“I have the right to do anything,” you say – but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything” – but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others…So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God… 1 Corinthians 10:23-24, 31-32
So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the person who doesn’t condemn himself by what he approves. Romans 14:23
Imagine, please, that you receive a wedding invitation from a long-standing friend called Dave. He is someone you have known and respected over many years. So naturally you are pleased to be invited; who wouldn’t want to be there on a friend’s very special day?
But as you read the invitation, you spot a problem: the person Dave is looking forward to marrying is called Mike. Ah!
Dave has always been open about being gay, and you have always been frank about your disagreement with this life-style. But he has never claimed to be a Christian, and you have therefore agreed to disagree, and have remained friends. You are aware of being honoured by the invitation, but your understanding of the Bible’s teaching – something he knows and respects – puts you in an awkward position. Very simply: should you accept the invitation?
If you decline, however graciously, you might seem to be snubbing a true friend; but you don’t feel comfortable about accepting and thereby seeming to condone something you sincerely feel is wrong.
So… what do you do?
I know some Christian friends who found themselves in pretty much this situation, facing pretty much this dilemma. I won’t tell you what they did – just that they found themselves in a quite agonising quandary, in spite of serious prayer. All I will say is that, whatever decision they made, I would have respected them.
There are times in life when we have to choose, not between right and wrong, but between two equally possible options: “grey areas”, they are sometimes called. As Christians we are called to be people of strong convictions, of course: there can be no budging on faith in Almighty God, or on the cardinal truths of the Gospel – Jesus crucified, risen again, and one day returning.
But there are situations, often very practical situations, when it simply isn’t quite so clear-cut; and in Paul’s first letter to the unruly and undisciplined Christians of Corinth, he tackles some of these head-on.
The Corinthian Christians take great delight in what might be called “Christian liberty” – the discovery that through simple faith in Jesus they are not bound by a big stack of petty rules and regulations, a long list of do’s and don’ts. No, loving, trusting and obeying Jesus is enough! – what a relief that offers from always feeling crushed by a failure to “measure up”!
The Corinthians even seem to have developed a little catch-phrase to sum it up: “All things are lawful”, or, as the NIV expands it a little: “I have the right to do anything”. Paul quotes it back at them, first in chapter 6 verse 12, and now again in chapter 10 verse 23.
In principle, Paul is in agreement – Yes, we are indeed set free in Christ. But in each case he adds a little slogan of his own, starting with that vital word “but”: “all things are lawful… but not everything is beneficial”. In other words, the fact that I am at liberty to do a particular thing doesn’t necessarily mean that I should do it. There are times to rein in your freedom rather than enjoy it.
Of course, the catch-phrase “All things are lawful”, even though Paul agrees with it, is not literally true anyway. Murder, for example, and adultery, are decidedly not lawful! One of the things that Paul is talking about in chapter 6 is sexual immorality – specifically, men having sex with prostitutes – and in this respect the very strictest laws apply.
But chapter 10 is very different; Paul is talking about matters of diet: should the Corinthian Christians worry that meat they buy in the open market might originally have been part of a sacrifice offered in a pagan temple? To which his answer is emphatic: No, of course not! Jesus has set us free from such quibbling questions!
The example I quoted at the beginning – should I attend the same-sex “marriage” of a friend? – is a modern-day example of this kind of dilemma. And there is no clear-cut, black-and-white answer: two equally committed Christians may arrive at different answers, and each should respect the other.
Behind the advice Paul is offering to the Corinthians is a fundamental principle: “No one should seek their own good, but the good of others” (1 Corinthians 10:24). He has in mind that my exercise of my liberty in Christ is all very fine – but what if it has the effect of “stumbling” the faith of a less robust, perhaps less mature, Christian? Not so fine, suggests verse 32… (And anyway, we mustn’t dismiss the possibility that the Christian I disagree with could actually be right, and me wrong, can we? A little humility is no bad thing…)
We “strong”, liberated Christians can be thoughtlessly, even arrogantly, sure of ourselves, can’t we? But, as Paul asks in Romans 14:4, “Who are we to judge someone else’s servant?” Who indeed?
Oh God, you are a holy God who calls us too to be pure and holy. But in matters both great and trivial day by day we find ourselves called on to make difficult decisions. Please grant me the wisdom of your Holy Spirit, neither to compromise your holiness, nor to stumble my fellow-believers. Amen.
Colin Sedgwick's blog 