The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
February 1, 2009
Vol. 12 no. 05

Everything But...
           The problem with reading Paul’s letters is that they are pretty thin on stories, no parables or incidents being reported that bring alive the matters he is discussing. Just a lot of moral advice and direction.
          Yet, in his first letter to the church in Corinth, Greece, Paul is discussing a number of things that have happened in that congregation, in other words, a story somebody else was telling. We are able to reconstruct some of the story fairly well, and it seems to be about food and idols. Those two things don’t mix easily in our minds. Idols, whether stone, wood, bronze or gold, are red flags for people of the Book. Judaism and Christianity and Islam have made the worship of physical idols anathema from day one. For all our faiths there is only One God, so all the gods behind these finely crafted statues are not real and don’t exist. Idol worship is wasting one’s time worshipping nothing.
          But in Greek Corinth, what we call idols were still the order of the day. When there was a sacrifice to a particular God’s idol, it often was of grain or meat. Of course, since these gods were not real, no god picked up or ate these sacrifices, so there was a lot of meat left behind. Pretty decent meat, so it was sold in the markets to anyone, even Christians.
          “It’s just plain old meat, isn’t it?” a Corinthian deacon is asking Paul. “We know there are no such things as idols or other gods.” True, responds Paul, but some new converts to Christianity, babes in the faith, haven’t quite figured that out yet. Eating meat offered to idols is to taste another god. Don’t tempt your young brothers and sisters; and don’t think you are always so superior. You don’t really need that meat. Gambling, alcohol, drugs, and how many other foods work have the same problem?