1 Corinthians 8:1-6

 The one thing you do have to remember is that 1 Corinthians was written in response to problems and questions within the Corinthian church—some which Paul heard about from members of the church, and some which the church wrote to him asking about. 1 Corinthians is organized as a sort of list of these problems or difficulties. With 8:1, we move to a new problem—something that was a problem not just at Corinth but for most Christian churches in the first century. Here, Paul lays out the problem and makes his main comments about it.

This whole section is very difficult for us because it involves a situation that is foreign to most of us.

In Paul's day, idolatry was very common. You will find some people in America today who worship idols, but it is niche and uncommon, relegated to individuals or certain subcultures—not mainstream. That wasn't the case in the first century. It would have been nearly universal. 

And a major part of this polytheistic worship was the sacrifice of animals, which were given as burnt offerings to the god. But in these sacrifices, they did not burn the whole animal. A portion of it was burned, a portion was given to the priests as payment, and the rest returned to the man who made the sacrifice—or, in the case of state sacrifices, it went to a city official.

These sacrifices were often made as part of a feast. The man would give his offering and then use the rest of the animal as a meal for his guests. This feast might be at a man's house, like a normal feast, or might take place at the temple of the idol. Or, a man might sell the meat to the markets to be sold to the public alongside other meat.

This was the problem the Christians of the first century faced. Meat eaten at a social gathering or even bought from the market might have been offered as a sacrifice to an idol. Given that Christians must avoid idolatry, what were they to do about this? Was it wrong to eat such meat because it had been involved in idolatrous actions? Barclay writes: “That was the problem; and, clearly, although to us it may be a matter of merely antiquarian interest, the fact remains that, to the Christian in Corinth or any other Greek city, it was one which pervaded all life, and which had to be settled one way or another.”

This was a pressing problem for the church. And it was one on which some, at least, in the Corinthian church had strong opinions. (Was this perhaps one of the issues involved in the partisan debates we discussed earlier?) In verse 1, we have the statement: “we all have knowledge.” Most commentators think Paul is being sarcastic or ironic—since down in verse 7, he explicitly points out that not all Christians have knowledge on this subject. Many commentators even suggest that “we all have knowledge” was the boast of some of the Corinthians, perhaps contained in their letter to Paul

And here is the thing to notice. As I just said, not all Christians, perhaps not all the Corinthians, really had knowledge on this point. But some of them did. And that knowledge, so far as it went, was right.

In this passage, Paul lays down two general principles that will come back again and again throughout the entire discussion. One of those principles is the knowledge that the Corinthians (in some sense, rightly) boasted of possessing. We find this knowledge in verse 4. “We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and... there is none other God but one.”

This is one of the fundamental parts of the Christian worldview, going all the way back to the foundations of Israel. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: and thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (Exodus 20:3-4) In a more general sense, this idea goes all the way back to the very first verse of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) The picture of God acting alone to create all things lays the foundation of monotheism, of God existing before and apart from all other things—of God as a singular power and authority, rather than one member of a pantheon.

There is one God and one God only.  In all actual realities, even in all possible realities, there is only one God. This is one of the foundational principles of the Christian worldview.

Among the brick-a-brack in my study, I have a model of an F-14 Tomcat, a plane formerly used by the US Navy. That model is real--it is an object made of plastic, which I can pick up and handle. But it is not a real Tomcat. It is only a model, a representation of the real plane. Also in my study, I have a toy dragon. It is also a real object, also made of plastic, but it is not a real dragon. Like the model plane, it is a representation of something else. But here is the difference: the F-14 Tomcat is real. My model stands for and represents something else which is equally real, arguably more real. Whereas dragons (so far as we know) are not real. My toy is real, but the thing which it represents or stands for is not.

Now, an idol—in so far an idol is a physical object made of stone or wood or gold—is real. It is something that exists. The people Paul was writing to had seen many of them. Most of them had probably owned several. And at least some of the pagans understood that an idol was merely an object, not something alive. But they believed it represented or stood for a god like a model plane represents a real plane. Most would have believed that the god claimed or took possession of or, in some sense, filled the idol. But the point is that they saw a correspondence between the idol and a real god. But Paul says that an idol is nothing in the world. It has no referent. There is no real god that corresponds to the idols. There is only one God.

This fact remains despite the fact that so many believe the contrary. Verse 5 emphasizes how many so-called gods there were; the earth and sky were crowded with supposed deities.  G. K. Chesterton said that the hardest thing to convince people of is the fact that zero plus zero plus zero still equals zero. It would be easy to think that with so many people believing in so many gods, at least some of them must be real. But Paul is saying that despite the multitude of beliefs, there is still only one God.

But even suppose for a moment that this isn't true. Let's suppose that the various gods of Greek and Roman mythology do exist. In a sense, it wouldn't make any difference. It wouldn't change the fact that our love and loyalty belong to God. This is verse 6: “to us there is but one God.” That probably means something along the lines of “We know there is but one God”  but it also works as it stands. As Christians, we belong to God—the true God—Jehovah—and even if other gods existed, it wouldn't change that. Because none of the gods of paganism could do—and none of them even claimed to be able to do—what God could do and has done.

Look at what Paul says in verse 6.  He talks of the Father “of whom are all things.” The NET Bible says, “from whom are all things.” And then we have Jesus “by whom” or “through whom” are all things. The point is that God is the active agent who created all things. Paul seems to picture the Father as the architect or designer and Jesus as the builder. Look at John 1:3 “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” The 'Him' in this verse specifically points to Jesus, to the Son, reiterating the idea that all things were made by or through Him. However, the more significant point is that everything was made by Jesus, and nothing was made without Him.

As people who have grown up within a generally Christian society, it can be hard to understand the significance of that. But in pagan mythology, none of the gods made everything. Some of them played a part in creation, but no one god was believed to be the creator of everything. And, to the best of my knowledge, none of them claimed to create out of nothing. They shaped and transformed the world, but they did not create it. They were important characters in the world's story, but they were not its author.

And for this reason, no one god could claim complete and total loyalty. Look at verse 6 again. Paul says that we are in the Father and by the Son. The NET Bible says that we live for the Father and through the Son. Because God is the single originator of all things, He can claim our complete loyalty. And because our lives as Christians are only possible through Jesus, our lives must completely belong to Him.

This, then, is one of  Paul's key principles—there is only one God, and our loyalty belongs entirely to Him. This fact underpins everything else Paul says in the next few chapters. (Everything in the Bible, for that matter.)

There is another key principle in this passage, or, rather, a keyword. It is in verse 1: 'charity,' We will talk about this word in depth later, since it becomes very important in a later chapter. For the moment we can define it simply as 'love.' In verse 1, after speaking of the knowledge the Corinthians had, Paul adds: “knowledge puffeth up, but charity [love] edifieth.” 

Is Paul attacking knowledge? This seems unlikely, given that most of 1 Corinthians (and most of the Bible) is written to impart knowledge.) However, knowledge is dangerous—especially when the pursuit or possession of knowledge is taken on its own.

Suppose a man moves to a new town. After a few weeks of living there, he has traveled all the main roads and visited all the big businesses and points of interest. At that point, he might be inclined to say that he knows the town. He might even say he knows it well. Perhaps, if a friend from out of town visits, he would boast to him of his knowledge of the town. Perhaps if anyone suggested that he didn't really know the town, he would grow angry and offended.

But that very confidence reveals the superficiality of his knowledge. You cannot really know a town in a few weeks. For every main road, there are several smaller side roads and alleys. For every large business, there are two or three smaller ones. There are points of interest you would be unlikely to find without years of living and exploring. And that isn't even to add that to truly know a town, you would have to know the people living there.

Now, suppose this man made a friend in the new town and this friend of his lost his car, and so the man, out of friendship, volunteered to chauffeur his friend around for a few weeks—taking him wherever he needed to go. Most likely, this will force him beyond the limits of what he thought he knew; he will have to start truly learning the town to help his friend.

And that's not a great analogy, but that's sort of what Paul is saying here. The NET Bible translates the end of verse 1: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Knowledge, pursued for itself, tends to lead inward to conceit and indifference. But love builds up—it builds up one another; it builds up the church, and it even builds up knowledge. Love is the basis and reason for knowledge; knowledge should never be used as an excuse for ignoring love.

There is another reason why, for the Christian, love is seen as more important, or rather, more fundamental, than knowledge. And that is because love is the foundation of our relationship with God. This is verse 3. “If any man love God, the same is known of him.” In Greek, that can be interpreted in two ways—either that God knows the man who loves Him or that God is known by the man who loves Him. But either way gets to the same point. Our relationship with God is based on love. Here, specifically, it is our love for God (though the rest of the Bible makes it clear that it is also God's love for us.)  We want to know all we can about God, but it is because we have a relationship with Him. And if love is the basis of our relationship with God, then it should also be the basis of our relationship with other Christians.