As I said, I advanced this because I wanted to see how people would react. I also have a belief, drawn from my theologian friend, that we shouldn’t avoid Scriptural topics that make us nervous, because those are often the ones that Jesus wants us to work on.

Paul had been discussing Christian liberty – how everything is permissible, but not everything is good for us, and how we need to consider the other guy’s weaknesses while we exercise our freedom in Christ. So, it is understandable that a topic like this would come up. In our 21^st Century culture, we see this as subjugation of women, but I don’t see it that way.

The Mediterranean culture that Paul was writing to in the 1^st Century was one where married women wore a head covering as a symbol of her status as a married woman. Within the Greek culture, it was also common to mark prostitutes with shaven heads. Apparently, the Corinthian church had asked Paul about something that was occurring in their church. Married women were apparently setting aside their head coverings when they were prophesying. The Corinthians – true to their divisions – were debating whether this was acceptable. It was a legitimate question and, setting aside our own ethnocentrism, Paul’s answer went to the heart of what he was trying to teach the Corinthians about Christian liberty.

Christian liberty is not about the freedom to do whatever we want in the name of the Lord. True, we are not under the Law of Moses and do not have to keep the Levitical Law. However, we who are under the Law of Christ must love our fellow man enough to consider his foibles as we live our Christian lives. Thus, we consider the women of Corinth. What exactly were they doing?

The head dress was the symbol of their marriage and the symbol of their husbands’ authority over them. In removing them, the prophetesses were perhaps showing that Christ was their head, which is entirely appropriate. I met the Lord quite a few years before I met my husband. In fact, he came to the Lord in part because of my witness, so if there were a hierarchy in Christ, I am his elder. My salvation does not depend on him and what I know of the Lord is independent of my husband’s authority. I stand before Christ alone, and I will do so on Judgment Day. Paul’s final sentence “if anyone wants to argue about this, we have no other Or no such custom, nor do the churches of God.” indicates that he understood that some cultures would not have a tradition of head covering for women. There would be disagreements over this tradition. As always, Paul noted that tradition is not the basis of rules within the Christian Church. The Law of Christ is.

Therefore, he told the women of Corinth to put their headdresses back on because he agreed with their husbands that it was unseemly for them to throw off the symbol of their marriage. On the other hand, he noted that “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” Our Christian love for our fellow man should extend to not arguing about appropriate modes of dress. This is NOT saying that all modes of dress are acceptable. It is saying that arguing about it is not worth the harm the argument does to the cause of Christ. It’s just clothes! It comes under the same heading as the meat offered to the idols and then sold in the meat market. Nothing wrong with it, unless someone else’s conscience is bothered by it.

It is important to note that these women were speaking in a public gathering where visitors might be present. Just as with the subject to orderly worship, Paul spoke to meeting the needs of the secular community around the church. They could not act in isolation. What would outsiders think if they were all babbling at one time in the church service? What would outsiders think if the women prophesied with their heads uncovered? On the other hand, if you traveled afield and discovered people who thought head coverings to be a strange custom, why argue about it?

Many times in our Christian walk we encounter things that have no bearing on our walk with Christ. For instance, I eat shrimp. As a Gentile believer whose relatives have probably been Gentile since the tower of Babel, I have never lived under the Law of Moses (which banned shrimp, like pork, because it had a bad habit of making people sick and dead back in the days before refrigeration and de-worming meds). As a Gentile, I have never been under any obligation to keep the Law of Moses. This does not mean that some parts of the Law of Moses aren’t a good idea. Gentile Christians are free to obey Levitical laws when they are useful. When laws are not useful to the cause of Christ, they should be set aside. When however, our freedom in Christ becomes a stumbling block to others, we should not cling so ferociously to freedom that we alienate those who are of weaker or no faith.

What this means in a 21^st Century context can be a little complicated. If I am traveling in the Middle East, I am going to cover myself appropriately so as not to offend with my attire those whom I want to speak with about the Lord. If I am lunching with my vegetarian coworkers, I am not going to order meat, so as not to offend with my lunch those whom I want to speak with about the Lord. On the other hand, I have no cultural tradition of wearing a head covering to show my status as a married woman, so I do not wear a head scarf at church. As I do not live in a community where the wearing of head scarves is considered the norm, I probably will not be donning one in my church any time soon. On the other hand, when I visit my MIL’s church, where it is considered appropriate for a woman to wear a scarf when inside the church, I do wear a scarf out of deference to her beliefs. It’s about reaching the most number of people for Christ by offending as few as possible with that which we can control.

“Give no offense, either to the Jews or to the Greeks or to the church of God, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved. Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” I Corinthians 10:32-11:1

Burqas and hajibs are not required by the Bible, but a sensitive heart to those we would bring to Christ or who are new in Christ is essential to bringing people to the Lord.  It is not what we wear on our heads that sets us apart for the Lord, but what we hold in our hearts.

“Everything is permissible,” but not everything is helpful. “Everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up.” I Corinthians 10:23

For the Christian, the Law of Christ, as previously discussed, allows us the freedom to step out of our cultures in order to be relevant to other cultures for the cause of Christ. We can eat pork and shell fish, wear mixed-fiber clothing, and start fires on the Sabbath. We can even celebrate our Sabbath on Sunday instead of Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. Everything is permissible so long is it does not involve violation of God’s law. For example, the commandment “Keep the Sabbath holy” means something. To the Pharisees it meant you couldn’t heal a man on the Sabbath which was at a set prescribed time of the week. To Jesus, it meant He could heal a man on the Sabbath. Why could He, a Jew, do that? Being God incarnate, of course, He could supersede His own rules, but that wasn’t Jesus’ answer to those who called Him on violating the Sabbath commandment. “The Sabbath is made for men, not men for the Sabbath,” he said. The Law of Christ supersedes the Law of Moses.

Paul no sooner reminded his disciples that the meat offered to idols in the marketplace had no power over them than he turned around and seems to reverse himself. But did he? Or did he simply balance two Biblical issues?

“No one should seek his own [good], but [the good] of the other person.” I Corinthians 10:24

On the one hand, we have Christian liberty that allows us to break the bounds of our cultural norms and on the other, we have the conscience. Christians must not seek their own good, but the good of others. This can sometimes be complicated.

“Eat everything that is sold in the meat market, asking no questions for conscience’ sake, for
the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it. If one of the unbelievers invites you over and you want to go, eat everything that is set before you, without raising questions of conscience.” I Corinthians 10:25

For the church at Corinth eating the idol-offered meat was not a matter of faith. It wasn’t going to hurt them and to assure that they wouldn’t feel the prick of former beliefs; Paul suggested they not even ask their host where the meat came from. It didn’t matter. Meat is meat! And, there were times when they might be invited to an unbeliever’s home and meat might be on the menu. If they ignored it, they wouldn’t offend anyone. If they asked, they might. A Christian seeking to tell someone about Christ should not seek to offend them over trivial cultural matters. However, there were other considerations.

“But if someone says to you, “This is food offered to an idol,” do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who told you, and for conscience’ sake. I do not mean your own conscience, but the other person’s.”
I Corinthians 10:26

The Christian life then and now is a complicated one as we weigh the Law of Moses against the Law of Christ. Culturally, the Corinthians could eat meat offered to idols, but some Corinthian Christians refrained from doing so because they felt they were participating in the sacrifice. Paul and some of their fellow church members knew this wasn’t true. Meat is meat! But, some suffered pangs of conscience and this was an issue for Paul and needed to be a concern for the church at Corinth. As a Christian, I am bound by my weaker brother’s conscience. I am also sometimes bound by the sincere conscience of my non-Christian associates. This is not for my sake, but for theirs.

“For why is my freedom judged by another person’s conscience?  If I partake with thanks, why am I slandered because of something for which I give thanks? Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for God’s glory.

"Give no offense to the Jews or the Greeks or the church of God, just as I also try to please all people in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved."  I Corinthians 10:26-33

Yes, I have freedom in Christ, but I should not let my liberty become an offense to those around me. I am not to seek my own profit, but the profit of many, that by some means, some people might be saved.

We don’t have a lot of meat being offered to idols these days, but I can think of several instances where Christians can damage their weaker brothers or turn off non-Christians even while not violating the Law of Christ. One of my daughter’s friends asked why Christians can’t say cuss words. After clearing up that Christians are not to take the Lord’s name in vain, we turned our attention to the s-word and the f-word and a few other words. Where in the Bible, she wanted to know, are these words forbidden? I had to answer that they aren’t forbidden anywhere in the Bible. So why can’t Christians say them? According to a strict reading of the Law of Moses, we can. And, according to Christian liberty, we probably can too. But, there’s that whole Law of Christ that Paul discussed through this letter. Why is my freedom judged by another person’s conscience? It shouldn’t be, but human beings are human beings. Most people consider a Christian who cusses to be a hypocrite. They might accuse us of that if we don’t cuss, but they definitely think we are if we do. If my husband is talking about the reality of Jesus in his life over lunch with another construction worker and the friend is cussing a blue streak, my husband would do well not to correct his speech. It doesn’t harm my husband to hear those words, but asking his friend to stop might offend him and prevent future discussions about Jesus with him. However, if my husband lets one rip when he slams his thumb, this might cause his coworkers to have a lower opinion of him than before (just listen to that hypocrite!) and that would also make it difficult to witness to his coworkers. That’s the Law of Christ working in our lives. We consider the other guy’s conscience to be more important than our freedom.

Cussing is permitted, but it’s not useful!

I have a couple of coworkers who are vegetarians. I am not! I don’t consider the eating of meat to be an ethical violation. I never pretend to these people that I do not eat meat. That would be dishonest. However, I don’t order meat when I go to lunch with them. Making them sick watching me eat Bessie is not a good way to advance the cause of Christ. It is not about my conscience. It’s about theirs!

Eating meat is permissible, but when I’m with them, it’s not useful.

Freedom in Christ is a wonderful thing! It freed us from the intricacies of the Mosaic Law. Thank you, Jesus! But, we remain under the Law of Christ. Our first commandment from Him was to go to the world and tell people about Jesus. There are useful ways of doing that and sometimes those ways involve our freedom. I’ve got no problem sitting down with you for a shrimp dinner, but I bet Peter did. This is why he proved to be a reluctant apostle to the Gentiles. Paul was much more comfortable setting aside his identity as a Jew to reach non-Jews. His was a ministry advanced by freedom from the Mosaic Law.

Yet, freedom requires personal restraint through discipline of our human tendencies. All things may be permitted, but some things hinder the cause of Christ. As I examine my life, I can think of many such examples where my Christian liberty could spell slavery for those of weaker or no faith. And, it is my responsibility to “Give no offense to the Jews or the Greeks or the church of God, just as I also try to please all people in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.”

It’s not all about me! It’s about Christ and what He wants me to do for the other guy.

“Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.  I am speaking as to wise people. Judge for yourselves what I say.

"The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?
Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for all of us share that one bread.  Look at the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar?

"What am I saying then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but I do say that what they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons!

"You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot share in the Lord’s table and the table of demons.

"Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?"

“Everything is permissible,” but not everything is helpful. “Everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up.  No one should seek his own [good] , but [the good]^*. of the other person.

"Eat everything that is sold in the meat market, asking no questions for conscience’ sake, for
the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it. If one of the unbelievers invites you over and you want to go, eat everything that is set before you, without raising questions of conscience.
But if someone says to you, “This is food offered to an idol,” do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who told you, and for conscience’ sake. I do not mean your own conscience, but the other person’s. For why is my freedom judged by another person’s conscience? If I partake with thanks, why am I slandered because of something for which I give thanks?

"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for God’s glory.
Give no offense to the Jews or the Greeks or the church of God,
just as I also try to please all people in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved." (I Corinthians 10:14-33)

Paul was once again reiterating, as he would do several times in this letter, that Christians should run, not walk, away from that which harms their spiritual walk with God. Yet, some readers of this passage get totally the wrong idea about what Paul taught. Never take Bible passages out of context. This is why, in this particular discussion, I am not breaking up the subject passage, even though they appear to be saying two different things. In reality, Paul is balancing two perspectives of the same doctrine. The cherry-picked Bible can be used to support almost any ludicrous idea, but when taken in context as a complete body of work, the Bible teaches many balanced doctrines, particularly as we move from the Law of Moses to the Law of Christ.

Christian liberty would be a major subject in a later letter Paul wrote to the Romans. It would also feature prominently in the first Christian council at Jerusalem and in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Christians are no longer under the Law of Leviticus, but under the Law of Christ. That is Christian liberty. Yet, in I Corinthians Paul discusses the consequence of too much Christian liberty.

He started by telling his immature followers to flee idolatry. Corinth was a pagan city, so there were lots of idols to choose to worship. The Corinthian Christians would not have been born Christians (Jesus had only died 21 years before), so they would have been intimately aware of idol worship. Paul was a very intelligent man. He understood the intricacies of the human mind. So, he put this issue into simple terms for them, into terms that they used in their everyday Christian lives. He invoked the Lord’s Supper. That simple, probably frequent symbolic act of breaking bread to remind one of Jesus’ torment on the cross and drinking wine to remind one of His blood’s washing away our sin was the clearest and probably most common form of worship in the New Testament Church universal. In participating in the Lord’s Supper, Christians join in a singular ceremony honoring our God and His sacrificial salvation.

I’m sure the Corinthian Christians were nodding their head in understanding at this point. Of course, eating the Lord’s Supper is an act of worship. It would have been their most familiar act of worship. But then, the reader (most likely Timothy) presented Paul’s next point. When a worshipper eats of the sacrifice to an idol, is he not participating with the priests in the worship of the idol? I think that the Corinthian Christians held differing opinions on this. Idols were not, are not God. They are mostly statues of stone and metal. A few are empowered by demons. None have power over the Christian. And, this is likely what Paul had taught when he’d been working within the Corinthian community – come out from among those inanimate idols of stone and metal and embrace the One True Living God. And, many of them believed wholeheartedly idols had no power over the Christian and therefore, it was just fine to eat of sacrifices offered in the meat market.

Alas, it’s the return of the Corinthian slogans! I don’t think Paul liked those very much. In the heads of an immature church, they really were wreaking havoc and I can understand Paul’s annoyance. It’s like runaway slogans of any kind. Slogans can serve a purpose to catch an idea in our oh-so-slippery minds, but if we turn them into dogma, they can do as much harm as what they were designed to deliver us from.

Although I included the whole passage here, I’m going to post my analysis on the second part following. In my prayers, God has revealed to me that what I post on this subject is of enough weight to give it special handling.

Paul wanted them to understand that the Christian life is all about the journey and Jesus is the one Who leads us on that journey. We are saved on the day we accept Christ as Savior, but we spend the rest of our lives working out that salvation in our daily lives. It is fitting that he used the idea of athletics since he was writing to Greeks who lived not far from Mt. Olympus and the plain of Marathon.

“Do you not know that the runners in a stadium all race, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.  Now everyone who competes exercises self-control in everything. However, they do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.

"Therefore I do not run like one who runs aimlessly, or box like one who beats the air.  Instead, I discipline my body and bring it under strict control, so that after preaching to others, I myself will not be disqualified.’ I Corinthians 9:24-27)

My daughter is a dancer. Ballet, hip-hop, jazz, highland – she’s taken pretty much all of them. Don’t let ballet dancers fool you! They look delicate, but they can hold their arm in a curved position at shoulder level while standing on their toes for long, long periods of time. I know, because I’ve watched her do it. A boy in her school once made the mistake of trying to jab her in the stomach and he sprained his finger. This is the sort of athletic training that Paul was talking about, but he applied it to training in the Christian life. I love to dance, but I can’t dance as my daughter does because my body is not trained. I am like a boxer beating the air, merely wasting time with shadows. And, this is the sort of discipline Paul said we should exhibit in our Christian life. His reason was clear. So that the preacher won’t look like Elmer Gantry at the end of the movie.

Paul used the example of Old Israel as they were leaving Egypt, spending 40 years in the desert. They had fun times! They were all following the pillar of cloud and all were rescued crossing the Red Sea. They all got to nosh on some manna and drink pure spring water. Then came the calf and the sexual immorality around the calf and pretty soon 23,000 people were dying in a single day. It got their attention far better than God’s loving care had. Is their example enough to get ours? Was it enough to get the attention of the Corinthians?

“Now these things happened to them as examples, and they were written as a warning to us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

"Therefore, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall!” I Corinthians 10:11-12

Reminding the Corinthians to beware of their pride – the assumption that they were just all right with God – Paul also reminded them that God is greater than anything negative that they might encounter.

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. God is faithful and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape, so that you are able to bear it.” I Corinthians 10:13

None of us is special; none of us has been given unique burdens. Someone somewhere has suffered or is suffering through whatever temptation may exist in our lives today. God has already provided a way to escape temptation and a way to bear up under temptation. We must simply turn to Him and ask for it.

It is sometimes tempting to say – there’s no way I can control that – whatever “that” is. Alcoholics are told they can’t control their drinking. Addicts are told they can’t control their using. Overeaters are told they can’t control their eating. Teenagers are told they can’t control their sexual behavior.

Paul said “Nonsense!” No temptation exists that God cannot overcome! That’s not to say that relying on God rather than on your own strength comes naturally for most of us, but it is a necessary discipline like all those hours of plies my daughter had done. I know a marathon runner who tells me that those 26 miles are preceded by about 2600 miles of training. That’s discipline and it translates into fields other than athletics. It translates into every area of our lives – from what we eat to what we say.

Israel failed because they had their eyes focused on the Sinai Desert around them rather than on the God above them. We’re all passing through some Sinai Desert on our way to a Promised Land. Do we have our gaze set on God as He leads us to where He is taking us? Or do we let the desert sands grab our feet and the temptations around us distract us from our goals? Paul told the Corinthians that they had a way of escape that wouldn’t take the temptation away, but would help them to resist it, but they had to discipline themselves in order to take advantage of it.

We must discipline ourselves for the race God has given us to run.

“About food offered to idols: We know that “we all have knowledge.” Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up.  If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know it as he ought to know it.
But if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.” I Corinthians 8:1-3

Paul started out explaining the knowledge is a good thing, but that knowledge un-tempered by Godly love inflates pride. Whenever we’re prideful of our knowledge, we’re headed for a big stumble down a long flight of stairs because we’re over-confident in our own smugness. It is only through our relationship with Jesus that we know anything for certain. We should feel no pride in this because it’s not from us that the knowledge comes.

You’ll notice by the quote marks that the Corinthian slogans are back. Paul really must have hated these, because the passage simply drips with sarcasm.

“About eating food offered to idols, then, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world,” and that “there is no God but one.” For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”—  yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him
.” I Corinthians 8:4-6

History lessons are in order once more. In the cities of the ancient world, there wasn’t a lot of meat. Farms were located on the outskirts of the cities. Urbanites did not themselves go hunting. So, meat was a delicacy. It was common practice in that day for large quantities of meat to be offered to various idols (false gods) at their temples around the city. It was offered at a fair price. Those who were not followers of that god would buy the meat and consume it. Typically, if one was a follower of the god, one did not eat meat offered to that god. This would have been a common way to get meat in those days, but it also appears to have been a common way for Christians to get meat.

Remember, Christians knew that these temples to the Greek gods were honoring nothing more than stone, metal and wood. The One True God is spirit and, while in Jerusalem sacrifices were still ongoing in the Mosaic tradition, the Christians knew that Jesus had been the ultimate sacrifice that had rent the veil between the Holy of Holies (which only the High Priest could enter) and the rest of us. The meat was just meat and naught more.

“However, not everyone has this knowledge In fact, some have been so used to idolatry up until now, that when they eat food offered to an idol, their conscience, being weak, is defiled.
Food will not make us acceptable to God. We are not inferior if we don’t eat, and we are not better if we do eat.” I Corinthians 8:7-8

What if you had been a follower of the god whom the meat had been sacrificed to before you became a Christian. Might not some lingering discomfort exist with eating meat offered to that idol? This was the issue and Paul wanted the Corinthians to understand it.

“But be careful that this right of yours in no way becomes a stumbling block to the weak.
For if somebody sees you, the one who has this knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, won’t his weak conscience be encouraged to eat food offered to idols?  Then the weak person, the brother for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge.
Now when you sin like this against the brothers and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ.

"Therefore, if food causes my brother to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother to fall.” I Corinthians Chapter 8:7-13

Putting this into modern-day terms -- Jesus turned water into wine, so obviously there is no commandment that says “Thou shalt not drink of the fruit of the vine.” Some churches teach a convoluted theology that cherry-picks Scripture or justifies in one way or another that the Bible really says you shouldn’t drink alcohol, but you can’t really logically support that argument when you read about the marriage at Cana. You can, however, make a limited argument about the subject from I Corinthians 8.

Several of my fellow church members are recovering alcoholics. I’m going to use them as an example, but the subject does not need to be alcohol. It could be rock music or R-rated films or chocolate cheese cake or …. I think you get my point.

My friends may or may not be physically addicted to alcohol. In some cases they may just be weak of character. Whatever their reason for having this weakness, they are unable to stop at a moderate, social-acceptable level of drinking. They are like the old Navaho saying – “First the man takes a drink; then the drink takes a drink; then the drink takes the man.” Simplistic, but true. Some people simply cannot drink alcohol. They lack control over it. Yet, as Christians we know that it is not a sin to drink alcohol as long as we do it in moderation. That’s knowledge. “Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up.” We are called to love our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and to put aside any pride that might get in the way of that love. So, if I want to party with my Christian friend and I think it’s just fine to bring alcohol into the situation, what have I done to them? I have placed them in a position of violating their conscience, but I might also have placed them in a position to sin. In other places in Scripture we are instructed to moderate our use of alcohol. It is not wise to abuse it. In fact, since drunkenness is an abuse of the temple of Christ (our bodies) we are sinning when we get drunk. If someone is an alcoholic who cannot control whether they get drunk or not, then we are inviting them to sin when we say “It’s okay to have a little wine.” It may be okay for me, but it’s not for them.

“Then the weak person, the brother for whom Christ died, is ruined by your knowledge.
Now when you sin like this against the brothers and wound their weak conscience, you are sinning against Christ. Therefore, if food causes my brother to fall, I will never again eat meat, so that I won’t cause my brother to fall.”

Remember always that our freedom in Christ is not liberty to harm one another. We have an obligation to look after the weaker members of our community. If you know someone who might be lead astray by drinking, don’t drink around them and don’t set it up so they will know you drink freely. I know of at least one recovering alcoholic who was struggling who took the fact that an elder of our church will occasionally enjoy a cold beer to mean that God would allow him to do so as well. He believed Satan’s lie. Last I knew he was still drinking and no longer an active member of any church. Don’t ask someone who believes rap music is evil to sit in your car listening to a Christian rap band. Yeah, it would be nice if they got off their high horse, but maybe they’re up there to keep from getting back down into the muck from which they just came. We must have compassion on those who are weak in the faith and bring them along slowly to where they are now strong. We must not use our liberty as an opportunity to “ruin our brother in Christ” with our knowledge.

It’s great to be smart; it’s better to be compassionate!

This is perhaps the nutshell of instructions to missionaries. Be what is needed in the situation in which you minister. Obviously, from statements Paul made earlier in the letter (and reiterates later), he was not saying to join the pagan culture around them. He recognized that would be disastrous to their Christian walk. What he advocated was flexibility and acceptance of differences – the real meaning of diversity. The Jews followed the Law and that was fine. Paul did not consider himself to be under the Law any longer, but if he was fellowshipping with Jews, he’d keep their customs. The Gentile culture differed from the Jewish culture and Paul had championed the rights of Gentiles to be Christians without becoming Jews. When he fellowshipped with Gentiles, he did not follow the Jewish dietary customs and he felt no guilt in having done that. “I am not under the Law,” Paul declared. “I am not outside of God’s Law, but under the Law of Christ.” In doing so, he was an effective minister to all the people groups he encountered.

In the letter of the Galatians, Paul warns of a heresy that was circulating in the Gentile churches at the time and had apparently infected the church at Galatia. We call it Judiazation. Basically, the idea was that Gentile Christians needed to follow the Jewish law in order to be good Christians. Paul was very stern on this subject. It was a lie from the devil, he said.

I Corinthians was written before Galatians. In fact, there’s good evidence that I Corinthians is the earliest of the epistles (written about 26 years after Jesus’ death). So, Paul is not yet dealing with this heresy on the level that he would later need to deal, but this is an early indication that he knew it was around. Paul no longer considered himself under the Jewish Law. In Romans 11 he later wrote that he was appointed apostle to the Gentiles. Given the stringent rules of the Mosaic Law, a good Jew could not minister to Gentiles effectively. Paul had stepped from beneath the structure of the Mosaic Law to shelter within the Law of Christ. He became flexible in order to reach those who differed from himself. He clearly used the Levitical Law to teach moral living apart from the pagan Gentile lifestyle, but he did not ask his disciples nor himself to live within the strict guidelines as the Jews did. Want to move a chair on the Sabbath? Go for it. If you accidentally make a furrow in the dirt floor of your house, you are not guilty of plowing and therefore violating the Levitical Law. A Jew might be guilty, if he chose to remain under the Law, but Paul and the Corinthians were not.

In the 21^st Century, we can learn much from this rather short passage. We find inspiration and instruction for moral living within the Mosaic Law, but Gentile believers are not required to follow that Law to the letter. In areas having to do with moral living, we are right to look carefully and to consult the Law because it is our guide, but when it comes to areas of culture we should not make ourselves slaves to the Law. I am currently wearing a polyester/cotton blend T-shirt. Now, those who don’t understand this concept of freedom in Christ will sometimes insist that I am violating the Law regarding mixed fabric garments – that if I don’t keep this one picky rule, I am violating the entire Law. That’s nonsense! This passage addresses it as does much of the Letter to the Romans. The T-shirt I’m wearing has nothing to do with my walk with Jesus. It does not come between me and God and it does not (currently) come between me and my fellow man. Therefore, for someone under the Law of Christ merely drawing instruction from the Levitical Law, I am not in violation. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ.” Romans 8:1. Now, were I to travel to another culture where women are not to show bare arms, my T-shirt would become a violation of the Law of Christ, not because of its fiber content, but because it would come between me and those to whom I wish to witness. This is the Law of Christ, that the Law of the Jews does not become a stumbling block to anyone coming to know Christ.

With regards to how we present ourselves to the world outside of the Church, I think we also receive a message from Paul. Be flexible! Don’t let culture trump ministry. I am reminded of a great Christian missionary to China – Lottie Moon. She went to China under the auspices of the Southern Baptist Convention and while in Shanghai, she found herself at odds with the Presbyterian missionaries who wore their Victorian western clothing and scarcely ever ventured into the countryside. They didn’t even speak the language and had to rely on interpreters. They held a belief, according to Lottie’s letters home, that they were not only called to preach the gospel, but to transform China’s people into Westerners by modeling “appropriate dress and customs.” They weren’t reaching many people. Lottie moved out into the countryside, donned Christian-appropriate Chinese clothing and began to witness to people in Chinese. She spent the rest of her life there and many of the Christians in China today could trace their spiritual heritage back to her. She understood Paul’s admonition to “become all things to all people, so that I may by all means save some.”

Are we being flexible for Christ? Do we do what it takes to reach out to those who might find Christianity to be odd and unapproachable at the initial contact? Are we willing to do what it takes in terms of changing personal habits that are not essential to our walk with Christ in order to reach those who judge those personal habits negatively? I know I have failed in this account on numerous occasions.

What about you?

It behooves us to remember that Paul never knew Jesus in His lifetime. Paul was an apostle “out of time”, as he described himself. He met Jesus in a flash of blinding light on the road to Damascus while headed there to arrest Christians. In some ways, nobody has ever had a more dramatic introduction to God. Paul sincerely desired to know God even before he became a Christian. His whole life was spent in training to be a student of the Hebrew God. Some scholars believe he was not only a student of the great theologian Gamalial, but in line to be his successor. Tradition suggests that Paul and Barnabas had known each other while at Hebrew seminary in Jerusalem.

Despite his undoubted scholarship with regards to the Hebrew Scriptures, Paul was not accepted by all Christians as an apostle. Some of this was no doubt due to his past as a persecutor of Christians, but that had been in the Holy Land and Corinth was in Greece, so this may not have been as strong an influence there. I think (and it is only my humble opinion) that the office of apostle was of such magnitude among the first-century Christians that they did not lightly award it to many. We really have no modern-day equivalent of an apostle. They were missionaries sent to spread the gospel. The original 12 were sent by Jesus, but after His ascension, the remaining 11 apostles and the disciples with them took it upon themselves to elect a 12^th by group vote. I’m not sure they were supposed to do that as nothing seems to have come out of the appointment. It appears to me that apostleship was something directly ordained by Jesus. The original apostles became theologians whose relationship with Jesus was such that they carried His authority in their teaching. They had been commissioned by Jesus Himself for this work. Paul met Jesus after His resurrection, after His ascension. Scripture leaves no doubt Paul actually interacted with “the Lord” on the road to Damascus, but some thought a spiritual encounter was secondary to having been friends with the Messiah. Paul certainly disagreed. Others were not so sure. There would always be questions about his authority in some segments of the Christian Church. There are still a few modern day skeptics who question Paul’s authority, usually when they don’t like his theology. The Corinthian Christians knew that Paul was who he said he was, an apostle of Jesus. He had won them to the Lord. They accepted his authority. But there were some, even in the church at Corinth, who did not wholly accept Paul’s authority and this caused difficulties for not only Paul, but Barnabas.

"My defense to those who examine me is this:  Don’t we have the right to eat and drink?
Don’t we have the right to be accompanied by a Christian wife, like the other apostles, the Lord’s brothers, and Cephas?

"Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working?

"Who ever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not drink the milk from the flock?

"Am I saying this from a human perspective? Doesn’t the law also say the same thing?
For it is written in the law of Moses, "Do not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain. Dt 25:4
Is God really concerned with oxen? Or isn’t He really saying it for us?” I Corinthians 9:3-10

Apparently, Paul and Barnabas had worked as what we call “tent maker” missionaries while the church at Corinth didn’t pay them anything. This was not the established pattern with missionaries. Paul named a few of them – the other apostles, the Lord’s brothers (this would have included James, the writer of the Letter of James and currently probably the pastor in Jerusalem) and Peter. These men, it would seem, were supported financially by the churches they ministered in. Was God so concerned with oxen that He wrote in the Law of Moses that an ox should not be muzzled while it treads out the grain? Of course not! God’s word is meant to teach us how to live with our fellow man. He who labors gets the benefits of his labor.

“Yes, this is written for us, because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes should do so in hope of sharing the crop.

"If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?
If others share this authority over you, don’t we even more? However, we have not used this authority; instead we endure everything so that we will not hinder the gospel of Christ.  Do you not know that those who perform the temple services eat the food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the offerings of the altar?  In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should earn their living by the gospel.” I Corinthians 9:10-14

Paul sought to teach the church at Corinth to be good stewards and to remember that the pastors and apostles needed to eat food; they couldn’t just live on air and faith. Paul was not seeking a reward for himself, he wrote, but reminding the Corinthian church of their obligations. It was enough for Paul that he could bask in having preached the gospel.

“But I have used none of these rights, and I have not written this to make it happen that way for me. For it would be better for me to die than for anyone to deprive me of my boast!  For if I preach the gospel, I have no reason to boast, because an obligation is placed on me. And woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, I am entrusted with a stewardship.
What then is my reward? To preach the gospel and offer it free of charge, and not make full use of my authority in the gospel.” I Corinthians 9:15-18

Paul recognized that he was under no constraint to preach to those God had brought into his path, but that he had voluntarily agreed to be whatever it took to reach people for Christ. He would live as a Jew to reach Jews. He would live as a Gentile to reach Gentiles. He would not eat of the meat of false idols if it caused weaker brothers to stumble. He looked forward to the rewards God would give him in the end.

Bringing that into the 21^st Century, a contemporary situation comes to mind. I know that it’s practically a doctrine among some denominations that the pastor be bi-vocational – having a job besides being pastor so that the church does not have to pay him. This is not a wrong practice in a church that is too small to support a pastor. I know several pastors who work a full-time job as well as pastoring because the church they are the pastor of cannot afford to pay them. Sometimes this is because of a small congregation, sometimes it is because the church has ministries that the pastor considers more important than his salary (this is the current situation with my own church that is working its way out of rough financial patch and will probably start paying our pastor’s salary in the spring.) I am not saying that a church that does not pay its pastor is, at nature, evil or unChrist-like. There are circumstances that warrant flexibility with regard to pastor pay and benefits.

However, I know of some rather large and well-off churches that have never paid the ministerial staff and would not pay them. That is wrong! It leads to high pastor burnout with consequent turnover, but more to the point, it can – as is apparently the case in my own community – to pastors who start taking liberties with church funds. This being the kind of town it is, I know the church and I know the pastor. I am in no way excusing thievery (though I will point out that he is innocent until proven guilty and the accusation is inconsistent with what I know of the character of the man), but I do know that this particular pastor has not drawn a salary in the 20+ years he’s labored at the church. He’s always had other jobs, but he’s also been the janitor, maintenance man, the snow-shoveler, etc., for the church. If someone came to my home to do those functions, I’d expect to pay them. I’d feel guilty if I didn’t and they’d likely quit performing those functions if I didn’t. This church (and I know of several others) would disagree with me. The pastor is called to preach and pastor, but that doesn’t mean you have to pay him, would be their answer to me. They’d point to Paul the tentmaker and insist that it’s unscriptural to pay the pastor. I think they need to actually read the scripture in its entirety.

If this were a small church struggling to pay the electric bill and do a little ministry, I would have naught to say to them about payment of their pastor, but this isn’t a small or poor church. This church that doesn’t pay its pastor so much as a housing allowance or a retirement plan just built a new, huge, beautiful building and, according to the newspaper, it was in this process that the funds were embezzled. It’s a beautiful building that is at least three times larger than my church’s building. I’m sure the congregation deserves it and it will likely bring in more members. Those are good things. Yet, I can’t help feeling like an ox was muzzled as he threshed the grain and that makes the church as guilty of thievery as the pastor. This is my personal opinion, but I find verification for my opinion in this scripture passage.

Again, I will reiterate, I am not condoning thievery. If this pastor did embezzle these funds, he deserves prison. There is no justification for stealing church funds. If a church does not pay its pastor, the pastor has the option to find another church that will pay him. Thievery is not an option for a Christian. But, a well-fed ox doesn’t steal from the threshing floor. A pastor who is paid a reasonable salary (in MY experience) is not tempted by the offering plate. A church that can build a $1 million building should be able to afford to pay the pastor.

More to the point, it is the obligation of the Body of Christ to care for the men God has anointed to be our servants and guides. They should pay the primary ministerial staff of their church. Paul reminded the Corinthians of this apparently because they had been less than forthcoming in paying a pastor. I suspect from reading the whole letter in context with itself that he was looking out for Timothy who delivered the letter and was being introduced as their pastor. If the brothers of Jesus were supported in their ministry endeavors by their churches, Timothy deserved to be supported by the church at Corinth as they ministered to him. Paul and (perhaps) Barnabas were apparently content to be bi-vocational and to gather their rewards in heaven, but that didn’t mean Timothy needed to do the same thing.

When we seek a church, a primary criterion should be that the church nurture and mature us through Biblical teaching. Like the Corinthians, many of us have a lot to learn about the Lord. We find those lessons in the Bible. Sometimes those lessons are not pleasant and this may be one of those bitter pills. Certainly there is disagreement in the Body of Christ on this issue. I don’t think that is disagreement born from scriptural fogginess. It seems pretty clear reading Paul’s letter that he thought churches in 21^st Century United States with all the advantages, bells and whistles (similar to the wealthy church at Corinth) ought to pay their pastor. Can we do anything less?

"In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should earn their living by the gospel.”

The flesh-and-blood part of me thinks it would have been entertaining to fellowship at the First Church of Corinth. They allowed sexual immorality in the congregation and they apparently had some rocking worship meetings. They also had some catchy phrases that apparently had become known outside of the congregation. Sounds like a cool, hip, happening church! Paul was concerned about them, though. Why? Isn’t the goal of the church to reach out to the world and show them how attractive we are? Doesn’t cool, hip and happening provide a way for us to do that? Paul told the Corinthians to beware of where cool, hip and happening took them.

“Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is helpful. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be brought under the control of anything.
“Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods,”  but God will do away with both of them. The body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.
Do you not know that your bodies are the members of Christ? So should I take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Absolutely not!

"Do you not know that anyone joined to a prostitute is one body with her? For it says, The two will become one flesh. But anyone joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
Flee from sexual immorality! “Every sin a person can commit is outside the body,” but the person who is sexually immoral sins against his own body.
Do you not know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body. (I Corinthians 6:12-20)

Before we start, I’m going to make a disclaimer here. I am a human being! I am not a nun! I was not born a Christian. I am married and I have two children, conceived in the usual way. I enjoyed the conceiving. I enjoy sex when I am not conceiving children. I am not saying sex is evil. I am teaching what the Bible teaches, that sexual immorality is disobedience to God and therefore sin. We are NOT talking about marital sex in this lesson. That’s later in the letter. Enough said. Now onto the lesson.

Biblical scholars suggest that “everything is permissible to me” and “foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods” were slogans used by Corinthian Christians. Remember that the Corinthian church was a wholly Gentile church. Situated in Greece, it was not a Jewish or even part-Jewish church. Thus, they felt not the constraints of Judaic dietary law. Having no background in Judaism, the Corinthians were used to a pagan lifestyle where sex was part of worship (vestal virgins were most definitely not virgins) and non-monogamous sex was common within and without marriage. Paul, in keeping with his teachings in the letter to the Romans and elsewhere, would have taught them that they were not under the Law, but under Jesus. And, here’s where I think the problem arose.

We all have liberty or freedom in Christ. In reality, until we’re saved, we’re really slaves to sin and its degradations. It is when we become Christians that we are freed from that and then voluntarily gives ourselves to Jesus as our Master. Gentile Christians, never having been Jews, are not restrained by the Mosaic Law. We can do whatever we want. However, we are to be constrained by our love of God from certain behaviors, ordinarily behaviors that come between us and God or between us and our fellow human beings. The Corinthian Christians – prideful, arrogant, self-confident as only a toddler with a couple of days on his feet can be – had remembered half of the teaching and forgotten the other half.

Everything is permissible to the Christian, but some things aren’t good for us. We are not to submit to the control of anything other than God for just as God resurrected Jesus from the death of His body, He has resurrected us from the death of our spirits. We are free from all but God, to Whom we should willingly submit ourselves.

Paul uses the example of immoral sexual activity, but we could just as easily be talking about over-eating or alcoholism/drug addiction (just to name a few). These are activities that would take our liberty in Christ and turn it into slavery to that activity. We become one flesh with certain activities, either helpless to fight against them or the fight would require so much of our attention that we would be little use to God. But Christians belong to the Lord. We are one flesh with Him, joined by the Spirit. Thus, there are activities Paul said Christians should avoid.

Flee sexual immorality! How much clearer a statement do we need to read? Later in the letter, Paul gives details on what is sexual immorality, details he presumably gave previously in the missing first letter to the Corinthians, but I think it is hardly worth an argument as to what Paul thought was sexual immorality. The man was a Jew of Jews. Pretty much anything but married monogamous sex was immoral sex to a man such as Paul. And, Christians hold that Paul was inspired by God in writing the letters bearing his name in the New Testament. Therefore, Paul was writing as if from God.  And any time Paul uses the term "Absolutely not!" he is using the strongest possible terms for a God-forbidden choice.  Our English translation does not do the strength of this phrase justice!

Why did Paul say to flee sexual immorality? Why not just to walk away quietly, or allow one to grow out of that sin into one’s new life in Christ. No, Paul said to “flee”, connoting run, do not pass go, do not dawdle, get as far from it as you can as quickly as you can! Why the urgency?

Among all the sins in the human range of sins (and we are a creative race in that regard!) sexual sins are the only ones we commit against our own bodies. I have a good friend who spent time as a runaway back in the late-70s. In order to survive, he sold himself as a prostitute. I guess it was better than what he was running away from. Eventually, a Christian family took him in and helped him transform his life. He’s a happily married devoutly Christian man working in ministry with teenagers who are today where he was when he was on the streets. Mark says that no matter the intervening years and all the happy memories that stand between him and those memories, his past sins will always be a part of him and a part of his memory. They even intrude sometimes into his relationship with his very understanding wife. Our sexual partners are always something we remember and sometimes they come into our marital beds even when we think we haven’t summoned their memories. We compare our spouses to former significant others. The counselors I work with in my job tell me that many of the couples they counsel admit to fantasizing about former lovers while having sex with their spouse. Some of them feel guilty about this and it impacts their enjoyment. I’m sure if their spouses knew, it would affect their enjoyment as well. These “divided loyalties” are detrimental to our relationships and detrimental to our mental health. Then, of course, there are STDs, the gift that keeps on giving. Sex is the one sin we commit against our own bodies (which includes our psyche). So, what?

Our bodies are the sanctuary (the holy temple) of the Holy Spirit – the essence of God. They’re not ours to join with a prostitute/sexual partner/big stud on campus. They belong to Jesus, Who bought it with the price of His crucifixion. Just think about that. It took a long time for my husband and I to save the down-payment for our home and it will take 25 years to pay off the mortgage, but we weren’t nailed to a cross, allowed to suffocate in our own pneumatic fluids and then stabbed in the side to assure we were really dead. Jesus paid a heavy price to own my body. The least I can do is keep His temple nice for Him.

We should be using our bodies to glorify God, not to gratify our fleshly desires. There is an incredible amount of joy to be had as a Christian living in Jesus. We do not need to disobey God with our own bodies in order to feel joy. Yet, how many of us think – “This is MY body! I should be able to keep this one thing for myself.” It’s not YOUR body. If you are a Christian, you’ve invited Jesus to live in your heart. Your body is no longer your own. It belongs to Jesus.

“Therefore glorify God in your body.”

These are the words of Jesus --
“If your brother sins against you, Other mss omit against you go and rebuke him in private. Lit him between you and him alone If he listens to you, you have won your brother.
But if he won’t listen, take one or two more with you, so that by the testimony Lit mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. If he pays no attention to them, tell the church. Or congregation But if he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever Or like a Gentile and a tax collector to you.” (Matthew 18:15-17)

There is a tendency among some not to view the Bible in complete context with itself. Therefore, if you read only I Corinthians, you get the impression that Christian churches are to throw out members who are engaged in sin, no questions asked, no options, just do it. Paul may have already instructed the Corinthians to follow the above in that previous lost letter. We have no way of knowing that, but regardless, we who do have these instructions can take them in context with I Corinthians.

Before we toss sinning church members off the church rolls, we have a procedure to follow. It is a simple procedure, so that I often wonder why more churches don’t follow it.

First, go to the sinning member and speak to them privately, one-on-one. Sometimes people simply do not know that they have chosen sin. None of us is born a Christian and thus we are all works in progress as we move forward in our Christian lives. We’re not always going to walk a straight path, always doing what is right. Some of us have a harder time walking that straight path than others. Thus, when a Christian sees another Christian sinning, it is his obligation to judge that person and to deal with the sin.

What? The Bible says “judge not!” Well, yes and no. In I Corinthians 6:1-9, Paul tells the Corinthians that they must judge the matters within the church and not take them to the secular courts because Christians will one day judge the angels. If that is our destiny, it would seem ridiculous to avoid judging our own church bodies. That word “judge” has a lot of negative connotations in our world today. It is not necessarily a negative act. We can judge something positively. My friend Patsy’s quilt was judged positively at the valley fair this last fall. I