Meat Offered To Idols

So, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. You are reasonable people. Decide for yourselves if what I am saying is true. When we bless the cup at the Lord’s Table, aren’t we sharing in the blood of Christ? And when we break the bread, aren’t we sharing in the body of Christ? And though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body. Think about the people of Israel. Weren’t they united by eating the sacrifices at the altar? What am I trying to say? Am I saying that food offered to idols has some significance, or that idols are real gods? No, not at all. I am saying that these sacrifices are offered to demons, not to God. And I don’t want you to participate with demons. You cannot drink from the cup of the Lord and from the cup of demons, too. You cannot eat at the Lord’s Table and at the table of demons, too. What? Do we dare to rouse the Lord’s jealousy? Do you think we are stronger than he is? [1 Corinthians 10.14-22] 

In Paul's first letter to the Church in Corinth, he answers, among other things, an apparent question about eating meat from the marketplace that was offered to idols. In fact, Paul spends a great deal of time writing about this particular question (1 Corinthians 8.1 through 11.1).

Early in Paul's lengthy response about the meat-offered-to-idols question, we find this important absolute truth:

But for us, There is one God, the Father, by whom all things were created, and for whom we live. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created, and through whom we live. [1 Corinthians 8.6]

This absolute truth reveals the 1st Commandment:

“I am the LORD your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. “You must not have any other god but me. [Exodus 20.2-3]

This absolute truth also reveals the role of Jesus:

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. [John 14.6] 

Furthermore, this absolute truth reveals our fulfillment of the 1st Commandment in Christ as Paul himself testified before the high counsel of the city of Athens:

“He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries. “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone. “God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him. For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.” [Acts 17.24-31]

Why is this absolute truth important? Because of a key word found in the subject passage of this article above: jealousy. We belong to God - He is jealous over us. Where do we suppose Paul got his idea that God's jealousy could be provoked?

“You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands. [Exodus 20.4-6]

Paul encouraged dealing with idols the same way he told Timothy do deal with youthful lust: flee from it! In other words, stay away from any part of it! Don't even go there! "What? Do we dare to rouse the Lord’s jealousy?"

So, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. [1 Corinthians 10.14]

Just suppose idolatry is as much a problem today as this author suggests. Does the Bible give us a flagship indicator of idolatry? In fact, it does! The apostle Paul reveals it in the context of his long answer to the question about meat-offered-to-idols:

I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. All of them ate the same spiritual food, and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ. Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, “The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.” And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day. [1 Corinthians 10.1-8]

Two things are revealed in the passage above: 1) even though these were "God's people," they were dying untimely deaths; and, 2) they were engaging in sexual immorality. Hold this thought, and then consider...

Idols can only hide so much. Today's idols (regardless how much God's people justify them) cannot help but reveal their agenda of sexual immorality. All one has to do is pay attention to advertisements on billboards, the internet and television to see the widespread promotion of sexual immorality. Among the worst offenders in this advertising agenda are the industries of debt, insurance, medicine and technology accounting for the lion's-share of commerce today.

Now, back to the "thought" being held...

Why was it, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10.1-8, that God was not pleased with most of His people resulting in their untimely deaths? Because some of them engaged in idolatrous sexual immorality and Paul was warning us of the same thing! Again:

These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did, or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, “The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.” And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day. Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites. And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death. These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age. [1 Corinthians 10.6-11]

What do we know about the Church today? We know that, with very few exceptions, God's people in the Church suffer and die untimely deaths just as much as people outside the Church. Paul's address of the food-offered-to-idols advises us that even mindless association with the sexual immorality of idols may indeed provoke the jealousy of God. Is this the reason the Church today is so underwhelmingly powerless? Is our mindless association with the industries mentioned above that promote sexual immorality as "normal" (among other idol-identifying factors) the reason our bodies are left scattered in the wilderness of the world?

To think for a moment that "in Christ" all things are allowed, is a grave eternal error of thinking that Christ presents us to God while we embrace the very sin He died to redeem us from. This thought is ludicrous - not to mention, a violation of taking God's name in vain (3rd Commandment).

To take up our cross and follow Jesus is to deny and flee from every way of our own (idols) by virtue of our singular pursuit of Him. If we have any question about what is and what it not allowed, we are reminded that God is a jealous God - in other words, why risk it with anything questionable?

So, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. You are reasonable people. Decide for yourselves if what I am saying is true. When we bless the cup at the Lord’s Table, aren’t we sharing in the blood of Christ? And when we break the bread, aren’t we sharing in the body of Christ? And though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body. Think about the people of Israel. Weren’t they united by eating the sacrifices at the altar? What am I trying to say? Am I saying that food offered to idols has some significance, or that idols are real gods? No, not at all. I am saying that these sacrifices are offered to demons, not to God. And I don’t want you to participate with demons. You cannot drink from the cup of the Lord and from the cup of demons, too. You cannot eat at the Lord’s Table and at the table of demons, too. What? Do we dare to rouse the Lord’s jealousy? Do you think we are stronger than he is? [1 Corinthians 10.14-22] 

In light of this conversation, Jesus' words have depth beyond the understanding of most:

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. [Matthew 16.24 (also, Mark 8.34 & Luke 9.23)] 

Father, I do not wish to rouse Your jealousy - and yet, it seems I live in that very constant and recurring action. What's more, I find myself confused about unanswered prayers for healing. Has Your Word revealed all along what the problem is? Am I so set in my own ways - the ways of the world (everybody's doing it) - that I will never experience, let alone, demonstrate, the glorious power of Your Holy Spirit by following Jesus and Jesus alone? May Your absolute truth set me free. So be it.