LOVE BUILDS UP:

1 Corinthians 8

Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.

                                                                                    1 Cor 8:1

            Last time, I considered the harm that working in high speed slaughterhouses and factory farms causes to humans in light of 1 Corinthian 8, in which Paul admonishes us always to act in love, being careful not to cause others to fall into sin.  With this post, I want to take a closer look at that passage from Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth to see what it might have to tell us about loving our neighbors – with two feet and four – and about proclaiming the gospel. 

In 1 Corinthians 8 Paul begins his response to a question from the Corinthian church regarding whether it is permissible to eat food sacrificed to idols.  Paul’s full response is lengthy and carefully structured, comprising 8:1 - 11:1, but in Chapter 8 he lays the foundation for his argument with a central Pauline theme: in discerning appropriate behavior, the Corinthians are to consider what will build up the community and draw people to Christ.  Although today we tend to dismiss this passage as irrelevant in a culture that does not sacrifice meat or other food in the temples of the Greco-Roman pantheon, the lesson of this passage is as relevant today as it ever was.  

Ancient Corinth, photo by Ploync, cc via Wikicommons

            Paul opens his argument advising the Corinthians that “[k]nowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (v.1).[1]  Knowledge looks inward and a source of pride and status, but love looks outward to serve, or edify, the community.  Moreover, he adds, those who are relying on knowledge do not know quite as much as they think they do.  Not only does knowledge “puff up,” it is not the way to relationship with God.  Instead, those who love God are the ones known by Him (vv. 2-3).   Having set out the proper limits on knowledge and placed love at the center of the discussion, Paul is free to agree with the letter writers that “we know” that sacrifice to idols is not really a sacrifice to another god, because no such gods exist.   For Christians, there is only one God and one Lord, Jesus Christ (vv. 4-6).  Richard Hayes explains that here Paul makes the point that the Corinthians exist for Christ, not for their own purposes, underscoring the need for the Corinthians to focus outward, not on their own status or “knowledge.” [2]

            Now Paul can move to the central point of his argument: the impact of eating such food on others in the community.  Paul points out that some in the church community do not know with the same confidence that there is only one God.  For these people, so accustomed to worship of pagan gods, eating food sacrificed to idols still seems like eating food sacrificed to another god.  For them to eat such food would be a violation of their conscience and their conscience would be “defiled” (v. 7).  The food itself, Paul argues, is not the point:  “Food will not bring us close to God” (v. 8).[3]  In fact, the Corinthians have no need of this sacrificial food, since they “are no worse off if [they] do not eat, and no better off if [they] do.”  What is important, Paul urges, is whether their behavior becomes a “stumbling block” to others (v. 9).  
           This is no small matter.  If those with weak consciences are tempted to act in a way that violates their conscience, they risk being “destroyed” (v. 11) or separated from Christ.[4]  Nor is that all.  Paul reminds the letter writers that the person they may destroy is one for whom Christ himself died, and that wounding such a one is a “sin against Christ” (v. 12).   Rather than risk any such dire result, Paul asserts that if “food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat” (v. 13).  As Morton Scott Enslin explains, Paul’s emphasis on the edification of others is an underlying principal of all his ethical teachings.[5] 

The Apostle Paul by Rembrandt

            Thus, the issue is not whether the food itself is permissible, but what effect their actions will have on others.  Indeed, the centrality of considering the effect of one’s actions is evident in several of Paul’s letters.[6] The message of chapter 8, therefore, is not to be skipped over simply because there is no temple to Apollo in our town square.   It is a message that has a great deal to teach us today regarding the ways in which we claim privilege without regard to its impact and the ways in which we may drawing others away from Christ.

Temple to Apollo in ancient Corinth.  Photo by Jean Housen, cc via Wikicommons

       Ironically, one of the ways that we do this in our modern world, just as in Paul’s time, is through the meat we eat.[7]  Our meat is not sacrificed to Greco-Roman idols, but is sacrificed to the modern idols of personal convenience, lowest out-of-pocket cost at the market, and catering to our pallets.  When we make our priority fulfilling our desire to eat meat at nearly every meal, at the lowest possible cost, without regard for the impact of system that makes it all possible, we are no different from the Corinthians enjoying a banquet at the temple without regard for those in their community with “weak” consciences. 

            While at first blush it might appear that meat readily available and affordable is a good thing, the facts tell a different story.  Factory farms and the assembly-line-style slaughterhouses that process all that meat pose significant environmental, public health, personal health, food safety, world hunger, and animal welfare concerns.[8]  Just by way of brief example, animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation industry combined; the vast and concentrated quantities of animal waste they produce threaten our waterways; factory farms require overuse of antibiotics to prevent disease in the animals kept in filthy conditions, contributing to the development of treatment-resistant bacteria; it requires significantly more land and water to raise animals for human consumption than it does to raise grain directly for humans; and diets with significant meat consumption contribute to heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and some cancers.  In addition, many of these negative consequences of factory farming are intensified in developing countries where factory farming is gaining a foothold and where government regulation to protect against the dangers is lax or non-existent.[9]  All of this is in addition to the unending misery it causes the animals caught in these systems. 
        When we support factory farming systems by buying their products, or by remaining silent when we have an opportunity to be a voice for change, we support systems that harm, rather than build up the community.  When we argue that eating meat is permitted in scripture, we are “puffed up” and missing the point. (We are also forgetting that factory farms did not exist when the scriptures were written and that scripture places restrictions on how we eat meat.) As Paul has observed, we “are no worse off if we do not eat [meat sacrificed to idols, ancient or modern], and no better off if we do.”  In fact, we are often much better off when we don't.

The same is true when we can’t be bothered to find cleaning or personal products that are not tested on animals, or when we insist on going to the circus or the petting zoo or other venues where animals are used for entertainment or photo opportunities, or when we refuse to consider a shelter pet, or when we wear fur.   

            Perhaps most significantly, when we disregard the harm and misery that result from these systems, we tell the world that Christ doesn’t care, either.  To suggest that Christ does not care about suffering is a distortion of the gospel and stumbling block that I know first-hand keeps some people from faith and risks sending some who have faith from the church. It says that although God created sentient creatures, and calls them good (wholly apart from their relationships to humans), blesses them, covenants with them, and calls them His own, he does not care about their suffering and misery.  If that is true, why should we believe He cares about us?  If that is true, what kind of God can He be?  A stumbling block, indeed.

            Paul had a hard time with the church in Corinth.  I think he’d have a harder time with us today.  

Photo by Pam Lennard

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[1] All biblical quotations are from the NRSV, unless otherwise noted.

[2] Hayes, Richard B. First Corinthians. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1997, p. 140.

[3] See Enslin, Morton Scott. The Ethics of Paul. New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1930, p. 245.

[4] Hayes, p. 142,

[5] Enslin, p. 231.  See also, Newton, Derek.  Deity and Diet: The Dilemma of Sacrificial Food at Corinth.  P. 277:  “The centrality of the principle of love is thus highlighted by Paul and love for God becomes the context of the issue of idol food.”

[6] Enslin, p. 129.

[7] This is currently primarily an issue with the Western diet, but because the Western diet and the factory farming systems on which it depends are spreading rapidly throughout the world, I do not limit this discussion to those of us living in the West. 

[8] See, Pew Commission report detailing concerns for the environment, public health, rural America, and animal welfare, http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2008/04/29/putting-meat-on-the-table-industrial-farm-animal-production-in-america (accessed August 23, 2014);  Health Freedom Alliance website, citing a Worldwatch Institute’s “2011 State of the World” report, http://healthfreedoms.org/2011/02/02/to-end-world-hunger-end-factory-farms-worldwatch-report/ (accessed August 23, 2014) for information on how factory farming contributes to world hunger; Center for Science in the Public Interest, “The Arguments,”  p. 17, http://www.cspinet.org/EatingGreen/pdf/arguments1.pdf  (accessed August 23, 2014) for information regarding the health risks of a diet heavy in meat, as well as food safety issues; Farm Sanctuary website, http://www.farmsanctuary.org/issues/factoryfarming/ and the Humane Society of the United States website, http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/campaigns/factory_farming/ for detailed information about animal suffering on factory farms, food safety issues, and environmental impacts of factory farming. 

[9] See, Pew, p. 9.