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To: Boogieman; stuartcr
That’s addressed in Corinthians. Basically, eating the food is no sin, but the act of sacrificing the food to idols is a sin. If, by partaking in the eating of the food, you can be seen as approving of or endorsing the sacrifice, then you could be tempting others to engage in the idolatrous practice.

This wasn't at all the focus of the Corinthians passage. Paul said that eating meat sacrificed to idols was nothing because we know there is but one God. He went on to say that some believers have weak faith and continue to believe that, as a Christian, eating meat sacrificed to idols is a sin. He said that those with strong faith having dinner at an idol's temple could find themselves, by their example, encouraging those of weak faith to go against their belief that eating such meat was a sin and, so, sin and have their faith, albeit weak, destroyed. He said that the meat doesn't make you closer to God; eating it doesn't make you better and not eating it doesn't make you worse.

He said that if an unbeliever asks you to go to dinner with him in such a place and you'd like to go, then go without any regard for conscience at all, enjoy yourself and eat whatever is set before you. But if another points out that the meat was sacrificed to an idol, don't eat for the sake of the other guy's conscience.

He said the important thing is not leading a weak brother to go against his (false) beliefs about eating meat sacrificed to idols and sin by doing so. He wasn't referring to a weak Christian brother being emboldened to engage in sacrifice to an idol! Ha ha ha. Come on! Aside from the text contradicting this, that doesn't even make sense.

It's an interesting point here that if you believe something is wrong, even though, from God's point of view, there is nothing wrong with it, and you do it anyway in violation of your conscience, it is sin that can be described as sufficient to lead to your destruction. Paul said a bite of meat wasn't worth the destruction of a brother and that he'd go without eating meat to avoid that.
32 posted on 11/30/2011 12:34:23 PM PST by aruanan
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To: aruanan

Yes, you’re right, it was about tempting fellow Christians. I was just trying to sum up the gist of it, and it’s a pretty tricky issue, dealing with Christian liberty, which not even most Christians have a clue about nowadays.


33 posted on 11/30/2011 12:48:44 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: aruanan

Oh, if you check out reply #31, there are some related verses quoted that do talk about not causing non-believers to stumble either, so maybe I was conflating those with the passage in chapter 8.


34 posted on 11/30/2011 12:53:04 PM PST by Boogieman
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