GOSPEL AND CULTURE.
HOW DID PAUL RESOLVE THE ISSUE OF GOSPEL-CULTURE ENCOUNTERS WITH RESPECT TO FOOD SACRIFICED TO IDOLS IN 1 CORINTHIANS 8:1-13?
HOW DID PAUL RESOLVE THE ISSUE OF GOSPEL-CULTURE ENCOUNTERS WITH RESPECT TO FOOD SACRIFICED TO IDOLS IN 1 CORINTHIANS 8:1-13?
HOW
SIGNIFICANT ARE THE ISSUES FOR PASTORAL MINISTRY IN AFRICA?
Written
by: Pastor Elizabeth Korasare, MA
INTRODUCTION
The article seeks to look at gospel and culture and how Paul resolved the opposing views between gospel and culture regarding food sacrificed to idols in 1
Corinthians 8:1-13 and how this issue impacts on pastoral ministry in Africa.
The
definition of the gospel, is normally oversimplified to mean ‘the teachings and
revelation of Christ’[1] or the Good News that is
preached to people. Culture on the other hand is defined as the way of life and
social organization of a particular country or a group of people. [2] The meaning and scope of
these two words cannot be fully exhausted if defined in such simple terms. This
paper will therefore look at a more holistic definition of the term gospel and
culture.
WHAT IS GOSPEL?
According
to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the word gospel is derived from the Anglo-Saxon
term ‘god-spell’ meaning ‘good story’. It is the translation of the Greek word euangelion[3] meaning ‘a good message’. In the New Testament, euangelion becomes the technical word for the message of Good News
offered to all men through faith in Christ Jesus. The gospel/Good News is a
gift from God.[4]
Paul writes in Galatians 1:6-11, that the Gospel of God is His revelation and
not a discovery, and that there is no other Gospel apart from the Gospel of
Christ.
Over
the years, a series of Ecumenical council conferences have taken place to find a
working definition of the gospel. At the fifth assembly of the World Council
of Churches (WCC) in Nairobi in 1975, the gospel was defined as:
the good news
from God, our creator and Redeemer…the announcement of God’s kingdom and love
through Jesus Christ, the offer of grace and forgiveness of sins, the invitation to
repentance and faith in him… the responsibility to participate in the struggle
for justice and human dignity’.[5]
This
definition from the WCC is more of
a person and church-oriented understanding which maintains the traditional
definition of evangelism[6] - reaching out to people
with the message of redemption and calling them to repentance. It also includes
the dimension that seeks to address justice and human rights, therefore integrating
the gospel into all aspects of human life.
Kwame
Bediako succinctly describes the gospel as ‘who Christ is, and what he means,
in his person, his life on earth, his work, his death, his resurrection and its
aftermath and how all that concerning him relates to all human beings in all
our cultural traditions, histories and environments.[7] In other words, the Gospel
relates to human nature at its very core and to human existence in totality. It
relates to the historical, social, cultural, economic and political as well as
personal[8] aspects of life. The gospel could, therefore, be described as how
the life of Christ relates to us in all circumstances of life. The Apostle Paul
also summarizes the basic elements of the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8. Paul
writes ‘…that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was
buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures’.[9] Therefore, the gospel in
my opinion is the Good News of Jesus that brings holistic redemption to man. It
brings about the renewal of the soul and body of the individual and the community
as a whole. With the understanding that the gospel brings us the message of
God’s total identification with humanity, we can then say that the gospel is
the ‘person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth’[10] and the continuation of
his life in the work of the church and all other aspects of human life in the
context of our culture.
WHAT IS CULTURE?
Culture
has its origins in God. It began in the Garden of Eden when God created the
male and female and endowed them with moral and social values and the
capability to develop patterns of behavior and evolve ways of life. Cultural
practices handed over from the patriarch have evolved, and changed, some are suppressed
and others have been eradicated. Yet to a large extent, elements of culture
still persist in most societies. The word is derived from the French word culture and Latin cultura, meaning to grow, or cultivate.
Culture
can be likened to a tree. The most important elements are hidden underneath and
largely invisible to outsiders. Such elements are the history, beliefs,
ideology; that are hardly understood unless explained. The surface elements
include ways of dressing, arts, traditions, rituals, which have also been
identified by Kwame Bediako in his definition of culture. He also asserts that
culture relates to how persons and their social groupings think and understand
themselves in their physical and spiritual environment. This includes ‘political
organizations, notions of leadership, authority, power and rule as well as religion
and moral values and things deemed acceptable and unacceptable’.[11]
Paul
Hiebert defines culture as ‘more or less integrated systems of beliefs,
feelings and values and their associated symbols, pattern of behavior and
products’.[12]
The WCC assembly in Nairobi in 1975, attempted to define culture as ‘people’s
style of life, the way people think, behave and live together and that which in
this sense continues to mold the way of life of the people’.[13]
It
is obvious from the definitions above that gospel and culture are inseparable
because the gospel is about how Christ relates to all circumstances of life and
this is an ‘enduring encounter’[14] as Kwame Bediako posits.
GOSPEL AND CULTURE
As
stated by Kwame Bediako, ‘gospel and culture is something that has been going
on all the time, and that God has been about this ever since creation’.[15] Our understanding of
God’s revelation is related to gospel and culture and therefore gospel and
culture are inseparable. God’s self-revelation is linked to actual history of a
particular people in the context of their culture. In other words, God’s
interaction and relations with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and their descendants were in
their own cultural setting.
Before
the New Testament times, a Jewish people with a definite sense of their history,
religious traditions, identity and culture, had developed. Their concern was
the return of the Kingdom to Israel.[16] It was in this culture
that the ‘Word became flesh and dwelt’.[17] This was the beginning of
the encounter of gospel and culture in the New Testament. The gospel in the
person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, was born in a Jewish environment dominated
by Romans, his manifestation as God in Christ (divinity) took place within the
Jewish environment. He spoke the language, followed the customs and traditions,
lived and shared in the life experiences of the people; their pain, ignorance,
social practices, festivals, religion and philosophy. The ‘Word’ became alive
in the culture and shared his God-experience with the people according to their
category of thought, their background and mentality. He criticized the negative
aspects of their culture and opened their minds to understand important aspects
of scripture.[18]
Therefore, the person of Jesus Christ as the Gospel; the Son of God, and Savior
of the world, embodies the fullest revelation of God to all humanity in a
cultural setting. For the gospel to have full meaning it has to be in the
context of a culture. Therefore, the gospel becomes our story,
our tradition the model that shapes us, through which we see our way of life.
It is about conversion of cultures and our entire being, turning over
everything that makes us to Christ. At the heart of the gospel is Jesus and the
heart of culture is the person.[19] Thus far I have looked at
the definition of gospel and culture, I will now turn my attention to 1
Corinthians 8:1-13 and the significance of the issues for pastoral ministry in
Africa.
THE BACKGROUND OF THE CITY OF CORINTH
The
city of Corinth was a vibrant commercial centre with a mixed ethnic population
of Romans, indigenous Greeks and a strong Jewish community. At the time Paul’s
missionary activities began at Corinth, the city was attracting traders
everywhere in the empire. Many of the inhabitants were affluent and lived
ostentatious lives.
On
the religious front, the city housed many gods and cults. These included
Aphrodite, Apollo, Demeter among others. Temple prostitution and magic were
very prevalent. Several of the people believed in keeping many gods; and there
were inscriptions displayed in the city that read ‘I pray to all gods’.[20] The idol worshippers
were preoccupied with sacrifices of animals to the gods. They consumed part of
the meat and sold the rest at the public market. Sacrifices to idols were an
important aspect of their religious life because it was believed that these
gods preserved the state and social order. [21] Christians who refused to
partake in the worship and sacrificial meals offered to the traditional gods,
were branded as haters of humankind.[22]
THE CHURCH IN CORINTH
The
church in Corinth was established by Paul on his third missionary journey with
the help of Aquila and Priscilla. The church was socially stratified and
diverse. It was made up of believers with different levels of maturity in the faith. Some of them were socially-pretentious and self-important individuals who
paraded their symbols of self-importance, wisdom and influence in the church and
looked down on those with lesser influence.[23] There were heightened
disagreements among the believers on issues regarding marriage to unbelievers,
lawsuits among believers and sexual immorality among others, that resulted in
divisions.[24]
THE FACTIONS IN THE CULTURAL CONTEXT
The
factions in the church were of two categories. The ‘strong group’, who felt
superior because of their level of knowledge on spiritual things and the new
converts, described by Paul as ‘weak’, [25] who were still struggling
in the newfound faith and had not gained a full understanding of their
salvation and Christ as their final sacrifice.
The
strong were a group that understood that meat offered to idols was not harmful
to the body, because idols were not real. With the knowledge and liberty they
had acquired they condemned those who were not enlightened on such issues. The
weak, on the other hand, new Gentiles Christians, were deeply rooted in a
culture of idol worship and were not fully persuaded that idols were not real
but just figments of imagination and phony. This was an issue Paul addressed to
help the Gentile Christians grow.[26]
PAUL’S RESPONSE
Paul
was mindful of the cultural context and therefore did not directly condemn the
weak in the society for their ‘weak conscience’ that puts them in the category
of unbelievers. Rather, Paul addresses the issue in the context of the culture, focusing on love for the neighbor, community living and bringing out the
ethical issues bordered on the conscience.
Before this issue came up, it had already been established by the
council of elders meeting in Jerusalem that ‘you are to abstain from food
sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals’[27] This was a sin associated
to pagan religious festivals and yet taken too lightly by the’ knowledgeable Greeks’.
This issue was determined by the council of elders to bring sanity into the
community of believers who were practicing syncretism. As Paul writes that ‘all
things are lawful, but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful, but
not all things edify’.[28] Paul simply means that
some actions may not be wrong, but will not be in the interest of others.
Hence, in Paul’s initial response, he pointed at the strong in the church who were
puffed up because of knowledge and acted in a proud way over those who were weak
in faith and were not sympathetic towards them. This, in Paul’s opinion, was not
an expression of love and did not promote community living. To him, knowledge moderated
with love was the only way to show that one loves God and is known by Him. It
is obvious from Romans 14:15-20 that any act of a believer should not distress
a neighbor. It is only on the basis of love that one can sacrifice personal
pleasure for the benefit of another. Ethical altruism holds that individuals
have a moral obligation to help others. It is therefore, the duty of the strong
believers to live for the weak by helping them to reach the stage where they
are fully persuaded in their newfound faith.
Paul
challenges the proud to be conscious of the conscience of the weaker brother
whose faith may be endangered if fellow believers were seen eating in idol
temples.[29] In this context, the strong brother would be
intimidating the weak believer who feels compelled to do same, though he knows
within, that it is wrong. This results in spiritual destruction because the
weak brother’s participation in such food is simply based on intimidation and
not on faith. Consequently, his conscience is wounded. Such a sin against the
brother is a sin against Christ as well, whose death is beneficial to both the
weak and the strong.
Paul
also emphasizes the point that there is only one God, the ultimate source of
all creation, and one Lord, Jesus Christ through whom all things came and
through whom we live.[30] This is an assurance to
the new Christian believers that lordship cannot be ascribed to any crafted
gods which are made and that God alone is all knowing, therefore human
knowledge is limited.
Finally,
Paul indicated his personal position on the issue that he will not eat meat
again if it will cause the brother to sin. He will forever refrain from engaging
in any harmless practice of eating meat sacrificed to idols if it will ruin his
Christian brother. Several lessons learnt from Paul’s response will be helpful
to pastoral ministry in Africa.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS ISSUE TO THE PASTORAL MINISTRY IN AFRICA
Pastoral
ministry comprises services that include care and counseling by pastors
and other religious leaders to members of their church or anyone within the
institutional setting. The pastoral ministry operates in culture and the cultural
context is important to an effective and successful ministry. In Africa, there
are diverse traditions and cultural practices that believers are still affiliated with, just like the weak believers in the context of the church at
Corinth. However, these are not to be condemned outright. The gospel should be
allowed to heal and transform the culture and make up for its limitations. Africans
are also conscious of external issues; therefore a deeper understanding of the elements of culture will greatly help in communicating Christ in the African
context. Addressing external issues only will eliminate the missionary focus.
In
interpreting scripture, it is important to understand the cultural context of the
text and its implication to the people in the context. Similarly, it is also
important to understand the existing milieu of the recipients and the
perspectives illuminated by the gospel in order not to have any believer bedeviled.
Again, Pastors are to remember that people of other cultures also hold on to certain beliefs as the truth by their own definition and standard and pastors are to be
aware of this.[31]
It
is also important to be mindful of the various levels of spiritual maturity
among members of the community of faith. As Paul stated, some believers are ‘puffed
up by the knowledge’ they have acquired and thus look down upon the weak
brothers. This normally results in differences of opinion, personality clashes
and weakness of faith. Pastors are also to be watchful not to be puffed up by their
level of knowledge. This will obviously break down the sheepfold.
Pastoral
ministry has the task to listen patiently to people whose ways of looking at
things are radically different and paying attention to diverse opinions in humility.[32]
CONCLUSION
In
this essay, I have tried to define gospel and culture and I have been able to
indicate that the terms gospel and culture are inseparable as stated by Kwame
Bediako. On the basis of this, I looked at the issue relating to food
sacrificed to idols in 1Corintians 8:1-13. It is obvious that there are people
with different levels of maturity in the church and the strong are not to
despise the weak on the basis of their knowledge for “not everyone has this
knowledge’[33]
of spiritual things. Again, the weak should also not be compelled to engage in
matters that will affect their conscience. The key question is ‘what effect
will my action have on the unbeliever and a weaker believer’?
Bibliography
Adeyemo, Tokunboh,
African Bible Commentary (China: World Alive Publishers,2006)
Bediako, Kwame, ‘Gospel and Culture: Some Insights
from the Experience of the Early Church’, Journal
of African Christian Thought, Vol. 2., No.2( December 1999).
Bediako, Kwame, ‘What is Gospel?’,Asempa Jubilee
Lectures, Christ the King Church Hall, Accra 27 to 29 September 1995.
Garland, David
E., 1 Corinthians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids:Baker Academic,
2003).
Hiebert, Paul G., ‘Cultural Differences and
Communication of the Gospel’,in Ralph
D. Winter (eds.), Perspectives on the World
Christian Movement (United
Kingdom: Paternoster Press, 1999),pp.374-383.
Hornby, A. S., Oxford
Advance Learner’s Dictionary.
Loewen, Jacob A.,The
Bible in Cross-Cultural Perspective ( California: William Carey
Library:2000).
Lundstrom, Klas, Gospel
and Culture in the World Council of Churches and the Lausanne Movement (Uppsala 2006).
Mounce William D., and Robert H. Mounce, Greek and English Interlinear New Testament (United
States: Zondervan, 2008).
The Holy Bible, King
James Version.
Thompson, Della, The
Concise Oxford Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
Walls, Andrew F., The
Cross-Cultural process in Christian History (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2002).
[1]Della
Thompson, The Concise Oxford Dictionary
(Oxford: Clarendon Press), p.586.
[2]A.
S Hornby, Oxford Advance Learner’s
Dictionary.
[3]
William D. Mounce and Robert H. Mounce, Greek
and English Interlinear New Testament (United States: Zondervan, 2008), p.
1104.
[4]
John 3:16.
[5]
Klas Lundstrom, Gospel and Culture in the
World Council of Churches and the Lausanne Movement (Uppsala 2006),p. 83.
[6]
Lundstrom, Gospel and Culture in the World Council of Churches and
the Lausanne Movement, p.83.
[7]
Kwame Bediako, ‘Gospel and Culture: Some insights from the experience of the early church’. Journal of African
Christian Thought, Vol. 2, No.2, (December 1999),p.8.
[8]
Kwame Bediako, ‘What is Gospel?’,Asempa Jubilee Lectures, Christ the King
Church Hall, Accra 27 to 29 September 1995.
[9] 1
Corinth. 15:4-5.
[10]Kwame
Bediako, ‘Gospel and Culture: Some Insights from the Experience of the Early
Church’ ,p. 8.
[11]
Kwame Bediako, ‘Gospel and Culture: Some Insights from the Experience of the Early
Church’ ,p. 8.
[12]
Paul G. Hiebert, ‘Cultural Differences and Communication of the Gospel’, in Ralph D. Winter, Perspectives on the World
Christian movement (United
Kingdom: Paternoster Press, 1999), p.374.
[13]Lundstrom,
Gospel and Culture, p.85.
[14]
Bediako, ‘Gospel and Culture: Some insights from the Experience of the Early
Church’, p. 8.
[15]
Bediako, ‘Gospel and Culture: Some insights from the Experience of the Early
Church’, p. 8.
[16]
Acts 1:6.
[17]
John 1:14.
[18]
Luke 24: 13-52.
[19] Bediako,
Gospel and Culture: Some Insights from the experience of Early Church, p. 8-12.
[20]David
E. Garland, 1Corinthians: Baker
Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic,
2003), p. 9.
[21]
Garland, 1 Corinthians: Baker Exegetical
Commentary on the New Testament, p.10.
[22]
Garland, 1 Corinthians: Baker Exegetical
Commentary on the New Testament, p.
10.
[24] 1
Corinth.1:10.
[25] 1
Corinth. 8:10.
[26]
David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, Baker
Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament ( Grand Rapids : Baker Academic,
2003)
[27]
Acts 15:29.
[28] 1
Corinth. 10:23.
[29]
Tokunboh Adeyemo, African Bible
Commentary (China: World Alive Publishers,2006),p. 1387.
[30] 1
Corinth. 8:6.
[31] Paul
G. Hiebert, ‘Cultural Differences and the Communication of the Gospel’, p. 381.
[32]
Jacob A. Loewen, The Bible in
Cross-Cultural Perspective ( California: William Carey Library:2000)
[33]
1Corinth 8:7.
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