Glory and Good
On living as Christ's free people in complicated times
This weekend I have two guest teaching and preaching opportunities. In both I engage the topic of Christian freedom from 1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1 as applied to cultural engagement. Since this seems to be the weekend’s theme, I decided to adapt what I prepared for the newsletter.
Introduction
I like reading about history. One period that is especially fascinating to me is the decade of reconstruction after the Civil War. After hundreds of years of enslavement, African American citizens were now legally free. That freedom would be short-lived; within a few years, southern states began passing Jim Crow legislation which would reinstate discrimination and segregation. But for a short window, freedom came to the South and the formerly enslaved took full advantage.
Here’s what’s fascinating to me about this period. Obviously, African American citizens were free from captivity and forced labor. But that would be too small a definition of their freedom. The historical record shows they understood their freedom as what they were free for as well. With their newly won freedom, these women and men sought legal marriage, searched for spouses and children who had been taken from them, tended farmland they’d formerly been forced to work, founded schools, and ran for elected office. The period of reconstruction casts a comprehensive vision of freedom: freedom from but also freedom for.
In Paul’s letters to the early churches, he often describes what Christians have been freed from: sin, evil, and even death. Through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, humanity’s captivity has been ended and, as we place our faith in Jesus, we are freed. But in this passage, Paul also describes what our Christian freedom is for. He instructed the Corinthian Christians to use their freedom for loving others and glorifying God.
I sometimes find it easier to focus on Christ’s freedom from than his freedom for. Proclaiming our freedom from sin, death, and the devil never gets old; it’s good news- categorically, comprehensively, and completely good news. Freedom for, however, is more complicated. Especially because we mostly exercise that freedom not from the safe confines of church but from the complex circumstances of culture. What we direct our freedom for is an ongoing challenge for those who live in this world but, as Jesus said, are no longer of this world. Thankfully, Paul’s teaching in these verses gives us a helpful way to think about what our freedom is for as we engage a culture which often doesn’t recognize the One who is the source of our freedom. In short, Christian freedom is for God’s glory and neighbors’ good.
By holding glory and good together, Paul provides a positive vision of the freedom won for us by Jesus. Without attempting a comprehensive list of answers for each of the ethical quandaries we face, this perspective of life-giving freedom unlocks vaults of wise discernment as we engage our culture. So, let’s take them one at a time: Christian freedom is for God’s glory and it is for our neighbors’ good.
Freedom for God’s glory
In the Corinthian context it could be safely assumed that meat purchased at the market or served at a neighbor’s home had been sacrificed to an idol. Both the market and the neighbor’s home were public spaces; a Christian buying or eating sacrificed meat would be visible to their community.
Should the Christians buy and eat sacrificed meat? Paul says, yes, eat whatever is sold or set before you. Given the Old Testament food laws which had governed how God’s people ate for centuries, this was significant. Not only that, Paul doesn’t downplay the evil associated with the meat sacrifices. He warns the church to flee idolatry, to not “be participants with demons.” (10:20)
The food laws and warning against idolatry makes Paul’s counsel to buy and eat sacrificed meat a big deal. It must have made the Corinthians squirm! Maybe it would be the equivalent of a neighbor whose politics are the opposite of yours inviting you to a partisan rally. Wouldn’t you be concerned about what others of your own political disposition would think? Would you worry that you would be understood to be condoning policies and rhetoric you actually find harmful? It seems Paul might advise you to go anyway.
Why were the Corinthian Christians free to eat sacrificed meat? The clue lies in verse 26, when Paul quotes Psalm 24:1. “The earth and its fullness are the Lord’s. It’s not that evil isn’t powerful; Paul tells the church to avoid the places of sacrifice. Rather, Christians believe that Jesus is more powerful than evil. When the Corinthians bought and ate sacrificed meat, they weren’t denying the reality of evil, they were simply demonstrating that Christ was more powerful. The earth is the Lord’s! This is how we use our freedom for glorifying God.
Enemies are real, but God has placed our enemies under his feet Evil is real, but God has defeated evil. Injustice is real, but God’s righteousness overwhelms all of this world’s injustice. Sin is real, but the Son of God has taken all of humanity’s sin onto himself and, through his death and resurrection, freed us from its power.
How are you using your Christian freedom for God’s glory by demonstrating Christ’s universal lordship? A positive vision of Christian freedom looks like glorifying God in how our lives demonstrate that the earth belongs to our Lord.
Think, for example, of the many partisans warning us of the catastrophic consequences of the upcoming presidential election. Without downplaying the very real consequences of the election, our freedom ought to glorify God in how we demonstrate Christ’s lordship regardless of who occupies the White House. Not only does Jesus free us from small and petty partisan allegiances, but he also frees us for a God-glorifying witness that demonstrates the power and beauty of King Jesus in all of the partisan and political spaces we find ourselves.
Freedom for neighbors’ good
In addition to being for God’s glory, our freedom in Christ is for our neighbors’ good, and this good is expressed in two dimensions. First, freedom is for protecting our vulnerable neighbors. Remember, the situations the Corinthians faced were all public in nature. Paul, while affirming their freedom, instructs the Christians to prioritize “the other.” (10:24, 29) If someone who was Jewish, Greek, or even a member of the church would be negatively impacted by their actions, the Christians were to place their needs above their own.
In a society increasingly prone to treat humans as machines – always on and available, treated as resources – this loving care is notable. Christian freedom sees and honors our neighbors’ vulnerabilities.
Applied more broadly, Christians will use their freedom to notice cultural trends and government policies which threaten to harm our vulnerable neighbors. Legislation which is prone to exploit the poor, for example, will be opposed even as we don’t mistake political opposition for in-person protective love.
Second, freedom is for supporting our vulnerable neighbors. Paul tells the church to seek the advantage of their neighbors over their own. Certainly this includes meeting needs and addressing lack, but it also includes noticing the places of possibility and potential and supporting those.
Part of what our church’s nonprofit organization does is to provide mentors to high school students. Over the course of a school year these mentors learn to learn to see the potential and possibilities the students themselves might not yet notice. This is what it looks like to use our freedom to support our vulnerable neighbors. (Anyone who remembers being a teenager remembers the vulnerability inherent to those years!)
How are you using your Christian freedom for neighbors’ good by protecting and supporting the vulnerable? It can can be an overwhelming question to consider, right? Thankfully, you are but one part of a community of Christians called to use their freedom for the good of their neighbors. Remembering this allows us to prayerfully discern which of our vulnerable neighbors God has called and gifted us to use our freedom on behalf of.
Conclusion
Christian freedom is for God’s glory and neighbors’ good. We live in interesting and complicated times. The ethical assumptions you may have once shared with your neighbors are less widely held. The questions being asked by our non-Christian neighbors aren’t necessarily ones we’ve had to think about. As much as we might desire a divine playbook for cultural engagement, this isn’t what God has for us. Instead, filled with the Holy Spirit, rooted in a worshiping community, and shaped by Scripture’s authority, Jesus has freed you for the glory of God and the good of your neighbors.
By embracing what our freedom in Christ is for, we will demonstrate the universal lordship of Jesus while protecting and supporting our vulnerable neighbors. And whether or not we are always aware of it, God has placed each of us in spaces where we can leverage our freedom for glory and good.
One final thing: Please understand how central to our faith is our stewardship of freedom for God’s glory and neighbor’s good. In fact, the only reason you and I are able to live these lives of freedom is because Jesus used his freedom for the glory of God and our good. The preeminent and preexisting Son of God who has always been and will always be free; who began his ministry proclaiming freedom to captives; who made a habit of liberating those suffering under spiritual bondage; who submitted to arrest, torture, and death so as to liberate sinners and rebels like you and me; whose freedom-bringing Holy Spirit now fills each of his; the Son of God who just is freedom, healing, salvation, and restoration… this is the Savior who raised you from death into life, who healed you from sin-sickness into eternal life, who rescued you from captivity to evil into the joyful freedom that is the birthright of every single child of God.
To quote from Paul once more, this time from Galatians 5, for freedom Christ has set you free. Steward the gift of your freedom well. A society groaning under captivity awaits the announcement of its liberation. With your freedom, demonstrate to this captive world that Christ is lord. With your freedom, protect and support your vulnerable neighbors. For freedom, Christ has set you free.
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