A Formula For Growth

New Testament churches were strengthened in the Faith by avoiding four special sins. Most people ignore the way churches were strengthened in the Faith in the times of the Apostles because their commitment to holiness sounds old and antiquated. People don’t understand how to apply the New Testament demands of holiness to modern times—so we’ll try to demonstrate how to apply them in this post.

Our focal Bible passage is this:

As they [Paul and Silas] traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. So, the churches were strengthened in the Faith and grew daily in numbers (Acts 16:4-5).

In this passage we get a formula for strengthening churches in the Faith and making them grow. The decisions Paul and Silas delivered from the Apostles were actually four prohibitions. This list of prohibitions should be applied to Christians today, but to make each prohibition relevant, we need to interpret what each means for our day and age.

Here’s the list:

1. no eating food sacrificed to idols

2. no sexual immorality

3. no eating the meat of strangled animals

4. no drinking blood

These prohibitions sound outdated to us, until we discover the principle undergirding each one. According to the passage at hand, our churches will grow numerically if we obey these restrictions. So, the four prohibitions are a formula for growth!

We'll now describe what modern-day Christians must do to obey the first of the four restrictions: no consuming food sacrificed to idols.

Fellowship with Idolaters

Idolatry is still alive and kicking. You may not notice it, but it’s even more widespread now than it was two millennia ago. It’s more subtle. It’s more intertwined with daily life, but it's there.

People idolatrize their career, their family, culture (the arts, music, and literature), pleasure, their own selves, entertainment, success, and comfort. Common idols are: medical science, technology, a car, a house, actors/actresses, musicians, athletes, sports teams, our children, our parents, pets, the stock market, a company, a government, food, and money.

Modern-day idolatry has morphed into something markedly different from the idolatry of old. Today’s idols are no longer statues of clay, marble, gold, or bronze. Idolatry has become much more sophisticated. It often manifests itself in digital format.

You’ll see it in the technology of which this generation is so proud--like the idolatry of cell phones, the idolatry of pharmaceutical drugs, the idolatry of movies/cinema, and the idolatry of music!

But the sin the Apostles called ‘participating in food sacrificed to idols’ is not just a prohibition against idolatry. It's a prohibition against associating with idolaters. The sin is not so much a question of food as it is of fellowship.

The prohibition doesn’t revolve around whether you eat meat or not. The Holy Spirit wants you to avoid evil communion--that is, fellowship with sinners—that’s what he cares about. He doesn't want you to be weakened by friendship with the World.

Rotten Fellowship

Fellowship with idolaters will tempt a Christian to sin. Rubbing shoulders with people who hate God will corrupt good character.

Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character’ (1 Corinthians 15:33).

Psalm 1 warns us against walking with sinners, or standing with them, or sitting with them. Note that these three actions, if you were to do them, would demonstrate your progressive increase of familiarity, trust, and friendship with evil people.

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked, or stand in the way sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers (Psalm 1:1).

The most significant problem is not the food of idolatry, but the idolaters of food. Christians must avoid fellowship with idolaters. Their sin will rub off on us if we're not careful. You must take idolaters very seriously, or their influence will cause permanent damage to your conscience.

Supporting the Weaker Brother

Paul often dealt with the problem of Christians eating meat sacrificed to idols. In the passage at hand, the one where he delivered the decisions of the Apostles to the churches, Paul prohibited eating such meat. But later on he stopped prohibiting it. There was a time for Paul to support prohibitions, and there was a time when he stopped prohibiting. Why?

When Paul taught on the freedom believers have in Christ—freedom from the Old Testament Law—he continued to address the issue of meat sacrificed to idols. But he defined the issue differently. Paul made eating meat sacrificed to idols a matter of loving people.

Paul turned the matter of eating meat sacrificed to idols a question of being patient with people. He made it a question of helping fellow believers develop a good conscience. You're probably familiar with the terminology he used. He like to call it ‘not putting a stumbling block before a brother.’ Paul wanted Christians to focus on never leading a brother or sister into temptation.

This is what Paul wrote when his understanding of whether or not to eat meat sacrificed to idols was more refined:

Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, ‘The Earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.’ If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience.

But if someone says to you, ‘This has been offered in sacrifice,’ then do not eat it, both for the sake of the one who told you and for the sake of conscience. I am referring to the other person’s conscience, not yours (1 Corinthians 10:25-29).

Do you get it? Whether a Christian eats or drinks depends on the conscience of the person who is observing. We shoiuld make every effort not to provoke people to do what their conscience prohibits.

And earlier in the same letter, Paul made it clear that food cannot affect you spiritually. Whether you eat or not eat doesn't matter. What matters is whether you are acting in love towards a fellow Christian.

Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols?

So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against them in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ (1 Corinthians 8:7-12).

Obey Your Conscience

Do you follow the logic? Idols are not really gods at all, so food offered to them is just normal food. No special “power of the gods” falls upon the food since the gods they were sacrificed to aren't real. They don’t exist!

However, if a Christian who knows there are no gods eats the meat, and an immature believer (who thinks that the gods exist) believes that the food has been consecrated to a god—then a temptation is laid out. The immature believer will see the other Christian eating the meat, and he will also be inclined to eat meat. If he eats it, he sins.

Now eating food you believe should not be eaten is a sin. Why? Because anything not done in faith counts as sin. According to a person's conscience, if what they’re doing is wrong, then it’s wrong.

But the Christian who carelessly ate the meat first is complicit in the sin because they carelessly influenced the weaker brother to do something the weaker brother believes is wrong. The Christian who has the knowledge that all meat is clean has put a "stumbling block" in the weaker brother’s way. He has not acted in love.

Acting Against Your Conscience

Heaven counts such eating as sin--but why? It's because a Christian acted against their own conscience. But the “stronger” brother sinned too—and that's because he did not demonstrate love to his weaker brother. He should have been more sensitive. These two passages explain such circumstances well:

But the one who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin (Romans 14:23).

If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God… (1 John 3:20-21)

Keep a Clear Conscience

God expects every Christian to keep a clear conscience. A good conscience is established in baptism, when we're washed of all our prior sins. But a clear conscience is only obtained through confession. A clear conscience is the product of following Jesus.

All the apostles kept a clear conscience, and so should you!

… I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men (Acts 24:16; NASB).

Paul, looking intently at the Council, said, ‘Brethren, I have lived my life with a perfectly good conscience before God up to this day’ (Acts 23:1; NASB).

I thank God, whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my forefathers did… (2 Timothy 1:3)

… keep a good conscience... (1 Peter 3:16)

Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things (Hebrews 13:18; NASB).

For I am conscious of nothing against myself… (1 Corinthians 4:4)