THE SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST September 15,18 & 19, 1999

St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church - Watertown, WI

LOVE CARES FOR OTHERS 1 Corinthians 8:1-6

Recently our county went through quite a storm over the whole issue of casino gambling. When an Indian tribe wanted to build a casino in Johnson Creek, we read and heard propaganda promoting the wonderful benefits that such an establishment would bring for our area. We also heard those who decried this as terrible and immoral. They said it would cause the ruin and moral destruction of Johnson Creek and other parts of Jefferson County.

Is gambling a sin? I would challenge anyone to show me a passage in the Bible that explicitly says that gambling in and of itself is sin. You won't find one. You will find God telling us that stealing is a sin (Exodus 20:5). You will learn that coveting, that is wanting something which belongs to someone else that you can't have, is a sin. (Exodus 20:17) You will also find that trusting in money rather than God is also a sin. (Matthew 6:24) God also warns us that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10a) But nowhere does God say, "Don't gamble." Now can't gambling promote stealing, coveting, loving and trusting money more than the Lord God? It certainly can. Now does it cause that in all people? I don't know. God doesn't tell me how gambling affects you. I know how it affects me. When the lottery gets over eighty or ninety million dollars, I am tempted to go out and buy some lottery tickets and at times I do. Why? It's called greed, pure and simple greed. I am no longer content with what God has given to me and I want more and more. Is that sin? It certainly is. And God's law convicts me of my greed and discontent. Thankfully, my Savior comes to me and assures me that he has forgiven me of that sin. With the assurance of God's pardon, I then work to overcome my discontent and greed and learn to be satisfied with what God has given to me. There are many areas in our lives where each of us has to make decisions and choices. In some of these areas God has neither commanded nor forbidden that we do a certain thing. These areas are called adiaphora. They are issues where God has neither commanded us to do a certain thing nor has he forbidden us from doing something.

The issue that the Apostle Paul addresses in this portion of his letter to the Christians in Corinth is just such an issue. Paul sets this principle before us as people who trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior and who also realize the great freedom that we have as believers - LOVE CARES FOR OTHERS. Paul notes I) The Danger And Coldness Of Knowledge. He also stresses the II) The Great Concern That Love Has.

THE DANGER AND COLDNESS OF KNOWLEDGE

To understand what Paul is writing about, we need to understand the situation that the Christians in Corinth were facing. Many of these people had been pagans worshiping different idols before they came to trust in Jesus of Nazareth as their Lord and Savior. In their worship of their false gods, they would often bring different foods as an offering to their idols, just as we bring our offerings of money, spend time here in church praying and singing to the Lord and giving of our time in volunteer work as part of our worship of the true God. The meat that was offered to idols was divided a number of ways. Part of the meat was burned as a sacrifice, some was eaten by the worshipers in the temple as part of their worship of the idol, some was given to the priests and some was sold in the meat markets of the city. The question that the Corinthian Christians faced was this: Is it wrong to buy some of this meat that had been offered to an idol in sacrifice and eat it? If I ate that meat, wouldn't I be worshiping an idol and thus sinning against God when he says, "You shall have no other gods before me."(Exodus 20:3)? Good question. What's the answer? Can I eat this food or can't I? The simple answer is "Sure, you can eat that meat." "You're not sinning against God." For that idol is really nothing. It is not a god. As Paul writes, "We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came, and through whom we live." (vv. 4b-6) So these so called gods really don't exist. We know that there is just one true God, the Creator of this universe and one true Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We all have come to this knowledge through our reading of God's Word, the Bible and through our instruction in that Word.

This knowledge that we have is wonderful. It has revealed to us the truth. It has set us free. As Jesus said in our Gospel reading, "If you hold to my teaching . . . you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31a & 32) This wonderful truth that God has given us frees us from all kinds of rules and regulations. Our religion is not based on all kinds of dos and don'ts. It is based on what God has done for us. We are motivated in our lives by the great love that God has for us not by his commands and threats.

This knowledge we have can also be cold and dangerous. Paul puts it this way, "Knowledge puffs up . . .. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know." Knowledge can lead a person to be arrogant and proud. We all know of people who look down their noses at other people because they assume they know more than someone else does. You can almost hear some of those Corinthians saying to those who had questioned the eating of this meat that had been offered to an idol, "Don't you know that idol is nothing?" "How could you ask such a stupid question?" They have allowed their knowledge to make them arrogant and unsympathetic to the questions and concerns of others who are not sure.

None of us knows everything. No one has all the answers. When we continue to study God's Word, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, causes us to grow in our understanding and knowledge. We all need to be careful that we don't allow that knowledge to puff us up and become uncaring and unsympathetic to those who don't have the same knowledge and understanding that we have.

THE GREAT CONCERN THAT LOVE HAS

What needs to dominate our thinking and our dealing with other people is love. As Paul wrote, "The man who loves God is known by God." (v. 3) As we love God we also love our fellow human beings whom God loves too. Remember God wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. The Lord Jesus loved the whole world so much that he willingly gave up his life for everyone. Now how does love show itself in this situation?

There were strong Christians in Corinth who knew that there was no such thing as an idol and who could eat that meat offered to the idol without having a guilty conscience because they knew there was nothing wrong in eating this meat. However, there were also Christians in this congregation who had grown up all their life believing that eating this meat was part of their worship of the idol. They now knew that the idol was nothing. They knew that there was nothing wrong in eating that meat. However, when they ate that meat they still felt as if they were worshiping the idol. Their knowledge and their feelings were not in sync.

A similar parallel are the many Roman Catholics who all their lives were taught that it was a sin to eat meat on Friday. Then after Vatican II in the 1960's they were told it was ok to eat meat on Friday. For many older Catholics they may know what the church has said, but in their hearts they still feel it is a sin to eat meat on Friday. This is what some of the Corinthian Christians were also facing. We may find that also in some people who have been taught that dancing is sin. In and of itself dancing is not a sin. However, someone may know that yet when he dances, he still feels that he is sinning. In those cases when we believe that something is sin, even when it is not, if we do it we are sinning, because we are sinning against our conscience. As Paul writes in another of his letters about this same issue of eating meat offered to an idol, "But the man who has doubts is condemned if he eats because his eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin." (Romans 14:23)

What about those who know it is not sin? What should we do when someone believes it is sin? Paul warns us, "Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak." (v. 9) Before we make choices in doing things that God has neither commanded nor forbidden, we need to take into consideration the feelings and thoughts of others. We don't want to lead a fellow Christian astray and cause him to lose his faith in Jesus because we have exercised our Christian freedom. As Paul concludes this portion of his letter he makes this comment, "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." (v. 13)

The principle that Paul clearly sets before each of us as we make those choices in our lives is that none of us has the right to claim the right to a pleasure or to demand our liberty when it may lead to the spiritual ruin and fall of a fellow believer. For example: Drinking alcoholic beverages is not a sin. However, I may be dealing with someone who has a real hard time with that truth, because they cannot drink without getting drunk. Now will I demand my liberty and drink in front of that person or invite him to my home and offer him alcoholic beverages? Of course not. Out of love for that person and his eternal welfare I would not drink in his presence. Another example: Gambling is not a sin. Would I as your pastor regularly frequent a casino, make yearly trips to Las Vegas for gambling outings, buy lottery tickets weekly? No, of course not. Why not? Because gambling is a sin? No, because my actions may lead other people into the trap of trusting in money more than the Lord, to coveting or loving money more than the Lord.

The thought that my actions may influence someone else has almost become foreign to most people's thinking. We have all been brain washed into thinking that we must demand our rights. We never consider how our actions may affect someone else. When it comes to adiaphora, those things which God has neithe forbidden nor commanded of us, we need to be concerned about the feelings and thoughts of others. For love cares about other people.

Amen