Love and Knowledge: Food Offered to Idols (1 Cor. 8:1-13)

[Sung Psalm: 86]

Too often, we just breeze through these parts of Paul’s letters. We think that chapter 8 does not really apply to our situation in life.

But while you may never be invited to a dinner at the temple of Zeus, you very well may be invited to eat food sacrificed to idols.

In That Hideous Strength, C. S. Lewis describes a fictional college, where the “inner circle” is every bit as idolatrous as the temple of Zeus. Eating and drinking with them in their private meetings is portrayed as an initiation into the “inner circle.”

There would be nothing wrong with having lunch with one of these fellows at the local pub – but to eat and drink with them when they are plotting and planning – that would be to partake of the table of demons.

Many of you have already faced this. Many more will in the coming years – that moment of decision when you are faced with the question – “whose side are you on?” Will you bow to the pressure to “be one of the in-group”? Or will you deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus?