1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1 (NIV)
“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, 26 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.
Those who continued to patronize the temples of pagan gods, usually for the prime meat that was sold there at discounted prices because it had been offered to idols, leaned on the freedom a Christian has in Christ to justify their actions. That is a source of the saying “I have the right to do anything”. If the pagan gods were not real gods, then it couldn’t be a sin to eat food offered them.
Paul’s response is twofold. First, even if a Christians has the right to do anything, a saying which Paul does not endorse here, not everything is beneficial. Christians don’t live for the moment, they live for eternity, and everything we do must be looked at with that long-distance view in mind. Will what I am contemplating move God’s agenda forward, help someone to find salvation, or help them to grow as a disciple? If not, I need to find something to do instead that will do those things.
The other side of the response is that, even if something is permissible for me, will my participation harm someone else, physically, emotionally, or spiritually? If so, then that action should be avoided for the sake of the other person.
Paul’s instruction in this case is that if food is available that a Christian suspects came from the meat market, it is fine to eat it without digging into its source. It is meat. On the other hand, if someone goes out of their way to identify the meat as having been offered to a pagan god, then the Christian should abstain. This situation may be a setup, designed to see how serious they are about their faith, and if they’re willing to compromise with other gods for the sake of a nice steak. Or the person offering the information may be tacitly asking someone older in the faith than they whether it is okay to make those compromises.
In either case, Paul’s practice, and the practice that he recommends to others, is that the Christian not eat the meat. It might not be any kind of real compromise in their own mind. But under the circumstances where the situation is specifically raised by the other person, it could look like one to them, and it could fuel attacks on the legitimacy of the Church, or it could move a weak Christian to actual compromise that could ultimately hurt their faith.
Father, we need to remember at all times that, as Christians, we are not “lone rangers”, but have been grafted into the body of Christ. As a part of Christ’s body, all our decisions affect the body one way or another. To some, the call to restrain oneself may feel like unreasonable restriction. But it is actually love, purposefully chosen and intentionally lived out. In this sense, it is action taken just like Paul habitually took, lived out in conscious imitation of Jesus, who did not choose his own way, or exercise the infinite freedom He had as the Son of God, but who chose the path of self-sacrificial love at every juncture. Help me, Lord, to live that lifestyle, today and every day, to Your glory. Amen.