The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed by Barbara Swanson of Batesville, Arkansas, from the tape, GC 1301-F, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 8."  A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. ©1977. All Rights Reserved.

Question

If an idol is nothing (and we agree that an idol is nothing—it’s nothing but stone or wood or, I mean there’s not anybody home there, really), and if an idol is nothing, and eating meat offered to an idol was okay because the idol was nothing (that’s exactly what it says in First Corinthians), why did the Jerusalem Council make the statement against doing such things?

Answer

All right, let’s look at that. First Corinthians, chapter eight. And the answer is simple and we’ll try to point it out very, very briefly to you here real quick. First Corinthians 8:4, “As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there’s no other God but one.” So an idol isn’t anything, so eating something to an idol itself isn’t anything. There isn’t anything wrong with that.

Verse eight he says, “Food commends us not to God: neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse.” So eating something that had been offered to an idol, and you remember how it worked--the people bring stuff to an idol, they’d give a third to the idol, burn a third and take a third home. And the question was, “Could you eat the third you took home, if it’d been offered to a pagan idol?” And of course, the Christians were having a problem with this because the stuff that was offered to the idol would go out the back door of the temple and be sold in a butcher shop that was run by the priests. Could you eat meat that you bought in the butcher shop that had been offered to an idol? Or if you went to a Gentile’s home and they fed you something that had been offered to an idol, could you eat it? Well, the answer of course is there’s nothing wrong.

Well, why then do you have the statement of Acts chapter 15 and verse 29? When they were going out to do their missionary work in the Gentile world, the statement there is this: verse 28, “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us,”--and this is the Jerusalem Council making a decision about behavior in taking the message into Gentile areas--“to lay upon you no greater burden than those necessary things.” In other words, we don’t want to make it legalistic, but keep these in mind. “Abstain from things offered to idols.” Now stop there. Why? If it is not wrong, and if an idol is nothing, why does he tell them to abstain? Well the answer…go back to verse 19. “Wherefore, my judgment is that we trouble not them who from among the Gentiles are turned to God,”--let’s not make an issue about meats offered to idols—“but that we write unto them that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and fornication, and things strangled, and blood.” Why? “For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day.” Why were they not to do this? For the sake of whom? For the sake of the Jews who would be offended, right?

So you just have the same principle that you have in 8-10 of First Corinthians. Some things are not wrong, but we don’t do them for the sake of folks that might be offended. And those things would very definitely have offended the Jews in the community, and if the Gentile church did those things, they would lose the opportunity to witness to those Jewish people.

Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:

Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Box 119
Columbus, New Jersey, USA, 08022
Our websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com
Email: tony@biblebb.com
Online since 1986