1)
The
spiritual life of an in dividual believer does not operate in a vacuum. There
is the statement that no man is an island and no believer is an island. We don’t
live our life in isolation from other people; we don’t operate in a vacuum; we
don’t live in a vacuum; we can’t run around saying we have a legitimate right
to do this or participate in that or to have this characterize my lifestyle, it
doesn’t matter what other people think, why don’t they grow up? We all have a
tendency to say that and in some case that is true, but that is not the
emphasis in this passage. Our spiritual life, while it is our individual
spiritual life, operates first of all in relationship to each member of the
Trinity. But secondly, the Scripture emphasizes that our spiritual life
operates in relationship to other members of the body of Christ and cannot
ignore that or reduce that in terms of its significance. The spiritual life operates
in a context of relationship. That is what the word fellowship means. First of
all, fellowship towards God; second, fellowship towards other believers. This
point cuts across the grain in both the human viewpoint thinking of the Greek
culture at that time and it cuts across the human viewpoint thinking of our
individualism. But the Scripture has a tremendous emphasis on the relationship
of the believer to other believers, and sometimes that is counter to what we
think naturally from a cultural perspective. So we have to realize that we are
not independent, we are not operating on our won, there
is an important dimension of the spiritual life that is related to the body of
Christ.
2)
Warning:
Don’t fall victim to an isolationist individualistic or atomistic view of the
church. What do we mean by atomistic? If we break anything down to its most
minute component, that is an atom. If we have an atomistic view of anything that means all we are doing is
focusing on the individual component and are not looking at how those
individual components relate to each other. The worst expression
of this come from not everyone who is a taper but from people who are in
geographical areas where they just can’t find a local church where there they
can get involved. Therefore they end up listening to tapes all the time and
they think that somehow that is normative. They just live their life on their
own, they never have anything to do with other Christians, they never get
together and pray with other Christians or get together and have communion
which is important, they never get together for corporate worship, and they
convince themselves that that is normative. That is an individualistic view of
the church that destroys many dimensions of the believer’s priesthood. The
normative view of the Christian life as expressed in the Scriptures is a view
related to corporate involvement in a local church. Jesus Christ instituted the
local church in the church age, that is why it is
called the church age; it is not an age for individuals to just operate on our
own. We recognize that there are circumstances and places where it is very
difficult to find a church where people who really want to know the Bible, to
have the Bible taught, can find that. Consequently they are being thrown back on
tapes or CDs and the internet and many people are getting their doctrinal
nourishment from the internet. Nevertheless, we must recognize that that is
from the perspective of Scripture an abnormal situation. The normal situation
viewed by Scripture is for believers to be involved in a local church ministry.
3)
An
understanding of Christian fellowship. Christian fellowship has to do with the
relationship of different believers with each other. It is not just social
life, though. What makes Christian fellowship Christian fellowship is that it
is centred around the Word of God, doctrine, and Jesus
Christ. Christian fellowship has its ultimate central focus on doctrine and
what we have in common because of our salvation and our understanding of
doctrine and the significance of doctrine in our lives. We must understand that
Christian fellowship is not a means of spiritual growth. Spiritual growth comes
from learning and applying Bible doctrine under the teaching ministry of God
the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, Christian fellowship is a consequence of
spiritual growth and is part of our priesthood and ambassadorship; it is part
of our ministry to one another in the body of Christ.
4)
This
section in 1 Corinthians 8-10 which deals with the issue of doubtful things and
the issue of these four laws really anticipates what Paul is going to teach
about the body of Christ in chapter twelve. Several
verses to emphasize what has been said about the role of every believer in
terms of impact on other believers. We have to be careful not to be influenced
by this sort of individualistic mentality that I can go and live my Christian
life without having any involvement with other believers, that it is just me
and my tape recorder, me and my mp3 player, me and my computer, and we can do
just fine. That is a truncated view of the spiritual life. 1 Corinthians
12:12-14 NASB “For even as the body is one [as a corporate body we
are united in Christ] and {yet} has many members, and all the members of the
body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.
5)
A major emphasis
in the Scriptures in terms of the Christian way of life is Christian service to
other members of the body of Christ. Christian service is not the means to
spiritual growth, it is the consequence of spiritual
growth. There are numerous ways in which Christian service can manifest itself
but Christian service is a crucial consequence of spiritual growth and is not
optional. The term that is used in Scripture is “one another.” Passages which
refer to this mutual ministry to one another: “Be of the same mind toward one
another,” i.e. to think the same things toward one another in terms of
doctrine. Romans 13:8 NASB “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one
another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled
{the} law.” [14:13] “Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather
determine this--not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s
way.” [15:14] “And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that
you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to
admonish one another.” Galatians
6)
The spiritual
life is not lived in isolation from other believers but is viewed biblically as
a life that is related to other believers. We can’t fulfil these mandates if we
are not meeting together as a corporate body of Christ.
7)
The efficacy of
our Christian fellowship is based on the growth of impersonal love for one
another.
8)
The law of
personal sacrifice is based on the principle of John 15:13 NASB
“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down
his life for his friends.” The law of personal sacrifice is an implementation
of the principle of impersonal love for other believers.
The situation in 1
Corinthians chapter eight is how the mature believer is going to conduct his
life in relationship to a weak believer, a weaker brother who may have problems
with certain things that the mature believer does not have problems with. The picture
here is not that of a believer who comes over for dinner or sees you in the restaurant
at the temple and sees that you are eating meat that has been sacrificed to
idols and is offended. It is not talking about the believer who sees you out at
the restaurant having a beer or smoking a cigarette or having a glass of wine,
or whatever it may be and they are offended. This is the believer who sees you
having a glass of wine and rather than being offended says this is great, and
then goes out and gets drunk. The person who gets offended is the
self-righteous Pharisee. When Jesus was dealing with the self-righteous types He
would, as it were, walk up to their face and drink a beer in front of them. He
was constantly rubbing their nose in the truth because they weren’t grace
oriented. But on the other hand he showed a sensitivity
to those who were positive but who had areas of weakness. So this involves a
lot of thought and understanding and sensitivity on the part of believers.
Let’s apply this to an area
that is a little less obvious. Let’s say you are dealing with somebody who is
immature in the way they handle money. Their area of weakness is materialism lust
and money lust, they always think that money and the
things that money can buy will provide happiness. So they happen to observe you
down at the store buying a particular luxury item. Maybe it is a top-of-the-range
stereo-DVD player. What they don’t realize is that for the last three or four
years you have been cautiously and consistently putting away money and you are
using your credit card to make the purchase, but they do know you have the money
in the bank and you will pay the bill when it comes. This person, because his
area of weakness is in terms of materialism lust, sees you doing this and
rationalizes that if you can do it they can do it also. They don’t have the money
in the bank, they already have problem with credit card debt, but they
rationalize from your use of a credit card their own sinfulness. We have to be
careful with this. On the one hand run around always thinking about some
believer that might see us do something and use our legitimate behaviour to
justify their sinfulness. What Paul is talking about, to use our example of
credit card and money, is if you were to encourage them to go ahead and acquire
something in that way. That is the idea of putting a stumbling block in front
of somebody. It is an active concept, it is not something that they see you
from a distance do and you are totally oblivious to the fact they are even
around. We can’t be held accountable for other people’s bad decisions. But if you
know that person is around and are aware of the fact that this is an area of
weakness and a problem for them and then you engage in that activity or
encourage them in some way, that is when it becomes
the sin that Paul is talking about in this passage. So we have to be careful not
to take these admonitions to some extreme level which is what some Christians
do.
Application
1)
Self-righteous
believers use taboos to control other believers.
2)
From
that taboo comes a false criterion for spirituality.
That is, you are spiritual because you don’t do certain things or because you
avoid certain things.
3)
The
result of that is that taboos become the factor in determining right and wrong,
and unfortunately this is just the basis of a personal opinion or personal
application or prejudice and doesn’t have anything to do with the absolutes of
the Word of God.
4)
Such
determinations (taboos) are based on a false and often self-righteous criterion.
The norm or standard is not biblical, it has to do
with a personal opinion or viewpoint.
5)
Such
determination denies freedom and flexibility to other believers.
6)
Ultimately
these taboos replace doctrine and wisdom in the soul. This is essentially what
legalism is.
1 Corinthians
8:9 NASB “But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow
become a stumbling block to the weak.” The issue is not food; that was verse 8. Whatever the issue is it is not
a spiritual issue, we are neither worse if we do it or better if we don’t. But
Paul says to be careful. This should be a normal characteristic of a believer’s
life, standard operating procedure, to be careful that our freedom is not a
stumbling block to the weak. Paul is not challenging the fact that you have a
right to this but it can have a negative consequence on a weak believer. [10] “For
if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not
his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to
idols?” He doesn’t understand the issues yet because he is an immature
believer. So he can’t have balance he just thinks this is great and that he can
eat meat sacrificed to idols, but what it leads him to do is go into the next
room of the temple and start getting involved in the fertility worship. He can’t
separate the eating of the meat from the religious environment where this takes
place. The weak believer is tempted to rationalize his sinful behaviour because
of the mature believer’s legitimate participation in some activity. The result
is:
[11] “For through [in=EN [e)n] plus the instrumental dative] your knowledge he who
is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died.” The word “ruined”
is the Greek word APOLLUMI [a)pollumi] which means “destroyed.” That is, his spiritual life
is wiped out, he becomes involved in sin and carnality
because he is using your legitimate behaviour to justify his illegitimate behaviour.
Then Paul drives the point home.
Our tendency is to ask why he shouldn’t figure this out for himself when we
have a legitimate right to this. We are so self-absorbed our tendency is to
always exercise our personal rights. Keep things in perspective. Jesus Christ
died for this other believer and His sacrifice was much greater than our paltry
little sacrifice of not eating a steak on this particular occasion.
1 Corinthians
The whole idea of conscience
is crucial to understanding this passage because the conscience itself, whether
in a believer or unbeliever, can have norms and standards in it that aren’t
biblically correct. What God is saying here is that if you violate your
conscience, even if the standard you have is not correct, the very act of
violating your conscience sets a pattern. It builds a precedent for making it
easier to rationalize and justify sin later on down the road.
1 Corinthians