Righteousness, Diets, and Freedom
[8] Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. [9] But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. [10] For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? [11] And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. [12] Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. [13] Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.
1 Corinthians 8:8–13 ESV
There are two great things that stick out in this conversation that still apply to us today. In a time where we have more knowledge about food and nutrients and health than ever before, we are still struggling with judging one another over what we eat!
The issue that Paul is talking about doesn’t concern health and fitness as much as it does righteousness. The first century church lived in a place with as many food laws and regulations as we have diets today. Paul starts off this paragraph saying that food does not reflect or gain righteousness before God. But he’s not talking about judging. He is talking about freedom and liberty! We may have lost the full impact of the liberty and freedom scandals of the early church. We’ll talk more about that another day. For now, the point is, righteousness isn’t affected by our food choices.
The other point Paul makes is how seriously he takes helping his brother not to sin. If eating meat would cause a brother to sin, he would not eat meat – EVER! What is happening here is that some people thought that you couldn’t eat meat from a certain shop because that shop sacrificed the meat to pagan idols before they sold it. Paul acknowledges that they are wrong and weak in their faith, but he complies with them anyway. Sit on that for a minute. Even though Paul has a deeper understanding of God’s ways, and is stronger in his faith, he is submitting to the weaker, wrong-thinking brother in order to build up the weaker brother’s faith.
This probably applies to 1,000 different people in 2,000 different ways, so I’m going to leave the modern day examples up to you. It would also not do any good to to make a law about food from this; that was the point of the first half of this paragraph.
Seek out ways to submit to your brothers vs. standing firm on the truth and watch Jesus show up in your midst. The One that said “love your neighbor as yourself” is not watching the food we eat as much as He is blessing those we eat it with.