Newsflash: Personal Discipline Is Not Legalism
“The source of the problem, ultimately, is a general sense, born out of sentiments endemic in broader culture, and perpetuated at times in Christian homes and churches, that cultivating discipline and developing a work ethic are somehow dangerous, legalistic, or antithetical to the Christian Gospel. This is patently false.” - Snoeberger
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I don’t mind if it is novel and I wasn’t trying to impugn your case. I have Garland at home - I’ll read tonight. Garland’s 1 Corinthians is long and I find it a bit self-contradictory. I guess it does agree with you in some places. But in others he does see the “apparent contradiction” between 1 Cor 8 and 1 Cor 10, as I recall - again I’ll read tonight.
[Dan Miller]Maybe if your were just asking if I was following someone in particular, then no, not really. Mainly I’m just interacting with those on this thread and thinking through the text. I did read a bit of Fee at lunch today and I recall tracking pretty well with Garland when I’ve checked him on selected passages. One of the problems is that Paul’s argument is pretty lengthy and so to actually read someone’s entire treatment would be very time consuming.I don’t mind if it is novel and I wasn’t trying to impugn your case. I have Garland at home - I’ll read tonight. Garland’s 1 Corinthians is long and I find it a bit self-contradictory. I guess it does agree with you in some places. But in others he does see the “apparent contradiction” between 1 Cor 8 and 1 Cor 10, as I recall - again I’ll read tonight.
Paul makes clear that the ultimate consideration in all his discussion about eating things offered to idols, etc (1 Cor. 8-10) is the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). Idolatrous eating, drinking, and playing (cf. 1 Cor. 10:7) are all sinful foremost because they rob God of the glory that is due His name.
Paul also makes clear that ultimately the greatest corrupting aspect of that idolatrous eating, drinking, and playing is that it brings sinful humans into fellowship with supernatural evil beings (1 Cor. 10:20).
Finally, many other passages show us that idolatrous eating, drinking, and playing must not merely be regarded as humans offering the right things and doing the right things but directing them to the wrong objects. Immorality, idolatry, and the occult frequently go hand-in-hand and many of the offerings and activities in such settings are in and of themselves unrighteous offerings and activities.
Andy: So, what does Isaiah mean when he says, “they were no gods?” It’s the same thing that Paul acknowledges in 1 Cor 8:4. Isaiah and Paul are in agreement. The Corinthians thought this, too. BUT, Isaiah also says, “cast their gods into the fire.” Isaiah says they are no gods and they are gods in the same passage. Same thing Paul is doing in 1 Cor 8-10, but not what the Corinthians were doing. They stopped at the first point of agreement.
This is great because I think we’re finally getting to the core of disagreement. We keep using the term “nothing” in imprecise ways.
I’m going to try make some terms and see if that helps.
NullNothing = nothing in every sense. Take a Christian farmer’s cow in a field and chop off it’s leg - has that meat been offered to anything? No. That meat has been offered to NOTHING. NullNothing.
WorthNothing = worth nothing. This means useless. Or maybe “useless for good.” As Andy said, I don’t know what God would permit a demon to do. A pagan idol is WorthNothing. It’s a {real} idol, a {real} false god. At least as real as any idol ever was. It might be associated with a demon, which is spiritually alive in that it can do evil things, but also spiritually dead in the sense that it can do nothing good. It must therefore not be sought for guidance, help, etc. Meat offered to it is really offered to an idol.
– Now, I’ll use those terms. –
[Paul] taught the Corinthians that “Idols are nothing.” He meant WorthNothing, but they took him to mean NullNothing. Garland, Fee, Willis, etc. teach that likely many of the Corinthians already thought the idol was NullNothing before the Gospel came to them. Viewing the idol as empty superstition, they went to the temple for social/political reasons, not religious.
On the basis of the Gospel and the teaching that “Idols are nothing” and “there is no God but God,” they concluded that what is offered to idols is offered to NullNothing, meaning that it hasn’t been offered to anything. And there is no prohibition against eating what has hasn’t been offered to anything, so go ahead and eat. Some (at least) said, go ahead and sit and eat at the NullNothing-table in the NullNothing-temple to the NullNothing-idol.
For us, this might be like a play. Let’s say you have a play and in the play you have a fictional depiction of an idol offering. (Please let’s not get sidetracked on whether you would want such a play at your school.) Then the play is over and there’s this food. Can the cast eat it? Nobody really thought it was really offered to an idol. So eat it. It wasn’t “really offered.” It was just pretend.
That’s how the Corinthians understood “Idols are nothing.”
What [Paul] actually meant by “Idols are nothing” was WorthNothing. They are as “real” as any idol ever was since Mount Sinai. Yes, the NullNothing idea fit with their thoughts about the idol. But Paul did not mean NullNothing, nor does the Deuteronomy teach that. Paul never agreed that the idols were NullNothing, regardless of where you’re considering eating their meat.
In the temple, the meat is “really offered” to a WorthNothing (and as real as any idol ever was) idol.
In the market, meat is POSSIBLY “really offered” to a WorthNothing (and as real as any idol ever was) idol.
This is definitely more in line with my thinking, but I’d like to modify it some, trying to use your basic definitions, but maybe nuancing them slightly differently. Hopefully this does not set us back too much.
8:1 – we all possess knowledge regarding meat offered to idols
8:2 – however, our knowledge of idols is incomplete or not the same (“he does not yet know as he ought to know”)
8:4 – we both know that an idol is “nothing” (KJV) or “of no real existence” (ESV)
Dan’s Paul-knowledge: WorthNothing
Dan’s Corinthians-knowledge: NullNothing
Andy’s Paul-knowledge: a NullNothing (in that it is just a block of wood) AND a WorthNothing (in that there is a good-for-nothing God-opposing demonic force reality that exists behind this idol and its worship)
Andy’s Corinthians-knowledge: a NullNothing
Note—Dan might be using WorthNothing in the same basic way that I am trying to explain Paul’s knowledge of idols. My way of separating the ideas is helpful because (1) it allows Paul to agree with the Corinthians on a certain level, as I believe he does in 8:4 and 10:19-20, i.e., I see this as important for maintaining the integrity and inerrancy of Paul’s instruction (this is my main reason for this further pushback); and (2) because the NullNothing aspect helps explain why meat sacrificed to idols is not ALWAYS prohibited (only meat that you know for sure has been sacrificed to idols is prohibited). Since an idol is just a piece of wood, a NullNothing, it doesn’t do anything to the meat. But since an idol is also a WorthNothing, you can’t escape the fellowship with demons once you KNOW how that meat was used.
10:19 – Does a NullNothing idol have the ability to taint the meat offered to it? i.e., Am I implying that meat offered to a NullNothing idol is tainted or that an idol is not a NullNothing piece of wood?
10:20 – No, I’m not implying that. Your knowledge is correct as far as it goes. BUT when pagans offer meat to a NullNothing idol, they are offering it to something that is also a WorthNothing idol, in other words, they are offering it to real demons and you should never participate in that fellowship with demons.
Note – my understanding of what Paul is saying in verse 19 is carefully worded. I don’t have Paul saying, “Do I imply that an idol is nothing more than a NullNothing.” If I have him saying that, then his denial in verse 20 would be incorrect, because an idol IS more than a NullNothing.
10:25, 27 – Application: you are free to eat meat sold in the market or at an unbeliever’s home, and you don’t have ask where it came from. Stated Reason (vs 26) – meat is part of the good fullness of the earth that God created. Unstated Reason - an idol does not and cannot taint meat because it a NullNothing idol.
10:28 – Application: Because a NullNothing idol is also a WorthNothing idol, once you KNOW that the meat was offered to an idol, you can’t eat it. Reason 1 (from 10:14-22) – because you would be in fellowship with real demonic powers and so you must abstain; Reason 2 – sake of the person and his conscience who informed you that the meat was offered to an idol that is both a NullNothing and a WorthNothing.
Dan — your way of explaining the text might be better than mine, but I would need to know how you resolve the apparent contradiction that I think you have Paul making in your way of framing the argument.
I’m really enjoying you guys digging into the passages, especially the interaction between Dan and Andy and the attempts to understand/explain rights/liberty vs. the nuances of meat offered to idols. I don’t really have the time or background to get into this the way you guys are, but I’m certainly benefiting from your conversation.
Dave Barnhart
Andy’s Paul-knowledge: a NullNothing (in that it is just a block of wood) AND a WorthNothing (in that there is a good-for-nothing God-opposing demonic force reality that exists behind this idol and its worship)
When you say, “it is just a block of wood,” that doesn’t clear things up. An idol (say the statue of Dagon from 1 Samuel 6 - I don’t know what it was made of - assume wood) is “just a block of wood.” And a split log sitting next to my fireplace is “just a block of wood.” But they are not the same even though I used the same words for them.
As I defined them, NullNothing and WorthNothing are mutually exclusive. You can be vague and mean either by saying “nothing.” But an object cannot be both NullNothing and WorthNothing.
WorthNothing fully embraces the “nothingness,” you bring up Isaiah 37:19, but leaving room for the somethingness that you meant when you said, “Idols are both something and nothing at the same time.” So this is ok, but unnecessary:
Andy’s Paul-knowledge: a NullNothing (in that it is just a block of wood) AND a WorthNothing (in that there is a good-for-nothing God-opposing demonic force reality that exists behind this idol and its worship)
Because when I said
Dan’s Paul-knowledge: WorthNothing
I meant to express both the nothingness of Isaiah 37 and the somethingness that it is a false god.
Once again I feel we’re getting bogged down. We’re talking same objects that exhibit radical change without actually changing at all.
An Ephesian walks out his back door and sees a piece of wood standing straight and tall with green leaves. It’s a shade tree, not unlike a kazillion others.
He gets his saw and cuts it down. It is still a piece of wood, but now we now we call it a saw log.
He cuts off a chunk. Still a piece of wood, but now we identify it as a basic wood block, a product for commerce.
He cuts off everything that doesn’t look like a huntress and gives it the name Artemis. Still a piece of wood, but now we call it an idol god.
500 years pass and another guy passing through the region finds it in a rubbish pile, polishes it up and puts it on his wifes’ knick knack shelf. Still a piece of wood, but we call it a trinket, or, possibly, art.
Ice storm comes and knocks out the power, so he scrounges around and uses it to start a fire (wife never really liked it anyway). Still a piece of wood, but now it is kindling.
Spring comes; ashes are spread in the garden. Still a piece of wood (more or less) but now we know it as fertilizer.
Bird drops a seed in the garden ashes and a new tree grows, drawing nutrition from the previous. What will it be? a shade tree? a telephone pole? Firewood? A Steinway? You get the picture. Same piece of wood being recycled.
Point being, nothing has changed yet everything has changed on the exact piece of wood. It’s meaning is derived from its assigned purpose. Most of it is quite bland. Some is a moral evil which eventually morphs back into “nothing.”
The purpose of these passages is recognizing moral evilness assigned it by the idolatrous culture and preventing that moral evil in every form from infiltrating and infecting the church of Jesus Christ or the lives of His saints. We’re missing the point if our discussion doesn’t take us there.
Lee
[Lee]I have to disagree that the “moral evilness [is] assigned it by the idolatrous culture.” We are not dealing with merely cultural things originated by sinful humans. No amount of human evil ingenuity or craftiness that is entirely of human origination has any ability to generate a necessary response by supernatural evil beings. Idolatry is ultimately not a cultural thing—it is spiritual warfare originated by the influencing of sinful human beings by supernatural evil beings such that the humans do what the demons want them to do—not vice versa.The purpose of these passages is recognizing moral evilness assigned it by the idolatrous culture and preventing that moral evil in every form from infiltrating and infecting the church of Jesus Christ or the lives of His saints. We’re missing the point if our discussion doesn’t take us there.
Notice that Paul does not particularize what he says in 1 Cor. 10:20 as if it were something cultural for the Corinthians that the Corinthians distinctively or even uniquely originated:
1 Corinthians 10:20 But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.
Instead of “the Gentiles” here, Paul could have said “the Corinthians,” but he did not do that. The demonic character/aspects of sacrifices being made to idols is not something that any humans could ever have originated on their own.
[Dan Miller] I think we’re on the same page actually
Yes, I agree. I think we are using slightly different terminology because of how each of us, in our own way, is trying to keep Paul from saying something untrue.
Do you want to explain where you are going after you said the following, and how your thinking justifies Paul’s different conclusions regarding what is permissible?
[Dan Miller]In the temple, the meat is “really offered” to a WorthNothing (and as real as any idol ever was) idol.
In the market, meat is POSSIBLY “really offered” to a WorthNothing (and as real as any idol ever was) idol.
Andy, I know you want to move on and I know I owe you that. But this discussion is helping me a lot with how to think through and express these concepts, especially “knowledge.”
For instance, using NullNothing and WorthNothing wasn’t helpful and maybe should be discarded. In line with how you’re expressing it, I think I think it might be better to say:
Isaiah (37:18-19) called idols “nothing” and said that they were “something” that ought to be destroyed. So Isaiah called idols “nothing” and meant “nothing-something.”
Paul called idols “nothing” and also meant nothing-something.
To be clear, nothing-something has two parts:
The first part refers to whether or not the speaker is thinking of the idol as something to be respected, listened to, sought for help, sacrificed to, etc. “Nothing-______“ means, “This idol is not God. There is only one God. This is nothing to me in terms of devotion because I only worship the One True God.”
The second part “______-something” part refers to the fact that idols are “false gods” (Isaiah 37) and “demonic” (Deuteronomy 32:17-18). The “something” part is important in that it meant that idols are {real}. At least they are as real as any idol ever was. And what is offered is offered as “really” as any offering ever was.
* Question for Andy: Do you think “nothing-something” is better?
* Question for Rajesh and Lee: Any protest to calling a false god “real”? I’ve been putting {real} because I’m not sure it’s right to call it that.
[Dan Miller]…
* Question for Rajesh and Lee: Any protest to calling a false god “real”? I’ve been putting {real} because I’m not sure it’s right to call it that.
Dt. 7:25-26 “The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therin: for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God. Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.”
Seems awfully real to the One who inspired the directive/commands. Certainly seemed awfully real to the practitioners of Baal (Mt. Carmel) and Artemis/Diana (Ephesians). That they are the objects of worship and fully capable of corrupting the participant testify of their real-ness to both God and the idolaters.
Lee
[Dan Miller] Question for Andy: Do you think “nothing-something” is better?
Yes, I like it much better.
It’s worth noting that the Corinthians had good Biblical support for the nothing part of nothing-something.
These false gods are no gods. 2Chron 13:9, Isa 37:19, Jer 2:11, 16:20 and Paul in Gal 4:8 all say the same thing – they are not gods.
False idols are “nothing and empty wind” (Isa 41:29, 44:9), “do not profit” (Jer 2:11; Isa 44:9), are like “scarecrows in a cucumber field” that are not to be feared and can do neither evil or good (Jer 10:5), are “but wood” (Jer 10:8), they know not, nor do they discern…they cannot see…they cannot understand (Isa 44:18). So, why fall down to a “block of wood” (Isa 44:19)?
The story of Dagon in 1 Sam 5 is designed to show that the God of Israel was real and Dagon was not. All these false gods are just created out of the imagination of man (cf. Isa 44:9-19). Because of all that, we can conclude that these false gods are not real. Dagon, Baal, and Artemis, for example, are not real beings.
But, and this is one way in which the Corinthians go wrong, there is something that IS real. The “graven images of their gods” that Deut 7:25 refers to are real in the sense that the images exist and they are set up in opposition to the one true God. The false worship is real in that people are offering things to what they think are real gods. There is actual demonic activity and influence behind all this which is real. I’m not 100% sure how and when demonic activity enters the picture, and all that is involved, but it is certainly there. All this constitutes the something part of “nothing-something.”
So using the nothing-something wording, we can comment on the thinking of the various players:
A Corinthian pagan who worships the idol would call the idol “something.”
Is he right?—>(Not really. We would correct him and say the idol is nothing-something.)
Isaiah called idols nothing-something.
Is he right?—>(Isaiah was right)
Paul called idols “nothing” and also meant nothing-something.
Is he right?—>(Paul was right)
The ch8 temple-eaters called idols “nothing” and meant nothing-nothing. In fact, “nothing-nothing” is his knowledge.
Is he right?—>(The temple-eaters were wrong. Maybe not completely, but they were wrong in a very significant way. The demonic “somethingness” of the idol contradicts their “nothing-nothing” knowledge.)
The ch8 “weak” The weak calls it “something.” They called the idol-meat “really offered to idols” and on that basis felt conscience bound not to eat it. But, since we’re being precise, would they say, “nothing-something” or “something-something”? Remember, the first term indicates whether the person believes he should respect, honor, seek help from, or worship the idol (something) or whether they refuse to do those things (nothing). The “weak” are making a conscience-based refusal to eat what was offered to the idol. So “nothing-something.”
Is he right?—>(The weak were right.)
This is the point I am driving towards. The temple-eaters were wrong. The weak were right.
––
Ok. So why did Paul say(8:4), “we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and seem to agree with their knowledge? And why did Paul say(8:9-10), “this right of yours,… who have knowledge eating in an idol’s temple,” if he didn’t really think they had that right and he didn’t really agree that their knowledge mean they could eat in an idol’s temple?
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