Food Offered To Idols (Part 1)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendroff. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the Scriptures verse by verse with No Compromise.

The Difference Between Descriptions and Prescriptions in Scripture

You better be really glad right now that I'm not mystical and that I don't have horrible hermeneutics because if I open up the Bible and just put my finger down randomly, he prolonged his speech until midnight.

It's a sign from God and he's spoken to me and therefore tonight we won't have service because it'll be one long service from this morning. That's why we read the Bible as not necessarily everything prescribed to us.

Some things are just described, especially in the book of Acts with the transitions. Many things are just descriptions. They're not telling the church to do that very thing. Robert Green in Ingersoll said, if a man would follow today the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal.

If he would follow the teachings of the new, he would be insane. Let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 8 and follow the teachings of the New Testament. Just how relevant is 1 Corinthians chapter 8?

How relevant is this book that we have? It doesn't take you very long to say, I'll pick up an old Sports Illustrated from 10 years ago and try to read it and it is out of date. It doesn't take you very long to say, let's pick up some old computer programming books and to see if we can get some money off from them on eBay and you pick up languages like, at least back in my day, Pascal, Cobol, Fortran, Basic Plus, Basic.

They're just so outdated and yet here we have this book. Even if you look at the New Testament, the WPI students are smiling. I'm talking your language. I'm meeting you where you are. By the way, we're glad to have WPI students.

How many WPI students do we have now? Great. And they all sit together except one back here. One over here too. Here we have the New Testament, 2 ,000 years old. Is it relevant? Does it apply for us today, to us today?

Is it pertinent? What can we learn? And out of many passages, this one in particular because at Corinth there was all kinds of unique things going on in this very debauched city and so does it mean much to us?

The Bible says in Psalm 19, the law, our Torah, our instruction of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. It's complete. It's all sided. It takes care of every angle that we need. Can you imagine God and all his eternal wisdom can write a book that's closed, complete, finished, a closed canon and yet to every generation past the book of Revelation, it applies?

That's pretty amazing to try to write something so trans-chronologically relevant. Only God could do that. This isn't an old-fashioned passage. It's not antiquated. It's not out of date. It speaks directly to us in our particular church situation.

God's word has many rich names. I found just a few before we get into the text. Is not my word like a fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer which shatters a rock? For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of the soul and spirit, both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

For you've been born again, not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God. Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. If a church growth guru came to me and said, let me help you with your business strategy.

How do you get that new building down there in Boylston? I know something that they would tell me not to do. They would say, never preach 1 Corinthians chapter 8, 9, and 10 to your congregation. Put them to sleep, it'll bore them.

This is kind of old and out of date. Martin Luther said, I study my Bible as I gather apples. First I shake the whole tree that the ripest may fall. Then I shake each limb, and when I have shaken each limb, I shake each branch and every twig.

Then I look under every leaf. And so today let's shake 8, 9, and 10 and look under every leaf of at least the first few verses of 1 Corinthians chapter 8. Let's read chapter 8 so you get an idea. Remember Paul's answering their questions.

And there's kind of a flag that tells you, oh, here's another topic because he says, now concerning. Concerning such and such. He starts it in 7 .1 and now he does it here in 8 .1 again. They've had questions.

Remember Paul had been there for how many months? 18 months. 1 Corinthians Acts chapter 18. 18 months. He's been there for 18 months and you know he's poured his heart out. Remember Acts chapter 20 when he was at Ephesus for three years?

What did he teach them? Everything. I'm sure he taught the church of Corinth everything too. It was just compressed in about half the time. And they know about Christ's life, his death, his resurrection.

They know about church unity. They know about depravity. They know about all kinds of things. And now Paul leaves and goes away and there's still some issues in the church and now they've got questions.

Paul, you've taught us, but now we'd like some clarifying comments. So he answers another question here in chapter 8. Now concerning. There's the flag again. Food offered to idols. We know that all of us possess knowledge.

If you have ESV, notice quotation marks. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.

Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence and that there is no God but one. Although there may be many so-called gods or so-called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist.

And one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. However, not all possess this knowledge, but some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol and their conscience being weak as defiled.

Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged if his conscience is weak to eat food offered to idols?

And so by your knowledge, this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brother and wounding their consciences when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat lest I make my brother stumble.

So big picture, in context, biblically, they're dealing with this issue, food offered to idols and then eating in the place where that food was offered. For us, we're going to look at something that's apropos as well and that is what do we do with gray areas?

What do we do with areas of the Bible that we don't have a lot of specific instruction? What do we do about areas of liberty? What do we do when it comes to debatable issues? I can think of lots right now.

How do we deal with debatable issues in the church that aren't really talked about biblically? For instance, what does the Bible say about taking some dried leaves, rolling them up with some paper on the outside, putting it in your mouth, lighting it on fire, and then inhaling?

What does the Bible say about that? What does the Bible say about dressing up as an astronaut and going to somebody's door and saying trick or treat? Now both with smoking and with Halloween, you probably have ideas.

You probably think, this is right, this is wrong, I'd never do that, no, that's below me, I did that, we do that, we have a right to do that, we have all kinds of people here. Here's the good news of Bethlehem Bible Church, we're growing.

Here's the bad news of Bethlehem Bible Church, we're growing. And as we grow and the Lord brings new Christians, guess what comes with new Christianity? A new convert, immature ideas, undeveloped ideas, and weak consciences.

And so we have to be very careful. Those of us, if we think we're strong on an idea, the main point Paul's going to say is not for us to walk around saying, we've got our doctrine right, we're set. But if we've got our doctrine right, it should flow to other people.

So if you think, for instance, it is a sin to go to movies, but it's okay to watch them at home with their DVD. You'd never go to the Passion Pit, to the movie theater, but you'd stay there at home. Then when somebody else says, oh yeah, I just saw that new movie, Paul has an idea for you.

And that idea is not to jump on them and attack them. If you really are strong and if you really are right, you're to be humble and say, I have a goal. And so chapter eight, here's the goal. We want to love other Christians.

Knowledge is good. Paul never says, be ignorant, brethren. It's kind of like a new denomination. We have the Plymouth brethren, we have the separated brethren, and we have the ignorant brethren. But that's another sermon.

He doesn't want you to be ignorant. Doesn't he say over and over and over in 1 Corinthians, do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? Do you not know? What are we going to do? People say, well, you teach too much doctrine of the church, there's too much head knowledge.

You can never have enough knowledge of the scriptures. John Calvin's Bible Institute for Christian Religion, you want to know what real knowledge is to understand the knowledge of God first and of ourselves second.

Can you know too much about God? What Paul's going to say is, yes, we know about God, but then it should filter down on how we love other people, especially others in the church who don't do what you do.

Say, well, you know, we don't play with cards at our family. We never grew up playing cards and we don't play cards. We don't use a devil's deck. And then somebody comes over to your house and the kids are making some kind of a house of cards.

And what do you do? How do you go about it? Now, I've given you some funny ones, but let's get to a real one that even happens at this church. What do we do with all the backgrounds of this church when it comes to homeschooling, private schooling, and public schooling?

The answer is, if you think homeschooling is right and biblical, then your response to other people needs to be filtered through 1 Corinthians chapter 8. In love, in the right way, your goal is never, I've got to get them to do what I do.

But see, that's what we end up doing. I do it, therefore it must be good, and I'm going to try to get you to do it as well. Now, if it's something that's a black and white biblical issue, well, that's fine.

That's what leaders do. That's what we do. But these other kind of issues, well, we demand feed children. No, we schedule feed children. No, we bear our children in the hospital. We bear our children at home.

And all of a sudden, can you see what happens when we do this? It reverts back to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4 about division, about unity, where we're supposed to be tied together by Christ Jesus has died for us.

Can you imagine, as I look out there, you don't look anything like Wes Boylston. Wes Boylston, not right, not wrong. Wes Boylston just looks like what it looks like, pretty much white, suburban. And don't you like it that when you preach the gospel, who starts coming to the church?

Only white people? Well, if the pastor's white, the congregation will be white. I don't want that. If the pastor's been redeemed by Christ's blood, I want other people to come who have been redeemed by Christ's blood.

I want Jews here, Gentiles here, whites here, blacks here, females here, males here. The list goes on. But coming with all that, we are different. And you know what the world will say? The world will say, difference is bad.

Male, female differences, bad. And we have good strength in our difference. Difference, well, we don't dance. We love to dance. We don't believe in birth control. We believe in birth control. We're Republicans.

We're Christians. Sorry, I mean, we're Democrats. Wait, I didn't see that. Let me get my glass out again. We tithe. We give free will offerings. We're sacrificial. We put up Christmas trees and say, that tree reminds me of the death of Christ Jesus.

We don't put up Christmas trees because Jeremiah says that's a pagan symbol. There's a story about a pastor who was going to church one day and all the roads were blocked and he had to skate on the river, the frozen river, to get to church one day.

When he arrived, the elders of the church were horrified that he had skated on the Lord's Day. They held a meeting afterwards, vote of confidence. Pastor said, yes, but I either had to skate to church or not get there at all.

Finally, one elder said, did you enjoy it? No, the board said, okay, you're good. Even Lord's Day issues, some here are Sabbatarian, some aren't. I'll even push it past the context. Some here are premillennial, like the leadership.

Some here are amillennial. So what do we do? And so Paul gives us excellent guidance, especially for people who are wound so tightly, they want an answer, do I or don't I? I want a list, you've got to tell me what to do.

And especially with the transchronological book like the scriptures, the Bible would be so thick if it addressed every cultural issue and every setting over time. So Paul gives us great principles here in 1 Corinthians chapter 8.

And we, without trying to sound corny or trite, need to embrace our differences, but then think about the brother or sister that is different than we are, and we'll be fine. So let's look at 1 Corinthians chapter 8 as Paul answers specifically the question, is it okay to buy and eat meat?

Is it okay to go to a place where pagan deities are honored and worshipped? You know, it would have been a big deal back in the day if there was Jews and Gentiles in the church. The Gentiles would say, how could I go back and defile myself?

I used to do that every day. And the Jews would say, hey, we're monotheists. The Shema, the Lord our God is one. It's okay, we know they don't exist. So Paul now is going to talk to people who love do's and don'ts.

He's also going to talk to people who love to say, I can do whatever I want, because I know the truth. 1 Corinthians chapter 8, let's have our outline this morning be, watch words for dealing with gray areas.

Just some watch words for dealing with gray areas. Things that are debatable, things that are questioned, so that we don't divide over those things. What about Christian freedom? Things that aren't forbidden in scripture, things that aren't talked about in scripture, what do we do?

Number one, first gray area, Christian liberty issue when it comes to watch words is be humble, be humble. The opposite of how humility is prideful. You'll see the tenor, even here, you heard it when I read it, that Paul's saying, I want you to be humble and not proud.

It's like Churchill who met a man and he said, yes, he is a very humble man. But then again, he's got a lot to be humble about. We have a lot to be humble about, don't we? I know, I do. And so Paul says, look at verse 1 of chapter 8.

When it comes to knowledge, knowledge is not the end all. Now concerning food offered to idols, we know that all of us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. In ESV, and I think they're right, you see all of us possess knowledge is found in quotation marks.

That was probably written to Paul, saying we all have this knowledge. And again, the idea here, contextually, biblically, is there's no such thing as God in a meat. If you take a slice of meat, there's not a small g God in there, and you don't have to worry about eating the God and having, here's what they were worried about.

If there's a God in the tenderloin, and you eat some of the tenderloin, then what happens to that demon that goes down through your throat? Like a lamprey eel, it attaches to your spirit, and now you're contaminated by a demon.

Who wants a demon on the inside of you? So they wanted to be very careful. Paul had been to Corinth, he taught them there's no such thing, and now there's a group of people who are stronger in the faith, allegedly.

We know the knowledge, we know what you said, we've got it down. Yeah, there's some other people here that don't know, but we know. And Paul is rebuking them and reproving them. You may know, you may have a slogan, but this idea of egotism in the church, and feelings of superiority, and we've got it down, we know better.

That's the wrong attitude. So Paul says, be humble. Let me just address you, beloved. You've been taught at this church, for as long as I've been here, people, whether it's me or someone else, they've come to the pulpit and they've taught you biblically, exegetically, expositionally, systematically, historically, we have IBS classes, we have Sunday school classes, we have conference, you know.

And so we, at Bethlehem Bible Church, should never say, we've got some weak people, and just for sake of argument, they let their kids trick or treat. Halloween, they believe in Santa Claus, and if you rearrange Santa, you know what letters that makes?

And we know, well, we might know, but I remember when I didn't know. I remember when that fundamentalist kid came up to me when I was 12 years old and said there was no Santa Claus, and I wanted to punch him.

Put some fun back into his mental, I just drew right there. Why am I doing this? I thought I was on no compromise for a minute. So Paul just says, you can know, he's not knocking knowledge. He doesn't want mysticism, but here's what he's knocking.

He's trying to knock down the swagger. You've seen pro sports athletes who score a touchdown, and some just have that swagger. I like it better when they score and they just set the ball down and walk over like I did my job.

Overconfidence isn't good. Arrogance isn't good. We've got liberty, swagger isn't good. So number one, church, be humble. Number two, build up. Be humble, number one, build up, number two, instead of puff up.

This kind of knowledge that thinks it's superior does something. Look at the end of verse one. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. I'll say it one more time, Paul is not denigrating knowledge.

He's not somehow saying don't study the Bible, systematic theology is no good. But he's saying the kind of knowledge that says we're superior and you're inferior, he says that just puffs up. And what's the Greek word for to puff up?

He's used it before in First Corinthians. It's an easy one to remember because it's very onomatopoetic. It sounds like this. It's fusio is what it is. Fusio, doesn't that sound like you're blowing up a balloon?

You're blowing and blowing and blowing and it's fusio. So you can just become huge, your head is so huge. I remember when I was a kid my mother would take us outside of Omaha to a hospital for people.

And they had water babies there is what they called them back in those days. Maybe that's not politically correct now. And I just remember those children, their heads literally seemed that big. It's not normal, it's not right, something's wrong when that happens.

So Paul said when you learn these things, it's good to learn them, but then you should help build up other people. It's used of, how many carpenters do we have here? That's the word, it's for carpentry.

We have more WPI students than carpenters. Where you're building something from the foundation up with a nail and with a hammer. I have a responsibility now that I know these things to help build that person up so that they might mature.

This is Ephesians four language, Colossians one language. One man called Paul the theologian's theologian. He's not trying to say be ignorant, but he is saying take that knowledge and do something with it for the other person.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. That's the idea. Building up, used as a carpenter word, then metaphorically as developing a Christian's character.

So when someone comes to you, BBC, and they do something you don't like. Let's say you're a homeschooler. And you say, you know what, this person's in public school. We had it happen here before. I don't know if it happened this year.

Intense pressure on people who public school. And the people either rightfully or wrongfully receive that with some kind of, I'm inferior if I don't. I'm breaking God's law if I don't. The person that's a homeschooler, if in fact they're right, their number one goal should not be conversion to homeschooling.

Their number one goal should be, do you know? Maybe I don't know about the situation with the husband and the wife. Maybe I don't understand the situation about this, that, and the other. My goal is to get involved in their life and what?

Build them up. Because now if you're in there building up and getting your hands dirty, you're not doing, we have three clubs at the school. Homeschool club, private school club. What's the other one?

Public school club. We got the three clubs. I don't want to be known for that. You know what splits churches? Music, schooling. The two number one things that split the church. I am not saying I don't want you to homeschool.

I'm not saying I don't want you to private school. I'm not saying don't go to public school. The Abenroth family, as you know, we are equal opportunity school bashers. Because it just kind of revolves whatever's best for us.

Two homeschooled now, two public schooled now. Couple years ago, it was all homeschool. A few years before that, it was all private school. Maybe just to make some of you mad, next year I'll do all public school.

I don't know. But when you say you think you're right and you're determined and you think I am responsible to teach my kids and I don't want some liberals teaching my kids at school and hand them off and whatever goes through your mind.

Even right things like that. Then you say, though, when I meet somebody else, I need to build into their lives. Then we have the cross thatching of different school mentality versus, you know what, you don't do what we do, you're out.

You're out. I like to say to myself when I'm preaching to myself, Mike, build up, don't bulldoze.

Build up, don't bulldoze. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abenroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11 AM and Sunday evenings at 6 PM. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.