really uncomfortable with Yoga. I know that some Christians can, but I just can't get over the fact that it's deeply rooted in Eastern Religions. I might also be put off by the overly awkward positions in Yoga and the fact that I'm on the stiff side of the flexibility scale. I must remember to give other Christians the benefit of the doubt in this area. Christ can redeem anything, including bizarre stretches. - Poker
This is one where I'm not really sure where I fall. Poker has always had a negative stigma in my mind and I must admit that I haven't really given it much thought. I've heard two main arguments against poker. First, if you play with real money, it's gambling, which can be dangerous. The other is that it is basically a exercise in deceiving the other players. Thinking back, I'm not sure that the deception argument is that strong. Deception is part of football (play action pass), soccer (fake one way, hit the ball the other) and most active sports. It's also part of other benign card games like hearts or cribbage. So long as you all go into the game expecting deception, have fun and shake hands at the end I guess don't really see a problem with it. So, with the caveat to keep a watchful eye on the gambling side of it, perhaps poker is something that I should give a bit more grace too.
