Welcome to Series 3, in our study of 1 Corinthians. What a great and amazing book this is. It is like walking on a long journey with hills going up and down where you have to watch your footholds wherever you go, because Paul keeps introducing new themes, and challenging ideas.  

Recap and Background 

In Series 3 we have another big change. In Series 2, Paul was talking about sexual morality, about marriage, divorce, singleness and all issues related to that. Now he moves to one of the major questions that the Corinthian church faced: the question of pagan worship - worshipping gods apart from Jesus Christ as the Son of God. This was a very big issue in the ancient world and one that came up all the time when Paul was planting churches. We have modern equivalents to that, because when people become Christians in the modern world, there are often religious systems in the society that they are no longer a part of, whose gods they no longer worship. How do we relate to the religious tradition in our society, if it is not a Christian society? It is a big question.  

As we mentioned several times in earlier episodes, Paul had a letter in front of him with some written questions that the Corinthian church wrote to him. The first questions were about sexual morality and we dealt with those in the last series. Now we see in 1 Corinthians 8: 1 this opening statement, “Now about food sacrificed to idols:”. Here we have the theme. They have written questions: “What are we going to do about the pagan religion that is going on here in Corinth? Are we going to participate in that pagan religion, or not? How do we relate to our friends who are worshipping the gods of the Greeks and Romans?” These are the questions that Paul is addressing in this series. We are going to cover the whole of chapter 8, and then he comes back to it in more detail in chapter 10.  

Greek and Roman Gods and Their Worship 

What is the context in which Paul is writing? The Greeks and the Romans worshipped many gods. The Roman Empire allowed people to worship whichever gods they chose. There was religious freedom, but they had a number of major gods that they worshipped and were followed all the way through the Empire. Two of them had temples in Corinth. One was the god Apollo and the other, the goddess Aphrodite. In the ancient world, to worship a god meant to go to their temple, where there was always a statue which was the centre of worship. A modern equivalent would be the statues of Buddha that appear everywhere in Buddhist temples all over the world, and particularly in Asia. In the ancient world you went to worship at the temple of the god or goddess who you chose and there would be a statue or an image or, as Paul would describe it, an idol. God had originally said to the Jewish people never to make an image of him. The Jewish God, Yahweh, did not allow statues, or images, and yet the Greeks and the Romans always had statues.  

When you went to a temple, what would be taking place? Usually, there were male and sometimes female priests, and the main act of worship involved animal sacrifice. You brought your animal to the temple, or perhaps paid money to buy an animal from the temple, and then you would take it to the priest and their assistants, and they would kill the animal - sometimes they cut their throat or very often they were strangled and killed. Some of the meat was cut from the animal and burned up in the sacrifice. Whilst the sacrifice took place, there would be prayers said to the god or goddess that you chose. You would bring your own prayers and the priest would also say prayers. You would be praying for your family, for your finances, for your health, and for the protection of the god or goddess over your life. Most of the meat was not burnt in the sacrifice. Some went to the priest, and some was usually consumed in a meal in the temple where you and your family, or your friends, might gather to have a meal. The rest of the meat from that sacrificed animal would be taken to the meat market and sold alongside all the other meat, where it would be bought by people in the community and eaten at home. 

Sometimes people of different trades came together and have their own religious ceremony and then have a big social meal together. Groups of people who were working in metal, or in leather, or who were traders in the markets, would have their business meetings there. They would have a religious ceremony, eat their food, and do their business in the temple compound. In most temples, there were female and sometimes male prostitutes. Some religious cults, and some gods and goddesses, encouraged sexual activity as part of worship. So, people would go to the temple to make their sacrifice, but also to engage in sex with a prostitute. 

We see things like this in parts of the world today. For example, in Hinduism we see temples to many different gods all the way through India, and in other countries where traditional Hinduism is practised. We see sacrifices and worship in traditional formats like the worship of the ancient world. To worship a pagan god, you didn't have to go to the temple, which you couldn't do all the time. There were two other contexts in which you could offer your pagan worship. As you walked along the street, there would be little shrines dedicated to a god or a goddess, maybe cut out of the wall, maybe built up from the ground – with a mini statue - and you could stop as you walked along the road and say a prayer, and leave some flowers; stop, pause, meditate and worship your god or your goddess. Also, in most homes - especially bigger homes - there was a little corner in one of the rooms, usually in the living room, which was dedicated to a household shrine where the family could come and worship. Again, this is like some traditional forms of Hinduism today, where there can be a small shrine in the home, as a place of worship and family devotion.   

This is the paganism that Paul was dealing with and the contrast to his Jewish background was enormous. The Jews also had a Temple in Jerusalem, and we have discussed this extensively in the ‘Life of Jesus’ Collection, because the Temple was a major focus of Jesus' ministry and the things that happened in the last stages of his life. In the Jewish Temple, there was something very different to what we see in the pagan temples. Although there was animal sacrifice and there were priests, there was no image - no idol, no statue. The presence of God was invisible to the eyes. There was no physical manifestation of the presence of God. God was hidden in the inner part of the Temple called the Holy of Holies, and only the High Priest could go into that place once a year. Judaism was very different.  

Here we have the Corinthians dealing with their situation in Corinth. Paul addressed them, dealing with a number of different questions that they raised. The main place of worship in Corinth, that the Corinthian Christians might have gone to, was the temple to the Greek goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of love and fertility. As I mentioned in my introduction to 1 Corinthians, she was worshipped both in the city and particularly on a hill that was about one kilometre away from the city and about 500m high, called the Acrocorinth. People walked out from the city to go up the hill to the temple at the top, and that was the place where they worshipped Aphrodite. This was the centre of worship in Corinth. People would also go there for the beautiful views over the nearby areas and the sea; it would be a day out to go to the temple of Aphrodite.  

There were four things that Paul was thinking about in responding to the questions of the Corinthians. The first was, ‘Should we participate in pagan worship with the priests in the temples?’ The second question was, ‘Should we, as Christians, have meals in the temple compound with the food leftover from the animal sacrifice?’  The third question was, ‘Should we buy meat from the markets that had previously been dedicated to a pagan god? Should we ask about that, or should we just buy the meat anyway?’ And the fourth question was, ‘What should we do if we go to our neighbour's house who is not a Christian, who worships Aphrodite and Apollo and other gods, and we find out that the meat being served in that meal comes from the market and had previously been dedicated to Aphrodite, Apollo, or one of the other gods?’ These are the questions that Paul deals with during this series. He did not deal with all of them in this passage, but he would deal with the most important one, the first and central question, ‘Should we go to the temple and worship the Greek and Roman gods?’ 

Should Christians Visit the Pagan Temples?

This issue had already been addressed in the church. We see in the book of Acts, in the ‘Spreading Flame’ Collection, this was a big issue in the Early Church. All the converts were coming from Roman and Greek cities. Paul was bringing them to faith, and they were confused about what to do about their pagan background. Should they be going up to the temples or not? This was a matter that the Early Church had to decide clearly. The Apostles met in Jerusalem, under the leadership of Peter, the main Apostle, and James the chairman at a meeting called the Council of Jerusalem. Paul was there, with his colleague Barnabas.  He had been planting churches and he discussed this issue with the other Apostles. ‘What should we say to the Gentiles about pagan worship and the temples and idolatry?’ This is the answer that was given.  

 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead, we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.”  

Acts 15: 19 – 20 NIV 

Several of these commands relate specifically to pagan worship as I have described to you. ‘Don't eat the food polluted by the idol in the temple.’ Notice here he mentions “the meat of strangled animals”. Very often the animals were strangled in the temple. When he says, ‘don't have blood,’ what he means is, ‘don't drink blood,’ because one of the habits of many of the Greek and Roman pagan cults was to drink the blood of the sacrificed animals. So, the Council of Jerusalem had already spoken about this issue. But Paul now explains it much more specifically to the Corinthians.  

Avoid Pagan Worship 

“Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. But whoever loves God is known by God. So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There's 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. But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificed food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god. And since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol's temple, won't that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.” 1 Corinthians 8:1 – 13 NIV 

Paul explains that all Christians know there is only one God, God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, three persons in one God. That is the Christian message. We know that. But he points out, in answer to their questions, that if we participate in the pagan rituals, even if we don't believe in them, there is a danger; we should not be going to the temples to worship other gods. The reason he gives here primarily, is that it will cause confusion to other Christians. They will wonder, ‘Why do you worship Jesus Christ on a Sunday, but you go to the pagan temple on a Thursday?’ He calls on people not to go to the pagan temples, not to be involved in either the worship, or in the eating of the pagan food in the meals that follow the worship. 

In 1 Corinthians chapter 10, Paul gives us another reason. In chapter 10, verse 20, he says, “the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons”. The argument he uses here is about the impact on other people if you do something which is confusing to them, but in chapter 10 he brings a deeper and more profound reason why we should not be participating in these things, and that is that these gods, these idols, have spiritual power. Paul's understanding of the spiritual world is very clear. It is revealed to us most dramatically in Ephesians chapter 6. He believes that we are involved in a spiritual battle against demonic powers that deceive humans, primarily through false religions. When people worshipped at the pagan temples and shrines in the ancient world, they were risking being involved with evil spirits and dark spiritual forces that would confuse them, blind them spiritually, and lead them away from devotion to Jesus Christ. That was something that Paul was very concerned about.  

So, he gave a clear answer to the first two questions out of the four: ‘Should we be worshiping, participating and sacrificing animals in the temple?’ ‘No.’ ‘Should you be eating the temple meals that families eat after a sacrifice?’ Paul says, ‘No.’  In a later passage, he deals with the question of what about the meat that ends up in the marketplace, or on your plate as you are eating food in your home, or in the home of a neighbour? 

Reflections 

Paul’s point is that worshipping other gods is not only idolatry but connecting us with demonic power and it is still true today. It isn't just a matter for the ancient world. This is a big challenge for Christians who come to faith in societies, for example, that are dominated by Buddhism or Hinduism, or other related traditions. We need to avoid worship ceremonies to any other prophet, religious leader, or god who is represented by that religion. We do not worship Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the principal gods of Hinduism, for example. Neither do we want to be involved in traditional witchcraft, which is a dominant spiritual force in many countries of the world, and notably in Africa. This represents real choices for Christians, especially those who are becoming Christians out of a non-Christian background. Sometimes we need to make a break with any spiritual forces that are hostile to Jesus Christ. Paul sees this as a spiritual conflict. Christ comes to set us free from demonic power which can come into our life through pagan worship.  

In other societies, there are different forms of idolatry that take place - putting other things before God. For example, in traditional communist societies there is the worship of the leader. If you go to Beijing in China today, as I have been able to do, you can go to a shrine that is dedicated to the founder of Communist China, Mao Tse-tung, where his body has been preserved. You can go into that shrine at certain times of the day where the body is raised up out of the liquid it is kept in for a short period of time, so that it can be viewed. Many Chinese will come in act of devotion, bringing flowers to throw towards the shrine and the body of the founder of Communist China. This is a modern atheist version of pagan religion in the ancient world. In the Western world we can also worship. We can give our full devotion to materialistic things that take us away from God.  

Paul is focussing here on societies which have other religions and other spiritual forces at work. This teaching is very important. In the ancient world, as Christianity was spreading, there were three main cultural battles: one was to avoid religious legalism, coming from the Jewish background which Paul deals with extensively in books like Galatians. But in other cultures, such as in Corinth, there were two other main battles when forming effective churches, and both those issues are represented in this book, 1 Corinthians. The first one was sexual morality. Christian sexual morality needs to be very different from the morality of cultures around it, and we have seen several issues relating to sexual morality already in the book: incest in the church, prostitution, and the different ways Christians deal with personal relationships in chapter 7. The third issue is dealing with paganism and idol worship. This was a major challenge for the Early Church. It was a real sacrifice to become a Christian. If you said to your family, ‘I'm no longer going to the temple of Aphrodite once a week when we go up on the Thursday morning.’ ‘I'm no longer going to the temple of Apollo, in the centre of Corinth, when we go once a month for a ceremonial sacrifice.’ ‘I'm no longer going to share with you the food and the meals that we eat socially in the pagan temples.’ ‘I'm no longer going to be involved in the prostitution that takes place in the temple of Aphrodite’ these were big decisions that had to be made, but they were the decisions that Paul encouraged the Corinthians to make. 

Idolatry was a major issue then, and it still is today. Many of us listening to this teaching and reflecting on this passage, will be faced with questions and challenges in our own culture, with the religious ceremonies of traditional religions in our society. This can be costly. It can lead to persecution and rejection by our family, our friends and our community. There is a cost of Christian discipleship. Paul was fully aware of that in the case of the Corinthians, but he encouraged them to be wholehearted and clear, not to be involved in pagan worship in the city of Corinth. 

There is more on this topic coming up in future episodes, and I hope you will join us to find out more.