I have a rather long article on 1 Cor 10.31. I will post highlights here, with a link to the full article in pdf format here. Somehow it is possible to make long posts expand to a separate page, but I can’t seem to figure it out. I think it might have something to do with the new and ‘improved’ Blogger format. I shouldn’t be sarcastic! Some features are better. But I still can’t get sidebar comments to work at all, and I can’t figure out how to make long posts expand… one day I will get a real blog.

Here is the highly edited version of the article, the pdf is here. What follows is still rather long (sigh), but it gives my main points. The parts left out are marked by ***.

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In some recent discussions on the blogosphere, I have contended with individuals for what I think is a misapplication of 1 Cor 10.31 “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

1 Cor 10.31 is universally cited as support for the notion that we must glorify God in everything that we do. The commentaries and almost all the literature I have seen use the verse in this way. In favour of the interpretation, one must acknowledge the general truth of the principle that we should glorify God in everything. I agree! But I don’t agree that 1 Cor 10.31 teaches this.

As you read through my studies on this topic, you may come to the conclusion that I am straining at gnats. I hope that is not the case. I believe that it is important to interpret Scripture in its context and to let it say what it says. We have a tendency to reduce Scripture to slogans, to extract texts out of the framework of the argument the apostles are making with them and use them as spiritual pegs on which to hang our spiritual hats. They become home for us, and we live in a world that Lloyd-Jones described as a kind of cult like practice, treating the Scriptures as “a drug” for our spiritual security. (See his sermon on Eph 6.10, the first in his ‘Call to Battle’ series, available here from the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recordings Trust, listen especially from minute 12 to 14). In handling Scripture, I am against spiritualizing, proof-texting, and misapplication. I believe it betrays at best a shallow understanding of the Word of God and may betray a cavalier irreverence for the God of the Word. We should endeavour always to examine the way we approach Scripture and make our arguments for Christian living in exactly the way Scripture makes them. Let us refrain from proof-texts! Let us eschew slogans!

As for 1 Cor 10.31, it is evident that many, many commentators take the passage to mean that Paul is here teaching a general principle that applies to every situation of life. For example, here is G. G. Findlay in The Expositor’s Greek Testament, a fine set edited by W. Robertson Nicol and published by Eerdmans. (My set has no publication date on it — I believe it is out of print.) Findlay comments on the verse by saying that “vv. 31, 32 conclude the matter with two solemn, comprehensible rules, introduced by the collective oun [see below] … relating to God’s glory and to man’s salvation. The supreme maxim of duty, [“all things into the glory of God be doing” – my translation of Findlay quoting the Greek] applies to all that Christians ‘eat or drink’ (including the idolothyta), — indeed, to whatever they ‘do’; cf. Rom 14.20ff., Col 3.17.” Findlay proceeds to talk about verse 32 as “A second general rule…” You can see that Findlay is taking 1 Cor 10.31 as a general rule superimposed into the argument of 1 Cor 10. This approach is imitated in one way or another by almost all the commentators. In my desperate search for someone who agrees with me (a true scholar!), I have found no one to ally myself with, including the venerable Charles Hodge and many others. In some of my correspondence, I have described myself as in the minority on this question. It increasingly appears that I am in a minority of one, thus, I may be a theological Don Quixote, tilting at windmills and offering a private interpretation. Nevertheless, I do think that my consideration of the text should at least be examined before it is simply dismissed by ‘majority rule’.

First Consideration

The first thing to consider in this verse is its relation to its context.

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The consideration of the context of the verses following 1 Cor 10.31 show that while Paul is using general language, he is not stating in verse 32 a general rule which applies to every possible action he might do. Rather, Paul is teaching a rule that applies to a limited set of circumstances. I would suggest that the limited set of circumstances is first of all the circumstances that involve meat offered to idols. This is the primary consideration of the context that follows 1 Cor 10.31.

Second Consideration

The second thing to consider is the kinds of things that are discussed in this sentence.

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If I am right about the meaning of the eating and drinking, that is, eating and drinking as a class of things related to things offered to idols, what then is the meaning of ‘whatsoever ye do’? Is Paul just throwing in a general phrase meaning ‘any old thing you do regardless of the context about which I have been going on for three chapters now’? Or is Paul speaking about a choice in the same category or class as the eating and drinking? I suggest it is the latter. The choices before a believer in someone’s house at a meal first are these: ask or don’t ask. Paul says don’t ask. But he goes on to say, ‘If your host mentions that you are eating something offered to an idol, then don’t eat it.” So on the one hand you choose to eat and don’t ask questions. On the other hand, you choose not to eat. Applying the ‘drinking’ category, you on the one hand may drink and don’t ask questions, but once you have knowledge, you don’t drink. Now comes the principle: ‘Whether therefore you eat or drink [not having asked any questions] or whatsoever you do [having been informed, i.e., whatever = not eating and not drinking], do these things to the glory of God.” There are only really two options. Eat or don’t eat. Drink or don’t drink. The ‘whatsoever’ covers both the ‘don’t eat’ and ‘don’t drink’ category. The context of the passage and the grammatical structure indicate that each of the three actions in the list are all of a sort, all one category, and they are all related to the choice whether to eat meat offered to idols or not.

Third Consideration

The third thing to consider is the word ‘all’ in the phrase ‘do all to the glory of God’.

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This leaves us with Thayer’s first possibility, “of a certain definite totality or sum of things, the context shewing what things are meant”. What is the definite totality or some of things to which Paul is referring here? What does the context tell us? Eating, drinking, or whatever you do [i.e., not eat or not drink, see discussion above] – the totality of things Paul is referring to is the list of options he has already provided.

The point of the passage is to teach that the choices you make with respect to meat offered to idols is to make those choices glorify God. You do this by having respect to a weaker brother whose conscience you might offend and who you may cause to stumble, or you do this by taking into consideration the importance of the gospel and eschew some things you have a right to since the gospel is more important than your rights, or you are very cautious because of the deceptiveness of your own heart and the examples of others who have gone before reveals that you yourself may easily stumble and be brought under the power of darkness. In every case, you shouldn’t so easily rationalize away your own scruples against doubtful things, but tend to abstain for a variety of reasons.

Conclusion:

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Am I merely straining at a gnat on this one? I don’t think so. I think there is a widespread casual use of the Bible that fails to take the Bible seriously. This particular passage is only a small example. There are other examples where the consequences are much more serious. I plan to take up another of them in a new post to come in a few days. The failure to read and understand the Bible in context leads to some bizarre Pharisaisms being imposed on the people of God. Let us be faithful to the Word as it stands in context and as the Holy Spirit intended us to understand it

The fundie blogosphere is in a furore over video of a rap performance at John Piper’s church in Minneapolis, with the smiling approval of Piper himself. I first noticed it over at Scott Aniol’s blog here, and it created an over 20 page discussion on Sharper Iron in less than a day here (I went away for a bowl of cereal and two pages of discussion were added in the 15 minutes I was gone!).

And there are other comments elsewhere, no need to link to them.

My view is that music does have an inherent moral quality, just like painting/literature/sculpture and all forms of art.

But my post isn’t about that. Here is what I am seeing: the reaction to this incident clearly shows who the fundamentalists are and the poseurs are. Read through the 20 something pages on SI and you will see who is and who isn’t a fundamentalist out of that group.

Thanks, JP, you really were a help on this. Perhaps some will get it and stop walking with the compromisers who want to wear the label of fundamentalist but walk the walk of the evangelical.

Regards,
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

I ran across this quote in my studies today:

The notion pervades the popular mind that interpretation is ascribing a plausible meaning to scripture. That is, it is generally thought of as attributing a meaning to a passage, rather than discovering what the meaning really is. A possible interpretation is thought out, it is applied to the passage under consideration, and if it ‘fits’ it is regarded as correct. The would-be expositor is totally oblivious to the fact that the passage was written by a real living author, whose purpose it was to convey a definite idea, and that the passage consequently has but one meaning, and that meaning likely lies on the surface instead of being ‘hidden in the depths of the scriptures,’ as is frequently supposed.

Source: Dr. H. E. Dana, Searching the Scriptures, p. 11, quoted in Dallas Theological Seminary. (1937; 2002). Bibliotheca Sacra Volume 94 (Oct 1937 94:469). Dallas Theological Seminary.