A lot of people like to celebrate Australia Day with a barbecue. Usually that means cooking sausages, lamb chops, possibly some prawns or bacon and eggs if it’s a breakfast event, or other meat products on the barbecue before sharing them with family and friends.
If you enjoy eating meat, could you imagine going to an Australia Day barbecue with no meat? If you are vegetarian or vegan, what would it be like for you to go to a barbecue where the only food available was meat? Or, if you were hosting the event, would you only offer either meat or non-meat food to your guests?
There are a range of medical, moral, and ethical reasons why people decide not to eat meat. However, For the Christians in Corinth to whom Paul wrote his letter, eating or not eating meat was understood as a question of sin: was eating meat something that could disqualify a person from a relationship with God and eternal life?
A lot of the meat which was available in Corinth had been offered to idols as an act of worship. The Christians knew the First Commandment – to have no other gods – and for some, eating meat that had been sacrificed to an idol broke that Commandment. They believed that eating the meat of an animal which had been sacrificed to another god was participating in the worship of that god, and so they regarded eating that meat as a sin.
Others in the early Christian community at Corinth, however, held a different view. They knew that there is only one God and everything else that was worshiped as a ‘god’ didn’t have any power. These Christians believed that they were fake gods and the sacrifices made to them were also powerless, so they were free to eat the meat that was offered to them.
The Christian community in Corinth was divided between those who in good conscience ate meat that had been sacrificed to idols, and those whose conscience wouldn’t let them eat it.
Paul’s way of resolving this division gives us a valuable insight into how to deal with differences in our churches almost two thousand years later. Instead of writing a theological research paper or arguing that one side was right and the other wrong, Paul said,
… if what I eat causes another believer to sin, I will never eat meat again as long as I live.
(1 Corinthians 8:13a NLT)
Paul’s way of resolving the division that existed around eating meat in Corinth was to offer to give up something for the sake of another person. If you are someone who enjoys a good barbecue, a roast, or maybe a steak or schnitzel at the pub, how do you react to Paul’s offer to become vegetarian for the sake of another member of the congregation? Or if you don’t eat meat, could you imagine giving something up that you enjoy and consider a right to help build up another person in their faith and relationship with God?
Paul’s willingness to give up eating meat to help build up another person’s faith is called ‘sacrificial love’. Earlier in this chapter, Paul wrote that ‘knowledge puffs up while love builds up’ (1 Corinthians 8:1b NIV). He alerts us to the deep and essential difference between theological knowledge and a life of Christ-like love. Paul explores this difference later in chapter 13 where he writes, ‘If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge (the same word he uses in chapter 8), and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing’ (1 Corinthians 13:2 NIV). What is important for Paul is not that a person has tertiary theological training, degrees, or awards, but that they show Christ-like love to build up the faith of another person whose conscience leads them to live differently to themselves.
Offering to give up eating meat for the rest of his life was probably a pretty serious sacrifice for Paul, as it would be for just about anyone who enjoys a barbecue, roast, steak or schnitzel. However, he knew that compared to what Jesus gave up for him, it wasn’t very important. Paul’s faith centred around and grew out of Jesus’ sacrifice for him on the cross. Jesus didn’t just give up eating meat, or something else that we might think is important to us. Jesus sacrificed everything for us, his whole life, on the cross. Paul knew that compared to what Jesus had given up for him, giving up meat really wasn’t that important.
Paul was willing to do that because of his faith in Jesus but also because it would help the other person encounter God’s sacrificial love for them through him. Paul’s focus was what we could do to build up the faith of the other person. If giving something up helped a sister or brother trust in the grace and love of God for them in Jesus, then Paul was willing to make that sacrifice. Paul’s priority wasn’t what he could get from the other person, but what he gave. He wasn’t thinking just about himself and what he wanted, but he was thinking about the other person and how to build them up in faith and love. This is what Christ-like love looks like: it sees the other person and what they need, and is willing to give up or sacrifice anything to build up their faith in God’s love and grace for us in Jesus.
In our church at this time there are a range of differences which have the potential to cause conflict or divide us. They might be big theological issues like ordination, week-to-week concerns like worship styles or music, or other more practical matters where we have differences of opinion or preference. Our natural inclination is to focus on ourselves, what we want, and how to get what we want. This is fed by a culture that tells us we have the right to get what we want, when and how we want it. Following Paul in the way of sacrificial, Christ-like love is radically counter-cultural. It teaches us to not fight for our rights or what we want but challenges us to be ready to give up what is important to us in order to build up other people in Christ-like faith and love. This doesn’t mean becoming a doormat for others to walk over – Paul was no doormat! But what it does mean is a fundamental change away from what we might want or what we might think are our rights, towards our sisters and brothers in the faith and what we can give up to build them up in faith and love.
Maybe the next time you go to a barbecue, or sit down to a steak or schnitzel, you might like to think about Paul’s offer to give up meat to build up another in the faith, remember what Jesus gave up so we could become holy children of God, and then ask yourself what you might give up to build up a sister or brother in their faith in Jesus. Because when we are willing to sacrifice for others, they encounter Christ’s sacrificial love for them through us.
More to think about or discuss:
- What is your reaction to Paul’s words about never eating meat again to build up another person in faith and love? What does it tell you about his faith?
- How does Paul’s sacrifice compare to Jesus’ sacrifice for us? How do you think his faith in Jesus helped him to show that same self-giving, sacrificial love to others?
- What might be one thing you could give up to help build up someone else’s faith in Jesus? How might focussing on Jesus’ sacrifice help you to do that?
Pastor Eugene Online 
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