“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.
Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.”
If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience. I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours. For why is my freedom being judged by another’s conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. (
When reading Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, there are times when the first century church’s situation can seem very distant from our own. For example, eating meat sacrificed to an idol is not something most of us worry about these days. And yet, in the middle of what Paul is saying about the peculiar situation in Corinth, suddenly there emerge certain universal principles that we can apply to our own lives today.
Such is the case when reading the end of 1 Corinthians 10. I see in the verses we have just read Three Guidelines for Christian Living that are just as pertinent to us today as they were two thousand years ago.
In this section of his letter, Paul continues to address certain issues raised by the Christians in Corinth. They are, among other things, very concerned with the issue of freedom, just as we continue to be concerned with the same issue today. The Corinthian Christians wanted to be free to do whatever they wanted to do, without anyone else telling them what to do. Doesn’t that sound like America today?
The Corinthians said, “We have a right to do anything.” That sounds very American, doesn’t it? Ever since the Bill of Rights was penned, Americans have been very concerned with their rights.
How does Paul respond to this talk of rights? He acknowledges that in one sense this is true. The Corinthian Christians are free in Christ to do whatever they want. “But” Paul adds a very important qualification. “Not everything is beneficial. Not everything is constructive.”
So, what does Paul suggest that we as Christians should do to decide how to use our freedom? This is where the first of three guidelines for Christian living emerges from this seemingly esoteric discussion. And that first guideline is…
Seek the good of others.
For Paul, freedom is not a license to do what I want. Rather, freedom in Christ means liberation to do what I was created and redeemed to do—and that includes, primarily, seeking the good of others.
That is also a good definition of love. Love, in the Christian sense, is not, primarily, a feeling. Rather, love is an action. Love is doing what is best for the other person.
So, how does this work out, practically, when it comes to the issue of eating meat sacrificed to an idol? Paul agrees with the so-called “strong” Christians in Corinth that Christians are free to eat meat sacrificed to an idol. After all, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it,” just as it says in Psalm 24:1. Because this is true a Christian is free to eat any meat sold in the marketplace, and to eat any meat served in someone’s home.
However, here is where seeking the good of others comes in… Suppose a weaker Christian is present with you at a party in a non-Christian home. And suppose further that weaker brother or sister in Christ points out to you that the meat being served for dinner was offered in sacrifice to a false god. In that situation, Paul says, the “strong” believer should abstain from eating the meat for the sake of the weaker Christian who might be led astray by the “stronger” Christian’s actions.
Let me give you an example of a modern situation that is not exactly like the situation in Corinth but reveals the same principle in action…
As you all know, I grew up in a Christian home. My parents also drank alcohol in moderation. I never thought of a Christian drinking alcohol as anything unusual until the day my oldest brother got engaged to a fellow student at the Christian college he was attending. Suddenly, the girl’s parents were coming over to our house to meet my parents for the first time. And for some reason, my parents were hiding all their bottles of various alcoholic beverages and telling me, as a seven-year-old, not to mention it. That was the first inkling I had that not all Christians believed or practiced the same thing when it came to drinking alcohol.
Years later, after my first year in seminary, I became a summer intern at Montreat Presbyterian Church in North Carolina. There I met some students from Montreat College who wanted to know what I thought about drinking alcohol. They thought it was wrong for a Christian to drink alcohol, but they wanted to know what I thought. I don’t remember how I answered their question at the time, but it made me realize that I needed to work out my own position on the matter.
Well, just like eating meat sacrificed to an idol, I think that Christians are free to drink alcohol, in moderation, if they so choose. The Bible says nothing against this, though the Bible does speak against drunkenness. Furthermore, there are many positive examples of drinking alcohol in the Bible. Jesus was known for drinking wine. He turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, not the other way around. And Jesus made wine one of the central symbols of the sacrament we use to commune with him and be reminded of his death.
At the same time, if I know that my drinking alcohol in a particular situation might offend someone, or lead someone astray, then I won’t do it. For example, I will not drink alcohol when around someone who I know is an alcoholic. I voluntarily restrict my freedom because I am seeking the good of another.
Paul goes on to say in verses 32 and 33…
Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God—even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.
Now, here is where the situation can get sticky. Ideally, Paul will never offend anyone. But Paul’s statement raises the question: Is it really possible to “please everyone in every way”?
Perhaps Paul was trying to do the impossible. I tend to agree with the poet John Lydgate who said, “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
The very interesting thing is that, in Galatians 1:10, Paul seems to say the exact opposite of what he says here. In Galatians Paul says…
Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
So, in Galatians 1:10 Paul denies that he is trying to please people, but in 1 Corinthians 10, he is making it his goal to please people. What’s going on here? Is Paul being inconsistent?
No, I don’t think Paul is being inconsistent. I think he is using the phrase “pleasing people” with slightly different nuance in each verse. In Galatians, pleasing people is evil because it is done with a view to currying favor to avoid persecution. In 1 Corinthians, pleasing people is good because it is done with a view to lead others to faith. What really matters is one’s motive. Why do we want to please others?
The bottom line is this: seeking the good of others is a Christian principle we can always live by. It was a good guideline for Christian living in the first century and it is still a good guideline to live by today.
Do all for the glory of God.
The second guideline for Christian living that arises out of this text appears in verse 31: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
Whenever we have a question about our course of action in life, we can ask: “Will this action glorify God or not?”
Now, what do we mean by “the glory of God”? How do we “glorify” God?
The word in Greek is δόξαν. From it we get our word “doxology” which means “a word of praise”. Thus, according to Paul, we need to do everything in life for the praise of God, or we might say, for the “honor” of God.
I was raised in the Presbyterian Church. Early on I learned the first question and answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The first question is: “What is the chief end of man?”
I will give you a hint as to the answer: the chief end of man is not his feet. No. The Westminster Shorter Catechism says that the chief end or purpose of human beings is “to glorify God and to enjoy God forever.” In fact, those two things are intertwined. We glorify God best by enjoying him, and we enjoy him best by glorifying him. When we discover our purpose in life and begin to live it out, that gives us great joy.
Paul says that we can glorify God even in the mundane acts of eating and drinking. C. S. Lewis explains this truth in this way…
All our merely natural activities will be accepted, if they are offered to God, even the humblest: and all of them, even the noblest, will be sinful if they are not. Christianity does not simply replace our natural life and substitute a new one: it is rather a new organization which exploits, to its own supernatural ends, these natural materials.
Do you eat and drink with thankfulness to God for what he has provided? If so, you are glorifying God in your eating and drinking. Table fellowship in biblical times was a sacred event. Dinner in your home can be an almost sacred experience if you do the old-fashioned thing of sitting down and eating together, and if you pray and invite God’s presence into your midst.
Jesus says we can also give glory to God by bearing spiritual fruit. “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15:8)
We can bear spiritual fruit for the Lord in our everyday lives and work. Jesus once said to his heavenly father, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” (John 17:4)
We can give glory to God by completing the work he has given us to do, whether that work is that of a pastor, or an engineer, or a doctor, or a father, or a mother.
Sociologist, author, and preacher, Tony Campolo, once said that when his wife, Peggy, was at home full-time with their children and someone would ask, “And what is it that you do, my dear?” she would respond, “I am socializing two homo-sapiens into the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they might be instruments for the transformation of the social order into the kind of eschatological utopia that God willed from the beginning of creation.”
There are different ways that we can look at our work. It’s like the story that is told of the foreman on a building site who asked several of his workers what they were doing.
The first one replied, “I’m breaking rocks.
The next one said, “I’m earning for my family.”
But the third one said, “I’m building a cathedral.”
We can look at our work simply as something we do to make a living, or we can see it as something we do to bring glory, praise, and honor to God. It all depends upon perspective.
We can glorify God even when we are ill. Jesus said of his friend Lazarus’ illness, “This illness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” (John 11:4)
We can glorify God when we go through trials. 1 Peter 1:7 says that trials come into our lives “so that our faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
We can glorify God even in death. In John 21:18 Jesus says to Peter…
I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.
Then John comments that “Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.” (John 21:19)
James Stewart once told the following story…
In December 1666, Hugh MacHale, the youngest and most gallant of the Covenanters, was brought to his trial in Edinburgh. He was given four days to live and then marched back to the prison. And in the crowd on the street, many were weeping that one so young and so gallant should have only four days more to see the sun shine. But there were no tears in the eyes of this young Galahad of the faith. “Trust in God!” he cried to the crowd as he marched past. “Trust in God.” And then suddenly he saw a friend of his own standing on the edge of the crowd and he shouted to him, “Good news; wonderful good news! I am within four days of enjoying the sight of Jesus, my Savior!”
What a way to face death… and life! As a pastor I have had the privilege of watching many a Christian handle the process of dying, and often have I noted what a witness it is to the living of the glory of God.
The bottom line is this: you will never encounter any situation in life where you cannot, by God’s grace, give him glory. That means you will never face a situation where you cannot fulfill your God-given purpose with God’s help.
Follow the example of Christ.
Finally, Paul closes out this section of his letter by saying, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” That’s the third major guideline for Christian living that emerges for me in this passage: follow the example of Christ.
Whenever we wonder about what we should do in any situation, we can always ask the question: What would Jesus do?
In His Steps is a novel written by Charles Sheldon. Since it was published in 1896, the book has sold more than fifty million copies.
The book began as sermons which Sheldon delivered to his church, a chapter per week each Sunday night. The story he wrote takes place in the railroad town of Raymond. The main character is the Reverend Henry Maxwell, pastor of the First Church of Raymond, who challenges his congregation to not do anything for a whole year without first asking: “What would Jesus do?”
I wonder, what might my life look like if I didn’t do anything for a whole year without first asking, “What would Jesus do?” What would your life look like? How might the living out of an answer to this simple question change the life of our church, our community, our world?
One thing is certain: none of us can follow the example of Christ, none of us can glorify God in everything, none of us can even seek the good of others, without the help of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus says in John 15:5… “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
Let’s ask for the help of the Holy Spirit to abide in Christ, the vine…
Comments