It’s Not About Eating Meat

Bible Text: 1 Corinthians 10:14-17 | Preacher: Pastor Mike Hale | Series: 1 Corinthians

There is but One God Who put on flesh, lived among us, and provided birth into God’s eternal family, by believing in God’s One and Only Son (John 1:1-4, 12-14; 3:16; 10:27-30; 14:6-7).

When we take the cup and the bread at the Lord’s Table, we claim oneness with God and with each other, as God’s children (v. 17), “we who are many, are one body.”

1Corinthians 10:18-22… The Levites who served in the Temple were allotted portions of the animals that were sacrificed on the alter to God, by eating the sacrificed meat they fully identified with God (Leviticus 7).

Pagans offer sacrifices to idols, fake gods, Paul says here, “to demons.” The meat from those sacrifices was often sold in the meat markets in Corinth, some were right next door to a pagan temple; this was troublesome to Christians who had come out of those cults.

But those idols are nothing, for there is only One True God, and those who serve Him are to have nothing to do with pagan worship and the feasts that they celebrate.

When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we remember and honor the sacrificial death and sovereign resurrection of God’s Son, Who is both Lord and Savior.

Pagan sacrifices honored demons, and God’s people were not to participate in or condone such things. Do you remember what happened when the Israelites (vv. 7-8) were worshipping the golden calf, while Moses was up on the mountain with the LORD? God put to death 23,000 of them for their idolatry, revelry, and sexual immorality.

1Corinthians 10:23-24… We have freedom in Christ; we are not under the Law, nor required to follow special diets, wear certain clothing, keep sabbath regulations or perform religious rituals (Colossians 2:16-17, 20-23).

We are free to do and to experience a great many things, but that doesn’t mean everything is good for us, or honoring to Christ. Our purpose in Christ is not to be self-centered, but instead, to be service-centered: first to God, then to God’s people, and then to the unbelieving.

Jesus commanded: Love God, love your neighbor.

1Corinthians 10:25-27… After Pentecost, some of those who had become Christians, were invited to have dinner with their unbelieving friends; the meat served for dinner was very likely purchased from a market where sacrifices to idols and pagan deities was sold.

Paul says, don’t worry about it, don’t make a big fuss about where the meat came from, so as to offend the unbelievers over an issue of food; Christians were free to eat any meat without reservation of conscience (Acts 10).

1Corinthians 10:28-30… If however, you are eating at the home of an unbeliever, and with you is a new believer, or one who has not yet learned that he is free to eat meat that was sacrifice to idols, and the unbelieving host states that the meat is from idol worship, Paul says, don’t eat it!

It is better to offend the unbeliever than to offend the believer whose conscience may be harmed by this issue; for the Lord Himself taught that it is by our love for fellow Christians that we show we are true believers and followers of Christ (John 13:34-35).

In 1Corinthians 8:8-9, Paul says we are no worse off if we eat meat, and no better off if we don’t; neither one commends us to God, but we should treat others the way we ourselves want to be treated – this is the Royal Law, the Golden Rule of Scripture.

To restrain yourself for another’s sake is gracious, even godly, it is the Christian thing to do. We ought to consider our influence upon others; what we have the freedom in Christ to do, should be weighed against the harm we might do to another’s conscience, by flaunting our own freedom in a way that genuinely offends them.

If we purposely hurt someone or cause them to stumble in their faith, by insisting on having our freedom to do something in their presence that previously held them captive, we are sinning, for we are seeking our own pleasure at the expense of another’s welfare.

I need also to say here that there are situations when it is not about a person’s conscience, or about causing them to stumble spiritually, but instead is about their pet peeves, dislikes, or personal preferences; that is a quite different situation. Listen, just because someone is offended or doesn’t agree with your freedom of choice, is not necessarily a good reason to abstain.

Love always instructs us not flaunt our liberty before someone who feels strongly about something because of sincere convictions; but denying behavior just because it supposedly offends someone is not necessarily beneficial, as it does not help those in the church, who are bound by legalism or immaturity, to grow.

Paul gives the reason why you or I should not do something we have the right to do, something that there is no clear teaching in God’s Word to forbid or discourage us from doing so, for he says, (1Corinthians 8:13) ”Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.” What a selfless attitude!

As servants of God and brothers and sisters in Christ, we may, at times, need to allow others the freedom to express themselves in ways that we are not necessarily comfortable with; and we may, at times, need to restrain our freedoms for the sake of not injuring the conscience of a weaker brother or sister in Christ.

1Corinthians 10:31-33… We should not purposely offend others over issues of food, drink, clothing, religious practice, or sabbath keeping. For whatever we do should bring glory to God, encouragement to God’s people, and God’s message of salvation to the lost (1Peter 2:9-17).

Christianity is a personal relationship with God through Christ, allowing us to know and to obey His Revealed Word (the Bible) by demonstrating the new life He has given us, as we proclaim His message to everyone who will listen (1Corinthians 15:3-4), “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”

Paul says (v. 33), “I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved,” for Christianity is not about personal freedoms and individual rights concerning clothing and diet, nor about religious rituals and regulations concerning Sabbath keeping and forms of worship. *Romans 10:9-10, 13