Transcript
First Corinthians 10:25:
Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, or the meat market, that eat, asking no question for conscience' sake. For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.
If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go, whatsoever is set before you eat, asking no question for conscience' sake. But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that showed it, and for conscience' sake. For the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. Conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the other.
Did you ever stop to consider how terribly unspiritual the apostle Paul sometimes sounds? Take for example this statement in verse 27. He says in effect, if an unsaved person invites you to dinner and you feel like going, go ahead.
Now considering the tremendous spiritual ramifications of our social intercourse with unsaved people, it would seem that the very least the apostle could have said would have been, if an unsaved person invites you to dinner, pray about it. And if God leads you to accept the invitation, go ahead.
Isn't it a tragedy that the apostle Paul did not have access to the superior spiritual wisdom of the 20th century? Think how we might have improved on a verse like this. If an unsaved person invites you to dinner, go ahead provided that you are prepared to share with him the four spiritual laws.
Of course in our Dallas Seminary context we could do even better than that. If an unsaved person invites you to dinner, go ahead. But be sure that you leave behind under your dinner plate a copy of the pamphlet, How to Have a Happy and Meaningful Life. Or if you really want to make your evening out a flaming spiritual success, as you depart present your pagan host with an autographed copy of The Hungry Inherit.
What a pity. Writing under inspiration that all Paul could think to say was, if an unsaved person invites you to dinner and you want to go, go ahead.
But that brings us face to face with an issue that has concerned me for a number of years. A little bit over a year ago I went out of town for some special lectures. And I was told about a young man, a graduate of our seminary, a man that I myself had in class a number of years ago, who had gotten out of the ministry and was standing more or less in the fringes of Christian life and testimony.
And although I was not given any details about his personal case, I was made to understand that for a period of years he was convinced that God had been leading him in a certain direction. He was persuaded that God had given him certain unmistakable signs confirming that leading. But when he came right down to the crunch, whatever it was he was looking for either didn't happen or didn't materialize. And he was tremendously discouraged by this. And he thought God had let him down. At that time at least he was living in spiritual defeat.
Somehow or other the idea has arisen in our circles that whenever we make a significant spiritual decision we need some specific and somewhat nebulous mystical guidance from God before we are able to make that decision. And yet as I search the pages of the Scriptures I find that the New Testament gives no substantial support to that concept whatsoever.
Now I know that somebody's going to quote to me Colossians 3:15, “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.” But if you examine the context of that passage you will find that the apostle Paul is talking about our interpersonal relationships with other Christians. And a spirit of peace is to govern our hearts in regard to our dealings with other believers. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of divine guidance.
There is however divine guidance very clearly in the Scriptures. But it is not the kind of divine guidance that we are usually talking about. When Philip the evangelist was preaching in Samaria he did not suddenly get the vague impression that his ministry at Samaria was through. That somehow or other God was calling him to a desert ministry.
Instead we read that an angel of the Lord spoke to him saying, “Philip, get up and go south along the road that leads from Jerusalem to Gaza.” And when he got there and saw a chariot passing he did not draw the conclusion, maybe this is why God sent me to the desert. Once again God said to him by the Spirit, “Philip, go join yourself to that chariot.”
And when Cornelius was seeking the will of God he didn't have the name Joppa suddenly pop into his mind. And because he was unable to get Joppa off his mind he came to the conclusion that there was somebody down in Joppa who could probably help solve his problem. No. At a certain hour of the day an angel came in and said, “Cornelius.” He says, “What is it, sir?” The angel says, “Your prayers are heard. Send for a man named Simon whose surname is Peter. And he is staying in the house of another man named Simon whose occupation is a tanner and whose house is by the seaside.”
Pretty direct. Pretty plain. Pretty explicit.
And when the apostle Paul was wrestling with the question of where next to carry a great missionary thrust he has a vision. A man of Macedonia saying, “Come over into Macedonia and help us.”
Now someone is surely going to say to me, but what about Gideon's fleece? To which I reply, what about it? I am willing to leave aside the question whether the fleece was an expression of his faith or his unbelief. I am even willing to ignore the fact that before he put out his fleece an angel of the Lord came to him and said, “Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have not I sent thee?” Which is fairly definite.
But I would suggest that if you're going to lay out a fleece, lay out a real fleece. I don't mean a literal sheepskin. But if you're going to lay out a fleece ask God for something that cannot possibly happen unless He does it. When you put a fleece on the ground and you expect the fleece to be full of water and the ground around it to be absolutely dry, you are not asking for something that is ordinarily taking place in the normal course of events. And when you reverse the process the next night you're not doing that either.
And if you want to be guided by a fleece ask God for something that cannot possibly happen without His intervention. Ask Him for a miracle. That's what Gideon asked for.
Now I'm saying all this because I don't want anyone going out of the auditorium this morning carefully adjusting their spiritual halo and saying, Professor Hodges may not believe in divine guidance but I do. I do believe in divine guidance. But I refuse to raise a vague feeling of inner peace to the level of a divine voice. And I refuse to take a combination of circumstances which may be ambiguous in themselves and to translate it into a definite explicit call to ministry.
I believe that the Scriptures themselves do not encourage us to do this. There is guidance in the Scriptures. But that guidance is direct. It is plain. It is explicit. It is verbal.
You say there's not a great deal of that kind of guidance being given today. So where does that leave us in the 20th century? I hope my answer will not shock you to the core. Where does that leave us in the 20th century? It leaves us with the Bible. It leaves us with the Bible.
And I am never tired of quoting those crucial verses in Second Timothy chapter 3, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
The challenge that I'm throwing out to you this morning, not to you men just sitting in front of me but also to the men behind me, do we really believe those words? Do we really believe that the Scriptures are all we really need to be ready for every good work? Or do we believe that on top of this we must have some sort of rather mystical guidance from God about which the Scriptures are strangely silent?
And can it be that if the Scriptures show no particular interest in telling us how to decide on whether to accept an invitation to dinner from an unsaved friend, can it be that the Scriptures wish to leave this decision to us?
Now I can hear somebody saying, Professor Hodges I thought you were an exegete but you're preaching exactly the kind of sermon this morning that Dr. Robinson has warned us against over and over again. You've picked up a text and like the prodigal son you've taken your journey into a far country there to waste your breath in riotous preaching.
Well I confess to you this morning that I am not directly interested in the issue of doubtful things to which this passage is usually applied. But I am deeply interested in a principle that is very clearly embedded in this passage and which is directly related to the very casual way that Paul treats the question of a dinner invitation.
It seems to me that one of the things that Paul is saying to his Corinthian readers in this passage is, I wish that you people would not be over-scrupulous. I wish you would not be excessively conscientious. When you go into the meat market don't ask all sorts of questions like, how was the meat slaughtered? Was the blood drained out of it? Does it come from an animal that was offered in sacrifice to idols?
When you go into the meat market, says Paul, feel perfectly free to buy anything that you want to buy, asking no questions for conscience' sake. Do not think you have walked into a den of Satan though it may be true that behind idol worship there are demons. Do not get the idea that some people have that therefore the meat belongs to the demons. Remember that the world belongs to God and all the things in it. The earth is the Lord's, the fullness thereof.
When you sit down at table with your pagan friend don't be asking all sorts of questions about the food that he sets in front of you. Feel free to eat whatever he serves you, asking no questions for conscience' sake.
And I submit to you this morning that the rather casual way that Paul addresses himself to the issue of a dinner invitation from a pagan friend is part of the ethos of this passage. You see in a city like Corinth it was inevitable that the question should ultimately arise, is it possible for a Christian to have social intercourse with his pagan neighbors?
It was hard enough for a Jewish convert to Christianity to learn to sit down with Gentile Christians much less to entertain the possibility of sitting down with a pagan Gentile. And in fact we have evidence that such a question had as a matter of fact already arisen at Corinth. Remember back in chapter 5 the apostle Paul says, “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to keep company with fornicators.” Not to have social intercourse with fornicators. But he says, “I certainly wasn't talking about the fornicators of this world and I certainly wasn't talking about the covetous people of this world and I certainly wasn't talking about the extortioners of this world and I certainly wasn't talking about the idolaters of this world. If that's what I had been talking about you would have had to go out of the world.”
And the very fact that he finds it necessary to address himself to this misunderstanding of his words is proof that the question of social intercourse with pagans had already arisen in the Corinthian church.
And when Paul says very casually therefore, if one of those who believe not invites you to a dinner and you feel like going, this casualness is very studied, very definite, very pointed. For Paul's concern through the whole passage is that the Corinthian Christians not be excessively troubled by questions of conscience which they need not raise. Whether it was in the meat market, whether it was confronting a dinner invitation from a pagan friend, or whether it was sitting at his table. Ask no questions for conscience' sake.
If the pagan raises a question then you have to respond in a certain way. But it's his conscience that concerns you, not yours.
And then as I thought about this it has seemed to me that one of the reasons perhaps that we feel that we must have direct mystical guidance from God in all the major decisions of our life may very well be that we have reduced everything plus everything plus everything to a question of conscience.
So whenever I am confronted with a decision my mentality is to see the thing in terms of black and white. There is one thing that is right and there is another thing that is wrong. There is one thing that is good. There is another thing that is bad. There is one thing that God wants me to do and there is another thing that God does not want me to do.
When I search for this mentality in the New Testament I cannot find it. And I am wondering if we have recognized that the Word of God within the guidelines laid down for us gives us tremendous areas of freedom within which the decision-making process is our own.
Seniors will have to forgive me for repeating something they have heard me say recently. But one of the areas in which it seems to me the Scriptures leave us free to decide is the area of marriage. You may remember that earlier in this very letter the apostle Paul says, “A woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as her husband lives. But if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will, only in the Lord.”
And if words mean anything that statement means that a widow is free to decide whether she wants to be married or not. She can be married to anybody that she chooses provided the person is a Christian.
There are areas of decision-making that are left to us. And so the question of whether I should get married or remain single is not to me a question of conscience. Since God approves of the married life and also the single life, the decision it seems to me is mine.
I decide to remain single. That is my decision. But if I wake up tomorrow morning and decide that I want to get married then I can go out and get married. Although I've discovered it's not as easy as all that. But at least the potential freedom is there.
The point that I'm trying to make is a very simple one. Why should we raise questions of conscience which the Bible itself does not raise?
I'm a little scared that somebody's going to go out of this audience this morning and they're going to say Professor Hodges says we shouldn't use our conscience very much. And just to make sure that my big idea is as plain as possible what I am saying is this. That the Bible is enough for you and enough for your conscience.
If there is something that you need to learn the Bible can teach you because it is profitable for doctrine. If there is something in which you need to be rebuked the Bible can rebuke you because it is profitable for reproof. If there is something in which you need to be straightened out the Bible can straighten you out because it is profitable for correction. If there is training that you need the Bible can train you because it is profitable for instruction in righteousness. That you might be the complete man of God that God wants you to be.
And your conscience will have a full-time occupation if it is occupied only with the things with which the Bible confronts it.
J. N. Darby was undoubtedly one of the greatest teachers in the history of the Christian church. I think it was Dr. A. C. Gaebelein who said that in his opinion at least Mr. Darby was the greatest teacher in the church since the apostle Paul. That may be an exaggeration. But I think there is no question about the greatness of Mr. Darby's gifts.
It is said of Mr. Darby that after he left the Church of England he went out, I believe it was to Ireland, to live a very simple frugal existence among the rustic country people of that part of the British Isles, preaching to them the gospel of Christ and living very simply on their level.
The story is told that as he was out living and preaching in this way that he was accosted one time by a cultured and well-known infidel of the day who challenged him on the authority and value of the Bible. The conversation is supposed to have gone something like this. Darby said the infidel, gone that all of it is profitable. But he said, take a verse like the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, “The cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.” What possible earthly value could a verse like that ever have?
To which Mr. Darby replied, Ah, he said, do you know that when I left my ecclesiastical position to come out and live in this very simple way among these folks that it was that very verse that kept me from selling my own theological library? Make no mistake about it, said Mr. Darby, all Scripture is inspired of God and all of it is profitable.
Men, as you devote yourself to the study of the Scriptures, not only while you're in seminary but throughout all of your life, you will discover that more and more they will inform your thoughts and more and more they will guide your decisions and more and more you will become convinced that they are all you really need to be the man of God God wants you to be.
Shall we pray? Our Father, though we're in a seminary that is dedicated to the study and teaching of the Word of God, help us to believe in the sufficiency of Scripture.