On Doing the Right Thing For the Wrong Reason

I Corinthians 8:1-13

Preacher ~ George Thompson

Many of us are obsessed with the issue of food consumption. Matters of diet matter enough for us to sprinkle our conversations with recipes and nutritional advice. We continue in our relentless pursuit of the mythological perfect culinary cuisine as if we were searching for the Holy Grail: a food that tastes great and contains no calories.

I am no expert on food consumption but I want to offer the following helpful tips for all dieters: if no one sees you eat it, it has no calories; if you drink a diet soda with a candy bar, they cancel each other out; when eating with someone else, calories don’t count if you both eat the same thing; if you fatten up everyone else around you, you always look thinner.1/ I really don’t like diets. The last time I went on a two week diet all I lost was two weeks. I like the candor of a little boy’s prayer when he was served the food of his parent’s diet and said with folded hands and closed eyes: “... bless the hands that repaired this food.”

It is ironic that the early Christian church experienced much division and conflict over the consumption of food. After all, the central unifying experience in the faith community was the Love Feast--a common meal followed by the Eucharist, the breaking of the bread of Christ and invoking his spiritual presence. This sacred observance, in the early church, was a real meal. Sharing a meal together was, therefore, a ritual of thanksgiving in which believers felt the presence of the risen Christ as they broke bread with the words, “This is my body.”

Yet, the table became a symbol of divisiveness rather than unity as the church spread into the Greco-Roman world. Non-Jews did not understand the food laws of the Hebrew Christians. In Corinth the matter of food consumption threatened the very existence of the church. This city offered one of the most cosmopolitan and diversified cultures in the world. East met West in Corinth. It was the fulcrum for global trade and a melting pot for religious ideology.

The Romans adored Greek culture and the Hellenistic way of life. The phrase “to live like a Corinthian” had come to mean in the Roman culture “to live with drunken and immoral debauchery.” Even in the English language we still refer to a Corinthian lifestyle as one of irresponsible affluence, rooted in reckless conduct. Everywhere there were temples constructed to the honor of Greek deities. In the Sixth Century before the Christian era, the great temple of Apollo had been constructed at the center of the city. Here the Hellenistic deities were worshiped: Aphrodite, Dionysus, Zeus, and Apollo.2/ Above the isthmus of Corinth there was the towering hill of the Acropolis -- that focal point for the worship of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Over a thousand priestesses or sacred prostitutes were employed by this temple. They descended upon the city at evening in order to seduce patrons of the temple. William Barclay reminds us of the Greek proverb from the First Century, “It is not every man who can afford a journey to Corinth.”3/

Animal sacrifices were also made within these pagan temples. Sometimes the animals were payment for sexual favors to the temple prostitutes. The meat from these sacrifices was then sold in the markets of the Agora. Business was always brisk. Delicacies of food were usually available at bargain prices in such an environment.

It was here in Corinth that the apostle Paul preached and established an island of Christian faith in a sea of pagan religions. Some of his converts were those who had been reared in strict Pharisaic Hebrew homes. Kosher foods had been their diet from birth. They were now followers of Jesus, the Jew. They were not about to abandon the strict food laws that had been handed down since Moses.

But, through the inclusive preaching of Paul, many Greeks had also been converted at Corinth. They were accustomed to buying their non-Kosher meat at the local Winus Dixus near the pagan temples. These former pagans brought food from the market to the covered dish gatherings and love feasts that preceded the Eucharist. All the Jewish Christians were horrified.

These Greek-speaking converts quoted the teachings of Paul, saying that Christ had freed them from strict adherence to Jewish dietary laws. They correctly asserted that redemption comes by grace, not the law. They insisted that the letter of the law constricts the life of liberty. They rejected a legalistic religion. They insisted that legalistic food laws asphyxiate the joy of a new life in Jesus. They enjoyed the delicacy of a sweet lamb or the scrumptious taste of roasted beef. From their perspective, it mattered not where the meat was purchased. Transcending all their concerns was the importance of celebrating their new life of freedom in Christ at the sacred love feast.

Paul, therefore, wrote a letter in which he sought to unify these warring factions within the church. The apostle was caught on the horns of a dilemma. Yes, he had preached that one’s salvation is not the result of observing the food laws of Moses. Yes, these Gentiles who ate food that had been sacrificed upon pagan altars were, in Paul’s opinion, doing the right thing. But, Paul realized that many of these new Greek converts had previously believed in many gods. Monotheism (belief in one God) was a new concept for most Corinthians. Thus, Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthian church, “For us there is only one God, the Father from whom all things come and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things come and through whom we exist.” Then he added, “However, not everyone has this knowledge.”4/

There were those who had just entered the church in Corinth who, for their entire lives, had been exposed to a different icon on every street corner. The notion of having one God and knowing this God through Jesus Christ was going to take some getting used to. These persons, Paul argued, will be easily confused by the presence of prime rib purchased at McAphrodite, the home of the pagan whopper! Some of these neophyte Christians may begin to assume that the Christian faith is a smorgasbord from which one may pick one’s favorite god, like the choice of food at the love feast.

Sure, it was morally O. K. to eat meat purchased at the Corinthian markets, even if that meat had been recently sacrificed to pagan gods. But, in so doing, one may mislead the neophyte Christian who does not fully comprehend the doctrine of freedom. Doing that which is morally permissible may destroy the fragile faith of a new convert.

Moreover, such seemingly innocent action inflamed the moral temperament of each converted Jew. The ancient laws of Moses regarding food consumption were still sacred to most of these who were born in the Hebrew tradition. Paul, therefore, cautiously restrained the Greeks Christians who bought food from pagan temples. He wrote, “. . . food cannot make us acceptable to God; we lose nothing by not eating it, we gain nothing by eating it. Only be careful that this freedom of yours does not in any way turn into an obstacle to trip those who are vulnerable.”5/

In effect, Paul met these factious groups of Corinthian Christians squarely in the middle. Yes, he told one faction that they were right in teaching that there is nothing morally wrong with eating meat from the temple market. But, because these had flaunted their behavior, they had done the right thing for the wrong reason. They had violated the greater law of love. Thus, Paul wrote this pastoral word of wise counsel: “Now about food which has been dedicated to false gods. We are well aware that all of us have knowledge; but while knowledge puffs up, love is what builds up.”6/

These arrogant Gentile converts were technically right in their moral judgment. Eating food offered upon pagan altars was not a sinful act. Such food does not hurt anyone’s body. Their actions, however, were oblivious to the feelings of others. They consequently provoked unnecessary animosity. Moreover, their actions potentially endangered the faith of the uninitiated. “That is why, if food can be the cause of a brother’s downfall,” testified Paul, “I will never eat meat any more, rather than cause my brother’s downfall.”7/

What possible relevance does Paul’s teaching about dietary laws have for us today?

Paul here gave precedent to relationships rather than rules, right attitudes rather than correct codes of conduct, a right spirit coupled with righteous conduct. He warned us against the temptation to do the right thing for the wrong reason.

This temptation surfaces as we rear our children. We correctly enforce moral controls: dress codes, eating habits, an evening curfew. But, as the child grows into adulthood, we use forms of moral manipulation rather than encouraging the self-actualized personality. Grown young adults, consequently, lack the inner disciplines of self-control emerging from love. They have depended entirely upon outward moral controls. Some young adults are still dominated, therefore, by guilt manipulation. They do the right thing out of fear of punishment or parental censorship. They are compulsively driven; but they are not drawn by a loving spirit. The adult child responds predictably, but not lovingly.

One of the saddest lines in literature emerges from Edwin O’Connor’s novel, The Edge of Sadness, in which the father painfully says of his eldest son, “John’s a boy that never gave me a day’s worry. And that never gave me a day’s love. Cold as an icicle.”8/

In all our concern about right conduct, we sometimes destroy our best opportunities to be loving parents. Not even our virtue can stand as a substitute for demonstrating our love for one another.

A certain incident in the life of the Nineteenth Century evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, brought him into the realization of this tendency. On one of his tours, he got on a train in which he had to share the coach with a group of men who had been drinking too much. The face of one was badly bruised. HIs eye was swollen closed with throbbing pain. He managed to recognize the famous preacher and began disrespectfully to sing hymns and loudly mock the preacher. Moody, in indignation, tried to move but was told that there were no alternate seats on the train. Moody complained to the conductor about the appearance and behavior of the young man, whereupon the conductor took this youngster to the baggage car, bathed his damaged eye, bound his wounds, and gave him a place to sleep. The next night, Dwight L. Moody confessed to a large crowd his own sin of self-righteousness. The evangelist had acted from the impulse to act righteously. The conductor behaved compassionately. He did the right thing for the right reason.9/

Being right may not be nearly as important as displaying God’s love to someone who is wrong. Paul Lehmann, in his classic volume on ethics, states that “Christian ethics is not concerned with the good, but with what I, as a believer in Jesus Christ and as a member of his church, am to do.”10/ Ethical decisions are made in the context of the love of Christ as reflected in his compassionate family of faith--the church. The Christian faith does not begin as a morality -- a code for right conduct. It begins as a relationship with Jesus, the Christ.

When the Christian faith is reduced to some achievable form of morality, then we hardly need Jesus in order to be righteous. Jesus rarely found joy in a religion reduced to a moral code, a legalism that cared more about laws governing the Sabbath than about persons who suffered from painful affliction.

During the early phase of his ministry in Washington, D. C., Gordon Cosby was the guest preacher at a Lenten service in a dismal New England church. After the service, he and his wife Mary stopped at a motel on their cold drive home. Their overnight lodging was over a noisy tavern that carried jukebox melodies into their bedroom. That sleepless night it occurred to Gordon that “there was more warmth and fellowship in that tavern than there was in the church. If Jesus of Nazareth had His choice He would probably have come to the tavern rather than to the church we visited.”11/ This experience became the incubating idea for the formation by Gordon of the first street corner coffee house ministry in this country.

Jesus came that we might have abundant, joyous life. He did not come to establish a community of the self-righteous who would be virtuous, but not loving.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church has much to say about our tone of evangelism at Providence Church. The kingdom of Christ will not come by promotion of a moral agenda. It will dawn by the grace of God through the attraction of his church. Paul and Silas did not ask the Philippian jailer in self-righteous tones, “Are you saved?” They demonstrated such joy as beaten and bleeding prisoners that the jailer asked them, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”12/

Ernest Campbell succinctly has stated our contemporary evangelistic task when he said, “No one is so bad that he cannot come to Christ; and no one is so good that he need not come. But none is likely to come at all unless he sees such joy and life in us that he can no longer be content on the outside looking in.”13/

Let us, therefore, not only do the right things; but let us do things right in order that others will be drawn to Christ through us.

FOOTNOTES:

1. These dietary tips were provided by Malcolm Kushner, How to Use Humor for Business Success.

2 The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1982), pp. 682-4.

3. William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1956), p. 3.

4. I Corinthians 8:6 The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB)

5. I Corinthians 8:8-9 (NJB)

6. I Corinthians 8:1 (NJB)

7. I Corinthians 8:13 (NJB)

8. Edwin O’Connor, The Edge of Sadness (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1961), p. 358.

9. Story told by William A. Benfield, Jr., on The Protestant Hour Radio, September 22, 1985.

10. Paul Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1963), p. 45.

11. Elizabeth O’Connor, Call to Commitment (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1963), p. 109.

12. Acts 16:30 (NJB)

13. From an audio cassette featuring Ernest T. Campbell, “Too Good for God,” (Atlanta: S & P Cassettes, 1971).