Approximate Reading Time: 2 minutes.
I Corinthians 10: 28 But if anyone says to you, “This is from an idol sacrifice,” do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience— source
If you are seated for a meal and the host tells you the food before you was sacrificed to an idol, don’t eat it. Simple enough. If you are living in First Century New Testament times.
Scholars have written that at the time of this verse, it was common practice, this serving of meat sacrificed to an idol – cheap meat at the market. Greco-Roman society was saturated with idol worship, and it was common for meat sold in the marketplace to have been consecrated as a sacrifice to false gods prior to its sale. The Jews would have nothing to do with such meat, wary of “unclean” food-handling practices and believing that to partake of consecrated meat was to give tacit approval of idol worship—kind of a “second-hand” idolatry.
What does that have to do with 21st Century Gentiles like you and me? Dietary-ly, probably nil. So is there a parallel lesson we might glean from this passage for us today? Perhaps.
See the word anyone?
Meaning (to me) the relationship you have with the offer-er is irrelevant as to your decision when confronted with an offer to participate in any activity, doctrine, situation, etc. that you already know from The Word of GOD, is not His will.
It was costly to be a follower of JESUS in First Century New Testament. It still is in 21st Century New Testament.