1 Corinthians 10: Eat, Drink, and Live for the Glory of God

Introduction

"Whether therefore you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." This is the verse at the heart of this message by Pastor Wayne Harrison at Gospel Community Church, on 1 Corinthians 10:29-33. The title asks the question plainly: how do you eat, drink, and live to the glory of God?

The preacher draws on the great doctrine of the Reformation, Soli Deo Gloria, glory to God alone, which the stained glass windows of his church recall. We do not live to ourselves and we do not die to ourselves: we live and die to the Lord. The message focuses above all on how we conduct ourselves in the "gray areas," those questions Scripture neither expressly commands nor forbids.

His main idea: for Paul, spiritual maturity is not shown by exercising every one of your rights, but by limiting your freedom out of love for others. The message follows three points: the sensitivity of our freedom (verses 29-30), the supremacy of God's honor (verse 31), and the ambition to win souls (verses 32-33).

Outline of the Message

1. The Context: An Invitation to an Unbeliever's House

Paul has just described a Christian invited to an unbeliever's home. If someone tells him that the meat being served was offered to idols, in a temple of Aphrodite or Apollo, he must abstain out of respect for the conscience of the person who warned him.
Paul then asks a theological question: "Why is my liberty judged by another's conscience?" (verse 29). I am free in Christ, justified by faith, and someone else claims to tell my conscience what I may or may not do.
The preacher recalls a word he learned in his church: adiaphora. These are secondary matters, neither expressly commanded nor directly forbidden by Scripture.
The dilemma is simple: should I follow my conscience, since I know that an idol is nothing and that the earth is the Lord's, or abstain because of the weaker brother?
Understanding this passage, he says, will help you avoid becoming the slave of someone else's personal conscience, while remaining free to do what is right without offending your brother.

2. The Tyranny of the Weaker Brother

The pastor draws on a teaching by R.C. Sproul, "The Tyranny of the Weaker Brother." The weaker brother is not strong in faith: his conscience is poorly instructed or immature about Christian freedom. He feels condemned over things God has left neutral.
He describes three stages. First, personal scruple: this is healthy, and it calls for patience. Next, social leverage: "You will offend me if you do that, so you cannot do it." Finally, tyranny: the brother demands that his rule be imposed on the whole church, even to the point of saying, "If you don't do this, I'm leaving the church."
According to Sproul, making laws where God has left people free amounts to usurping divine authority. The conscience is bound by the Word of God alone.
The London Baptist Confession of Faith says it: God alone is Lord of the conscience, and he has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are contrary to his Word or not contained in it. To obey such commandments out of conscience is to betray liberty of conscience and to demand blind obedience. For the preacher, giving in this way undermines the gospel, because Christ justified you so that you could serve him freely.
Calvin holds the tension: we must bear with the weaker brother and not abuse our right, but the conscience remains free because it is exempt from that subjection.
Two cases from Paul's life shed light on the question. He has Timothy circumcised (Acts 16) to remove a cultural obstacle and reach the Jews: this is freedom exercised out of love. But he refuses to have Titus circumcised (Galatians 2:3-5), because false brothers wanted to "bring us into bondage." "We gave no place in the way of subjection, not for an hour."
"Let no one therefore judge you in eating or in drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day" (Colossians 2:16). "You were bought with a price. Don't become bondservants of men" (1 Corinthians 7:23).

3. Gray Areas Where We Legislate in God's Place

The pastor gives examples he has seen go wrong in his ministry. Alcohol first: he does not defend the excess that makes you lose control, but demanding total abstinence as proof of godliness goes further than Scripture. He believes Jesus drank real wine and that the water turned into wine at Cana was not non-alcoholic wine.
School choices: some accuse parents who do not homeschool of sin. He acknowledges the risks of public school and the advantages of homeschooling, but the choice belongs to the parents.
Bible translations: he preaches from the King James and loves it, but treating that version as infallible and forbidding all others is a mistake. If God cared about only one language, why would he have had the Old Testament written in Hebrew and the New in Greek?
Holidays: some say that celebrating Christmas or Easter amounts to worshiping demons. Dimming the lights and lighting candles while preaching the incarnation does not make it a pagan ritual.
Health and political guidelines (masks, vaccines, voting) turned into tests of Christian love. "If you're sick, stay home and take care of yourself, but don't point the finger at everyone."
Then he turns the question back on each person: what secondary demands do you impose on others? Does your insistence come from concern for God's glory, or from a need for people to conform to what you expect? He himself, as a pastor, can counsel people only according to what the Word says, not according to his personal expectations.
Sometimes these arguments serve as fig leaves to cover our insecurities, like Adam and Eve. We blame others instead of trusting the Lord.

4. Giving Thanks Without Making Your Brother Stumble

Verse 30 speaks of the one who eats "with thanksgiving." The preacher sees in it the foundation for prayer before meals.
The other tension appears here. If I give thanks and then knowingly eat, in front of someone who is scandalized by it, meat offered to idols, I turn that moment of gratitude into an occasion for blasphemy. The Greek word is from the family of "blaspheme."
Paul says the same to the church in Rome: "Then don't let your good be slandered" (Romans 14:16).
John MacArthur advises giving thanks for the food and for our freedom, then expressing that freedom by choosing not to eat what makes a brother stumble.
The preacher's question sums up this point: "How can you bless God with your mouth and destroy your brother with your fork?"

5. Doing Everything for the Glory of God

"Whether therefore you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (verse 31). The pastor invites you to circle the word "all": in Greek, it means all, without exception. If something cannot be done for the glory of God, it should not be done.
This is the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.
For gray areas, he proposes a funnel test, like a green light. First question: can this be done for the glory of God? If not, reject it. Second question: would this make a weaker brother stumble in this context? If so, reject it as a lack of love. Third question: does it edify? If not, reject it as useless. If the action passes all three, it is approved.
Paul starts from questions of idols and temples and arrives at the most ordinary acts: eating and drinking. Jesus said that even a cup of cold water given in his name will not lose its reward (Matthew 10:42).
Not only on Sundays: the way you get up in the morning, your attitude at work, the way you treat your wife, the way you speak to your boss, the way you pray, the way you drive on the road.
David Garland stresses this: the glory of God becomes the touchstone for judging whether an action is good. Bible study done to be admired offends God, whereas a simple meal served to guests, received with gratitude, becomes an act of worship. "It's not what you do, it's how you do it."
Calvin writes that there is no part of our life, no action so small, that should not be directed toward the glory of God. Thomas Watson speaks of a "silver thread" running through all our actions.
The pastor mentions people who served the church and then took offense: "Pastor, I did all that for you, and this is how I'm treated." His answer: for whom should you have done it? For the Lord.
Watson gives four ways to glorify God: esteem (admiring him in his attributes and promises), worship, affection (loving him rather than his gifts, without becoming transactional), and submission to his providence. In hardship, can you glorify God instead of grumbling, growing bitter, and taking it out on your spouse?
"That in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever" (1 Peter 4:11).

6. Offend No One, So That Many May Be Saved

"Give no occasion for stumbling, either to Jews, or to Greeks, or to the assembly of God; even as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of the many, that they may be saved" (verses 32-33).
The word comes from "scandal." It is not a small annoyance that passes in a few hours. It is leading someone to sin against Christ and to violate their own conscience. The Puritan Richard Baxter called this a sin of "spiritual murder."
Three categories are in view. The Jews, who would see in Christians' careless conduct a gospel without law and would harden themselves against Jesus as Messiah. The Greeks, who would risk syncretism and take Christ for one more deity in their pantheon. The church of God, where new converts could fall back into their old sins.
"Don't become the reason others sin." With the weaker brother, we avoid giving offense; where Scripture is clear, we stand firm.
Charles Hodge sums it up: the first principle of Christian conduct is to promote the glory of God, the second is to avoid causing others to sin. Love for God and love for people must govern all our conduct.
The offense of the cross offends human pride, and that is one thing. It is another thing for an unbeliever to stumble over your selfishness or worldliness. Your life either helps the gospel or hinders it.
In 2 Corinthians 6:3-10, Paul uses the same expression: "giving no occasion of stumbling in anything, that our service may not be blamed." The preacher recalls that an elder must be above reproach, which does not mean sinless. Paul went through prisons, beatings, and fasting without causing offense. Whatever you are going through, you can live it for the glory of God: "Your job is not to understand me, it's to trust God in the middle of the trial."
Paul's goal is the salvation of the many. "For even Christ didn't please himself" (Romans 15:3). The pastor says he prays every week: "Lord, give us souls."
He tells of a gym near his home that displays "me time" in big letters. The world thinks "me, me, and me." Paul constantly thinks of others. Better to win souls than to be lukewarm like Laodicea.
He also calls those who do not know Christ: you cannot save yourself. Jesus said: "No one comes to the Father, except through me." He died without sin for the sins of those who believe in him, he rose again, and he reigns. Repent, turn to Christ.

7. "Let the Name of Whitefield Perish"

The message ends with George Whitefield, an eighteenth-century preacher who spoke without amplification to more than 30,000 people in open fields.
John Piper reports that, by conservative estimates, he preached about a thousand times a year for thirty years, at least 18,000 sermons, and that some weeks he spoke more than he slept. The preacher clarifies: it was not first of all a matter of effort, people were praying and preaching for revival, and they were expecting it.
Despite his fame, Whitefield was deeply grieved by the division between his supporters and those of John Wesley. To preserve unity and not hinder the gospel, he stepped aside and let Wesley lead the Methodists.
His biographer Arnold Dallimore reports his words: "What is Calvin, or what is Luther? I do not care who is first. Let us look above names and parties. Let Jesus be our all in all, provided he is preached. I know my place: to be the servant of all. Let the name of Whitefield perish, but let Christ be glorified."
He wanted nothing for an epitaph but his two initials, G. W. The pastor concludes by praying that God would make the church blameless, free in Christ, and occupied with his glory rather than with itself.

Key Takeaways

Spiritual maturity does not consist of exercising all your rights, but of limiting your freedom out of love for others.
God alone is Lord of the conscience: we are gentle with the weaker brother, but we let no one make laws where God has left us free.
"All" means all: eating, drinking, working, driving, going through hardship, everything can be done for the glory of God.
For a gray area, three questions: is it for the glory of God, does it make someone stumble, does it edify?
The ultimate goal is that many may be saved: your conduct either helps the gospel or hinders it.

Personal Application

On what secondary question do you expect others to think or act the way you do?
Is there an area where you let someone else's conscience bind you where the Word of God leaves you free?
In which ordinary act of your week (your work, your driving, the way you talk to those close to you) have you forgotten the glory of God?
Who are you really serving: the recognition of others or the Lord?
What in your life could today be an obstacle to the gospel for someone who is watching you?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the "tyranny of the weaker brother"?

The expression comes from a teaching by R.C. Sproul. The weaker brother has a poorly instructed conscience about a matter Scripture neither commands nor forbids. This scruple deserves patience. Tyranny begins when he uses it as leverage over the freedom of others, then demands that his personal rule be imposed on the whole church. But God alone is Lord of the conscience.

How can I know whether I can do something for the glory of God?

Pastor Wayne proposes a test of three questions, like a green light. Can this be done for the glory of God? If not, reject it. Would this make a weaker brother stumble in this context? If so, reject it as a lack of love. Does it edify? If the action passes all three steps, it is approved.

Why does Paul have Timothy circumcised but refuse to have Titus circumcised?

For Timothy (Acts 16), it was a matter of removing a cultural obstacle in order to reach the Jews with the gospel: it is a freedom exercised out of love. For Titus (Galatians 2:3-5), false brothers wanted to impose circumcision to bring believers back into bondage. Paul does not yield to them: "We gave no place in the way of subjection, not for an hour," so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved.