Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick Larson  I heard a John MacArthur broadcast a couple of weeks ago where he gave his explanation of 1 Cor. 8, in that if a believer was asked to meat sacrificed to idols in the presence of an unbeliever, he should go ahead and eat. If, however, a believer was present who would be offended, he should not eat.
His bottom line was "if it comes down to offending the unbeliever or the believer, offend the unbeliever"
I was thinking about this in the context of a situational ethics scenario I've heard presented before. It goes like this...
"If I am out to dinner with some fellow Christians and the waitress comes up to us and asks if we would like to see the beer menu, and one of my companions says 'we're Christians, we don't drink', then I would be compelled, for the gospel's sake, to order a beer!"
I've always agreed with this conclusion, but I'm wondering if it goes against MacArthur's "offend the unbeliever, not the believer" train of thought? |
I do not understand this scenario, it is the companion who is the believer and it is him who you would offend by drinking therefore according to MacArthur you should worry about offending your brother and probably not drink.
If in this scenario it was the waitress who said that Christians should not drink (and was not a believer herself) then the Chritian society of frothblowers should just get the drinks in.
I must say I agree with MacArther here, the Church (and hence Christians) should not worry what the world thinks if we are doing what is right, we do however have a responsibility to our brothers and sisters.
If a brother thinks that we are acting sinfully then our first recourse should NEVER be to jump straight to Christian liberty, no matter how confident we are we should take steps to consider our position (with the input of the church) and our normal course of action should always be not to offend the brother. If after reflection we have Christian liberty in that area then next time we should go to dinner without the offended brother, we should never hide what we do but neither do we have a principal of being able to offend our brothers as a right (I am not saying that anyone here is suggesting this course of action).
If a servant of Satan does not like what we do then to be honest that is tough, as long as we are treating him as we would wish to be treated ourselves there is not a problem.