Dear friends,
This week, we come to a new section in the writing of Paul to the Corinthians. In chapters 8–11 he is dealing with an issue that the Corinthians have raised with him: namely, food offered to idols. I confess that when I first preached on this passage, I wondered about its relevance to our congregation. How wrong I was! God’s word is always relevant, and this passage turned out to be one of the most foundational passages for our congregation. For apart from the many overseas students who grew up with food offered to idols, the treatment of this issue by Paul raises the great questions of freedom, knowledge, and love.
This week, we look at knowledge.
Yours,
Phillip
Peter Jensen: 1 Corinthians 8:1–6
Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.
Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
This sounds like a very different world than the world we inhabit. I’ve never been asked to eat food offered to idols or to face the issues raised by such an invitation. Why don’t we simply skip over this passage? It’s hard to see its relevance.
Phillip Jensen: The presenting problem may or may not be ours, but the actual problems that arise will always beset humanity. They are modern, not just ancient. You may never have been approached on this issue, but working with overseas students, I have been approached about it very often. But it goes beyond that; even if we are not approached by this, we can look at the great principles that are involved in Paul’s answer. This week, we are looking at the theme of knowledge, and next week we will look at the theme of love. Knowledge and love are two great principles. In fact, in this part of 1 Corinthians, freedom is also built into it, as we’ll see in the coming weeks. But of course, love and knowledge hang together, as you can see in the very first verse.
Peter: Verse 1 says, “This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Why are we, then, teachers of knowledge? I’ve always assumed that knowledge is a necessary good. Is it dangerous?
Phillip: You see now why we’ve got to discuss this passage, because already you’ve raised some issues: what is knowledge? What is the importance of knowledge? But if we’re going to look at what Paul is saying about knowledge here, we’ve got to put him in his context. The context is the business of idolatry and spirits. So I think we need to start with this concrete situational issue that’s raised, and from there move into knowledge.
The presenting issue is that of idols. It’s much more significant than most people think. See, a vast number of people in the world still practice the worship of physical idols. You can’t go through India without seeing idols, for instance. Many an overseas student has asked me, “What do I do now that I’ve become a Christian, yet my family has offerings to our ancestors, and there are idols in the lounge room?” Can a Christian go along with the family tradition, or should they now stand separate from them? It is a very real issue for many, many people.
Peter: Indeed. But even if this isn’t our main issue in our western world—which is, as you point out, a minority world—the way that Paul deals with it has many ramifications. His principles are what count.
Phillip: That’s right, but to understand his principles accurately, you have to see them in the physical context of which he’s speaking—and so you’ve got to understand idolatry, to understand why he talks about knowledge in the way that he does. Our interest is in the knowledge end, but the beauty of Paul is that it comes in clear context, not just in abstract thinking. So we need to be aware of what idolatry entails. It’s not just the worship of statues and other objects; it’s the representation of gods, or worse still, sometimes the misrepresenting of God in physical image. It’s a very visual form of religion.
Peter: It’s like the golden calf. The Israelites claimed that it was a representation of the God who had rescued them from Egypt, but it was still a golden calf.
Phillip: Yes, because much of the polemic against idolatry in the scriptures is polemic against visual representations of Yahweh, for all visual representations are dead, dumb (in both senses of the word), and immovable. You have to carry them around. Whereas if you know the true and living God, he speaks, he’s alive, he’s powerful, and he doesn’t need to be carried around by us. So the visual representations are misrepresentations. But what we have here is the issue of the representations of gods. That’s also part of the problem here: what people are worshipping is not so much the statue, but what the statue represents—that is, gods, demons, or spirits. So you notice in verse 5 that the so-called gods in heaven and on earth correspond to the reality of many gods. In other words, we’re talking about the spirit world, which does exist. The normal human experience is to live in a world of many spirits with whom we have dealings and worship if we’re to be safe and happy. The atheistic world is a very unusual world. It’s not the normality of humanity today, let alone of history. The vast majority of people down history and around the world are and have been very conscious of a spirit world, which they seem to try and capture in visual images, through whom they’re able to worship in this spiritual world. You catch glimpses of the spirit world in the New Testament in references to evil spirits—and of course Satan, who’s called the god of this world in the scriptures.
Peter: Though I’ve mentioned this before, it reminds me of a conversation I had with an Indigenous friend of mine. We were talking about this very issue and I said, “It’s hard for people here to believe in spirits and ghosts and so forth.” He responded, “If I marooned you for two days in the bush, you’d believe.” It’s all very well for us to talk about India, but idolatry is universal, and it’s even right here.
Phillip: One of our great cricketers always had to have his lucky handkerchief with him when batting, as if that was going to make a difference to his skills in hitting a ball.
Peter: 87 was always the worst score to get, because you’d get out 13 short of 100. This leads to the rise, or the reintroduction, of sorcery, seances, fortune-telling, and the like; the worship of the spiritual world.
Phillip: I remember going and buying a crystal from a New Age shop. It was for the purpose of an illustration, so that I could hold up this crystal for the congregation, to say that this crystal was to have enormous power over my life, yet they didn’t give me any instructions as to what I was to do. Was I to place it under my pillow, in my ear, up my nostril? Was I to swallow it? It was supposed to be so powerful, but it cost 5 cents.
Peter: It’s on the rise in our contemporary world. We think we’re living in the world of ‘Science’ with a capital S, which has banished all such things. Who can believe in ghosts? We have a scientific, materialistic approach. We like to think that ghosts have disappeared.
Phillip: It’s more than that, in a sense. If we don’t worship via the spirit world, we tend to worship the material world. Idolatry captures our eyes and our hearts, but whether or not we worship the spirits, we will worship money, we will worship prestige, we will worship human champions, we will worship the things that we can see, because our vision is only limited down to the material. So idolatry in one form or another is endemic to the whole human soul.
Peter: Yes, and that’s what makes Judaism in the Old and New Testament so extraordinary. That is to say, this belief that there is one God, the Almighty, who’s in charge of all things, and anyone else pretending to be God is lying. Monotheism looks very strange at first, because in a sense it’s sort of unnatural. But note how here, in verse 6, Paul stresses that it’s only the power of this truth which we can challenge idolatry, whether of the spirit world or of ourselves. But verse 6 is crucial not just in this passage, but biblically. 1 Corinthians 8:6
Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
This is a critical and fundamental truth which carries many radical consequences—which we forget about because we’ve become used to it—bringing us into conflict with the alternatives, and saving us from superstition and the chaos of polytheism. Indeed, it is a reassertion of the rule of the one God, and of course his Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit: one God in three, three persons in one God. Indeed, it was the reassertion of the rule of the one God which began the decline of magic in the 16th century and helped pave the way for the rise of modern science. I would argue that science is not inherently atheistic; it is monotheistic. When we lose this, we don’t become atheists. We return to the worship of spirits because the human heart longs for worship.
Phillip: That’s why, strangely, Paul seems relaxed about eating food offered to idols, at least at this part of the argument. But it makes sense; if the idol is nothing, and if the god that it represents is nothing, then whether you eat food offered to it or not is nothing, because it’s of no consequence, of no significance. It can do nothing to you. It won’t poison the food. We all possess this knowledge in Christian circles, and so there would be no problem now in eating food offered to nothingness. But Paul is putting this knowledge into its missionary context. That’s the important part about understanding the knowledge concept here. He’s putting an idea that changes everything, but it’s a knowledge that puffs up, rather than love which builds up.
Peter: This leads us back to my questions. What is wrong with knowledge all of a sudden? Do I not teach knowledge? Isn’t knowledge a necessary good? What is the gospel if it’s not knowledge?
Phillip: We’re not going to read the Bible by protecting our own industry. Just because you’re a professional teacher of knowledge doesn’t mean you must now read the Bible that way. You’ve got to read the Bible in the sense of its own context. There is something wrong with knowledge. Here, knowledge can puff up. It’s got to do with what knowledge does, what it means.
How does it puff up? As you may know, you only have to hang around with academics for a little while to see the puffing that takes place. The sense of creating pride, even arrogance in what they believe, that they are of significance because they know something, or have got a degree somewhere that says they know something. But it’s not knowledge itself which is bad, but the use to which knowledge is put. It can puff up the ego when it’s supposed to love the brother.
Peter: I presume that means that not all academics are puffed up and arrogant in the way you’ve described. I was an academic administrator once, and my colleagues could not be described like that.
Phillip: Of course, many of them are not puffed up.
Peter: But it seems to me that, when we read this, Paul sees knowledge as true and as necessarily relational. Not that it’s subjective—in other words, it’s not, “I have my knowledge, you have your knowledge and we determine what is true or not.” There is such a thing as objective truth, of course. But this knowledge always comes in the context of our humanity, and we need to respect that. Firstly, we need to understand ourselves and realise our own weakness, our fallibility, and the limits of our knowledge; the partial nature of our knowledge which should lead us to humility, not to arrogance. Secondly, our knowledge should be put to the service of others. We can strut our knowledge and judge others for their stupidity or their weakness rather than loving others. Hence the contrast between the knowledge that puffs up and the knowledge which builds up. It’s not that love is the absence of knowledge; it’s that love is an essential character of one who has knowledge. You can’t separate the two, not least the knowledge of the gospel.
Phillip: That’s the point of 1 Corinthians 8:2, “If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.” There is a morality to knowledge that he’s speaking about here. That morality to knowledge, as with all genuine morality, has to do with the important relationship we have with God. In becoming Christians, we turn to the Thessalonians; if you remember, they’re the model of conversion in 1 Thessalonians 1. We’ve turned from idols to serve the true and living God and to wait for his son from heaven, who rescues us from the wrath to come. Here, he’s saying, verse 3, “If anyone loves God, he is known by God.” It’s important to know God, but it is in a sense more important to be known by God. If you’re known by God, it’s because you’re a friend of God. God knows everybody, but to be known by God indicates a friendship. See, we all know the prime minister, but it’s completely different when the prime minister knows us. So the person who loves God is known by God, because that person is the friend of God. God’s knowledge of us is a profound relationship which precedes all our weak and partial knowledge that we may have. Knowledge is very important, but it has to be put in this context of a relationship if we’re going to know as we ought to know. That’s why knowledge will puff up, but love will build up.
Peter: Yes. After all, the Evil One knows that there is a God, and trembles. That’s real knowledge.
It’s interesting that the word ‘know’ in the scriptures also applies to the marriage bond. I think this may be the beginning of an interesting discussion which we might have one day on epistemology. But I think it impacts every discipline. What is knowledge? How do we acquire it? What is it? What are its limitations? What are we doing? Why are we doing this? What is this knowledge intended to do? To answer these questions, you need to turn to the question of love. I’m reminded of 1 Corinthians 13:11–12
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So we should abide by faith, hope and love. But the greatest of them is love.
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Links & Recommendations
For more on this topic, check out this talk from St Andrew’s Cathedral called Freedom of Knowledge.
Please also see the Two Ways News episode on the origins of science that we produced as part of our Genesis series.
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