Last week we started to look at the issue in Corinth of
should Christians eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols. Some in the
church at Corinth thought it was alright for them to go and be involved at the
feasts and festivals held at the pagan temples in Corinth. They thought that in
Christ they were free to do whatever they wanted and after all it was just
sticks and stones and food was just food. Others were wrestling with the food
at the butchers being from the temples so should they even touch that. And we
saw Paul began to address the issue by saying that Christian ethics and
behaviour was not based solely on knowledge but on love.
Yes we are free… yes we have all this knowledge and …yes says
Paul idols are just wood and stone but
we know the one true God, our heavenly Father and we have come to know that God
through the one Lord, Jesus Christ, and all we do should come out of a love for
the one true God who first loved us.
We know it is just food and it’s our right to eat it, but if
it causes our brothers and sisters to lose their faith then it is not the
loving thing to do. we become a tripping hazard...And we saw how these principles help us as a diverse people
of God to work through issues of liberty and love in our time and place.
In the chapter we had read out to us today Paul continues
his argument about food sacrificed to idols. He does it by giving an example in
his own life, how he had curbed his freedom and voluntarily forgone a personal
right for the sake of the gospel… not demanding support from the church at
Corinth…Then he talks about how he goes about dealing with food and cultural
issues in his ministry… and finally before going back to address the issue of
food and idols directly, which we will look at next week, he uses the metaphor
of the self-discipline of athletes to
challenge his hearers about how we should use our liberty in Christ for the
gospel.
One of the results of the factions in Corinth was a
challenge to Paul’s authority as an Apostle, and one of the key issues about
that was that Paul actually worked for a living as well as preached the
gospel. It went in the face of their
idea of how a philosopher or sophist would make a living in their day. Most
sophists would charge a fee for people to attend courses on their way of living…
In our modern age it maybe through running motivational seminars, self-help
videos and books, Christian conferences. Others would be sponsored by rich
patron’s in a community, some would beg and the rear one would support
themselves by working part time. So Paul
here kills two birds with one stone by asserting his credentials as an apostle
and giving as an example of how he curbs his freedom and rights for the sake of
the gospel by tackling the pay issue.
He starts with a series of rhetorical question which we are
supposed to answer in the affirmative. He says he is free, a catch word amongst
the spiritual ones in Corinth, they had been set free by coming to faith in
Christ, so Paul like them was free.
Isn’t he an Apostle… which he defends
and defines in two ways. Firstly that he
has seen the risen Lord, Paul’s encounter on the Damascus road was more than
just a vision in Paul’s mind. Later in chapter 15 he will place himself on the
list of those to whom Jesus appeared to after his resurrection, calling
himself, as one untimely born. In his meeting with the risen Lord Paul received
a commission to go and preach Christ to the gentiles, he is an apostle a sent
one because he is sent by Christ. Secondly, Paul tells the Corinthians that he
is an apostle to the church in Corinth because they are a result of his
ministry. He had come and preached the
gospel and by the Holy Spirit they had responded. Others may doubt him but how
could the church at Corinth.
Recently there has been debate over whether we still have
apostles in the church today and what does that mean. is it an authoritative
person or is it a church planter/missionary?
some talk of a new apostolic era, with anointed leadership to help the church chart its path in a new reality, and other worry it is simply a new apostolic error, a grab for power and influence. When I was looking at placements when I came out of Knox college one
church that was interested in me told me that they had just entered into an
agreement with someone as their apostle, and if I came to them I’d have to work
in within that relationship. They didn’t mean Apostle with a capital A as in
someone that had been with Jesus and witnessed the resurrection, but would exercise a
leadership relationship with the parish. My response was to look at this
passage and that person and say that while I believe people can have an apostolic ministry
today, that is planting churches in new areas, that I did not believe that
person had such a ministry, they had never actually established a church in a
cross cultural setting. Apart from that it went against our Presbyterian understanding of leadership and polity, we look for the Spirits leading in collective wisdom rather than in a person.
Paul asserts that as an apostle he has the right like the
other apostles to ask for the support of the churches he has planted. The other
Apostles seem to exercise that right. They even have their wives with them.
That the support that was asked for was for the family travelling together. I
couldn’t help but think of the recent public outcry we’ve had in New Zealand
about politicians using the public purse to take their spouses on overseas
junkets.
Paul then gives a very solid defence for paying people who
preach and teach the gospel. He defends it five ways. From common sense, using
the example of a soldier, they get paid for their services, a vineyard owner
shares in the harvest and a shepherd drinks milk from his flock. He defends it
from scripture quoting Deuteronomy 25;4. Oxen that were used to turn the stones
on threshing floor should not be muzzled to stop them eating some of the grain
they are helping work on. While this seems to be an animal welfare law, in
rabbinical teaching and for Paul it had a wider application to those who worked
for the Lord: If the oxen could share in the harvest why shouldn’t those who
sow and reap spiritually receive at
least some material benefit.
He goes on to point out to the Corinthians that the priests
that serve in the temple also make their living from the temple. In the Jewish
temple system which Paul was referring
to here as a scriptural precedent but and also in the pagan temples in Corinth,
the priests received a portion of the meat sacrificed to idols, this is after all is the
context of his argument. He also points out that the Lord commanded it in Passages like Luke 10:7 and
Matthew 10:10 where Jesus tells his disciples in their mission trips to make use
of the hospitality they are given.
But Says Paul I do not use this right. It seems others were
asking the church at Corinth to support them but Paul would not. He did not want it to be a burden on them. The
gospel that he had been freely given should be freely given. Why should it be
only for those who could pay? If he was to make use of patronage, it would mean
he was tied down to one person or one group and not free to preach where he
wanted. Some scholars think that the factions in Corinth were based around the
strong patrons in the Church supporting different Apostles. In Acts when Paul
first comes to Europe he does stay at the house of Lydia but by the time he comes
to Corinth he is supporting himself by plying his trade as a tent maker. But
also says Paul he does not want to be robbed of his boast that it is all
Christ. He does not want to lose his reward of seeing people come to know
Jesus.
In our own time we wrestle with these issues. In New Zealand
and the western world there is a great suspicion of preachers and church
leaders who seem to live an extravagant life style. Like TV evangelists who
always invite people to contribute while they live in mansions and wear the
flashiest clothes. Million dollar mansions and private Jets damage the gospels credibility... It is interesting to see the positive affirmations the new pope has received for forgoing some of the trapping of is position.
In our Presbyterian Church a minister is paid a stipend or
living allowance to free them from worrying about finances to focus on
preaching and teaching. The stipend is set on the average wage in New
Zealand.
Patronage has also been an issue that has had to be addressed. In the church in Scotland in 1843 there was the great
disruption where ministers and congregations walked away from the national
church over the issue of patronage. Whether the wealthy few should have the say
over who the minister in a certain parish was, could they override the rights
of a congregation?
Paul’s profession and example of tentmaking is significant
again in Missions round the world. In many places round the world which are
closed to the gospel people go as tentmakers to live in those places and share
the gospel. I aways remember one the story of a man who went to the same church we did when w were in Dunedin. He was a diesel
mechanic who was invited to speak to a university in Iran and the class started
asking him about his faith rather than his expertise with engines.
There is also the challenge for many in ministry in the
west, where the price of supporting a full time minister is a luxury that can
no longer be maintained. And we are seeing the rise of bi-vocational ministers
who supplement their ministry with other work. Other traditions have focused on
having lay leadership to avoid paid ministers all together.
Having shown the Corinthians how he curbs his freedom for
the sake of the gospel Paul then turns to talk about how he handles the food
issue. How he deals with living and preaching in different cultural settings. When
he with Jews he says he eats like a Jew. He goes Kosha. Not because he is bound
by the law of Moses, not to earn God’s favour, but he does it to show love and
be able to share the love of Christ. When he is with non-Jews, he eats as if he
does not have the law although as a Jew he
is probably more akin to kosher eating.
Then to bring it home to the folk in Corinth who were causing the weak
to head back to pagan idols he says when I’m with the weak I eat like the weak.
I curb my freedom.
He sums this up by saying that he becomes all things to all
people. The key issue for Paul which he repeats six times in verses 19-23 is
that he may win people to Christ. He does not water down or change his message
but is willing to confirm to certain morally free cultural differences for the
sake of the gospel. If he kept his
kosher food laws and didn’t eat with the gentiles, which he had to tell Peter
off about, it would stop the gospel being preached and shared. Whenever he went
to a new town he went to the synagogue or place of prayer, if there was one and
shared the gospel with the Jews so it meant living like them. The big mission word is contextualisation. In
my office my bible sits on my desk, next to my coffee cup, as I was writing
this I noticed I had put my cell phone on top of it. I have a friend who shares his faith with many
Muslim people, and how he treats his physical scriptures is different, he has
his bible on a special stand. He never east or drinks round it and definitely
never puts stuff on top of it, because those are some of the ways Muslims show
respect to their scripture. Christians often shun places where
non-Christians congregate, yet a friend of mine says she has had some of her
best conversations about Christ in the toilets of Gay night clubs, and last
time I talked with her, she had turned the room that bar staff used for smoking
dope into the place where they met for bible study. She never compromises her
faith but is secure enough to go and share in such places. Similarly Jesus was
seen as the one who would go and eat with tax collectors and outcasts, not to
hang out with the cool crowd or out of some thrill of walking on the wild side,
but to show love to them and share the good news that they were as welcome at
God’s table as he was at there’s. The religious people used to brand him with a
title which is very dear to you and I… Jesus “friend of Sinners”.
Finally Paul uses the metaphor of an athlete to demonstrate
that for the sake of the gospel he was willing to go into strict training.
He was prepared to restrict his personal liberty for the sake of the prize. Corinth was the town which hosted the second most important sporting event in
the whole of Greece. Athletes would sign up for ten months hard physical
training before they could compete; if they broke that training they were
disqualified. So Paul says for the sake
of the gospel he will discipline himself, he will curb his freedom he will be
careful what he eats and how he acts so that he may gain the prize. Yes he is free to do whatever he wants but for
the sake of the gospel he uses self-disciple.
In the end says Paul the prize we have is far greater than a gold medal
or a world cup, yes we are free by that freedom calls us to live a
self-disciplined lifestyle willing to give things up and take up good practises
so we may win others for Christ.
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