Unlike modern fundamentalist preachers and the replacement
theology of the Catholic and Protestant and Orthodox churches we Gentiles did
not have many restrictions placed on us. What is given to the Gentile believers
in this passage would probably be appalling to the modern preacher who likes to
place burden after burden on the Christian to prove his or her spiritual state.
First, Gentile Christians were to avoid pollutions from idols.
This is explained in the next passage as regarding eating things offered to
idols. Paul goes into great detail about this in the first letter to the
Corinthians, chapter 8. In the context we are talking about physical, literal
idols. Although a modern preacher might talk about our idols as referring to
our job, entertainment, or other things this is not about that. This is about
the idols found in temples and a Christian mingling worship of God with worship
of idols. I will go into more detail in my comments on the letters to the
Corinthians.
Fornication here is not merely being sexually constant with a
spouse although it does contain that meaning. There is the fornication that can
occur with adultery and the fornication that can happen with temple prostitutes
as in the temple of Aphrodite or Venus in Corinth. First, what is fornication.
From the Greek word which gives us the English word pornography, fornication is
linked synonymously with adultery.
Matthew 19:9 And I say unto
you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall
marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away
doth commit adultery.
1Corinthians 5:1 It is
reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as
is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s
wife.
1Corinthians 7:1 ¶ Now
concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to
touch a woman. 2 Nevertheless, to avoid
fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own
husband. 3 Let the husband render unto
the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 4 The wife hath not power of her own body, but
the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but
the wife. 5 Defraud ye not one the
other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to
fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your
incontinency.
This sexual sin extends to religious practices in the ancient
world. This was a grave danger to Christians in the
pagan world as I will discuss my comments on the Corinthian letters. Rising
above Corinth was Acrocorinth, or Upper Corinth. It is the acropolis of ancient
Corinth, a monolithic rock rising above.
Now
the city of Corinth was known not only for the most expensive and skilled
prostitutes in the Greek world but also the temple prostitution, common
throughout the ancient world, of the cult of Aphrodite in her temple on
Acrocorinth. Aphrodite, who was also Venus, Astarte, and Ishtar or the many
other names listed in the Bible for her had, it is said, a thousand temple
prostitutes with short hair or shaved heads servicing the devoutly religious
pagan men of the city and pious visitors. We’ve already discussed
how prevalent ritual prostitution, both hetero and homosexual, was in the
ancient world. This is often disputed in scholarly circles with some saying
that temple prostitution has been overemphasized. However, we have the context
from the Old Testament of how prevalent the practice of ritual prostitution
was.
Fornication, having sexual intercourse with someone who is not
your lawful spouse in the eyes of the God of the Bible, is condemned by Him.
Aphrodite had her temple. I’ve read that the second most exalted
temple in ancient Babylon to Ishtar, goddess of immigrants and prostitutes and
freedom, who sits in New York Harbor under the guise of Lady Liberty, a statue
patterned after one to the Egyptian version of Ishtar, Isis, was called the
“White House” or “Shining House”.
Animals which were strangled would not have the blood properly
removed from them, which is the interpretation used by most commentators. But
consider the context. Pollution from idols, eating things offered to
idols, is the first proscription. So, now we are in the realm of heathen
worship. Then comes mention of fornication, which we do note as practiced in
rites of certain goddesses. Keeping in the context of pagan worship we have
things strangled and from writers like the Greek historian, Herodotus, we know
that certain tribes practiced ritual strangulation in some of their ceremonies.
We then come to the forbidding of eating blood which is banned before the Law;
Genesis 9:4 But flesh with
the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
Under the Law given to Moses;
Deuteronomy 12:23 Only be
sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life; and thou mayest
not eat the life with the flesh.
And, of course, here. Drinking blood was commonplace among many
religions of the ancient world including Egypt just as it is a practice in
witchcraft.
Psalm 16:4 Their sorrows
shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of
blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.
So, taking these admonitions to the Gentiles in context it is at
least arguable that they were from more a desire to keep Gentile Christians
from the pollution of pagan worship than from a desire to make them a little
Jewish. These forbidden practices defined ancient religion in its expression.
Paul will go into more detail in Corinthians.
Matthew Henry wrote that verse 21 suggests that they would not try
change the Jews who heard the Law read often and were used to its observance. There
was liberty shown to the Gentiles and there was moderation in dealing with the
observances of the Jews in honoring God.
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