I wanted to go back and listen to my audio from Carson’s sermon because of the detailed nature of his argumentation. I have included some exact quotes from Carson on what it means to become all things to all people.
Global Coalition live blog 10: Don Carson, research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill.
Text: 1 Corinthians 9:19-23
Carson began by referencing an article in the Evangelical Missions Quarterly, Volume 34, from 1998: “The C1-C6 Spectrum: A Practical Tool for Defining Six Types of Christ-Centered Communities.” The article lined out six categories on a continuum of Christ-centered communities:
- C1: Traditional Western church using non-indigenous language.
- C2: Traditional Western church in the indigenous language.
- C3: Indigenous language, seeks to adopt some of the cultural traits of the society, such as music styles.
- C4: Often called contextualized Christ-centered communities. Adopt many Islamic forms where it is believed the Bible does not forbid the practice. The people are not viewed as Muslims by other Muslims.
- C5: Highly contextualized. Other Muslims view the people as Muslims, sometimes calling them Christian Muslims.
- C6: Underground Christian churches.
The C5 group is Muslims who add Jesus in some sense. They view themselves as Messianic Muslims. The C5 group uses Acts 15 as their justification, where it was said that Jews could be Jewish Christians and Gentiles, Gentile Christians. Thus, it is valid to have Muslim Christians.
The C5 group appeals to 1 Corinthians 9 as justification: “To the Jews I become as a Jew.” The Emerging Church takes a similar tack: “To the postmoderns, I become as a postmodern.” To be faithful to the Gospel, do we not need to do reach out in these ways, they argue?
But what are the limits? Do we become a drunk to drunks? Do we become an adulterer to adulterers? How do we demand faithfulness and flexibility?
The strong should defer to the conscience of the weak (chapter eight)
Eating food sacrificed to idols was the issue at hand. Paul teaches that there is no such thing as an idol. All things come from God (8:4). However, there is a situation where men could eat food from idols and in that act be worshipping demons (if they ate in a pagan temple). Then there is another situation, in homes and not in the temple, where men could validly eat food from idols.
But it is not always valid to eat food sacrificed to idols in homes. The issue is not the food. The issue is the conscience of those in your company. There are some who have sensitivities to things that they think are wrong, though they are not, such as eating food sacrificed to idols in a home. This is a weak conscience.
The one who has a strong conscience and knows that there is no such thing as an idol can eat food sacrificed to idols. However, if he is with a brother who has a weak conscience, he should not eat, for he may tempt his brother to eat and thus violate his conscience. In this act, he would be hardening his conscience and if he were to continue to do this it would lead to great harm.
Thus, the strong brother should not eat out of love and concern for the weak brother.
Paul gives up his rights for the sake of the Gospel (chapter 9)
Paul notes that he is an apostle. Since I am an apostle, do I not have rights? Paul asks. Paul could take a believing wife. Paul could receive money for his work in advancing the Gospel. However, Paul was not receiving financial compensation in Corinth. Paul did not want people to think that he was sharing the Gospel for financial gain.
Thus, Paul did not use any of these rights for the sake of the Gospel (9:12). Paul did not want to give up the right to boast about his voluntary preaching of the Gospel.
Merely preaching would not give Paul reason to boast. How he could not preach the Gospel? he says. But if Paul preached the Gospel voluntarily, then he could boast. Paul said he would rather die than to allow anyone deprive him of that boast.
He would be able to say that he preached the Gospel free of charge (9:18).
9:19-23
Paul tells us that to preach the Gospel he has to flex. Why?
1. Because he does not belong to any of these categories anymore.
Paul used to be a Jew and he used to be under the law. But now he is no longer under the law. Paul is no longer under the law covenant. He is a Christian who is under the new covenant.
Paul was willing to have Timothy circumcised, but he was not willing to have Titus circumcised because that jeopardizes the exclusive sufficiency of Jesus for salvation. Thus Carson concluded that it is not the act by itself that is so significant, it is the connections. The connection to a weak conscience or whether or not it is jeopardizing the exclusive sufficiency of Jesus.”
Paul is in a third position. He is not a Jewish Christian — he is a Christian. Paul is a Christian person who has to flex when he evangelizes Jews and when he evangelizes Gentiles. Paul has to flex because he does not belong to any of these categories.
What does Paul mean when he says to those outside the law, I become as one outside the law? This is difficult. Paul does give us a parenthetical thought that helps us. Paul says that he is no longer under the law, but he is under Christ’s law.
“Paul is under this new covenant, this mandate from God that has been mediated through Christ. This raises lots of questions about the continuity and discontinuity between the old covenant and the new. But Paul is saying that is not antinomian, but rather is under Christ’s law, under the new covenant, under the Lordship of Christ. Jesus Christ is the head of the new covenant and everything He demands under the new covenant, I am under that, Paul says.”
What does it mean to say that Paul flexes to those who are not under Christ’s law? What this means is established in the next line, “To the weak, I became weak, to win the weak.”
By the weak, Paul cannot mean exactly those who he referenced in chapter 8. In chapter 8, Paul was talking about believers. In chapter 9, he was addressing non-believers. So there is a difference. But there must be come continuity between weak in chapter 8 and in chapter 9.
“They are probably Gentiles who got close enough to Christianity that they have some real problems with idolatry. Like a lot of God-fearers in the synagogue.”
The synagogue attracted a lot of pagans who liked the vision of holiness upheld by the Jews. They became God-fearers and, apparently, they had a weak conscience. That is what Paul meant by those who are not under the law.
“They are Gentiles who don’t have the OT law, but they have a weak conscience. Paul says, ‘be flexible with them, too.’ So long as Paul can remain under all of the mandates of what it means to say, ‘I am a Christian. I am of the third position. I am under Christ’s law: there I will not bend.’ Other than that, Paul would flex, precisely because he wanted to win people to Christ.”
2. Paul has to flex because he wants to win people in all of these categories.
Paul became all things to all people that he might save some.
“If Paul is in this third position, then, as a Christian, he is trying to win these non-Christians to become Christians like him. If he wants them to become Christians like him he does not wish to leave them where they are.”
Paul does wish to leave people where they are. He becomes all things to all people that he might them, not that they might remain where they are. Paul wants to win people out of where they are to where he is: Christianity. When people become Christians, they then have to flex to reach their own people, for they are Christians and those around them are not.
“If you want to flex to make the Gospel a little more flexible and understandable…if you want to win those in a postmodern context, then fine, but you have to understand that to win them you have to bring them back to be a Christian. There may be flexibility in how we go after people, but we can’t leave them where they are.”
The mistake of C5 doesn’t recognize that there are idols in every culture. And all of us to become Christians must leave those idols behind and come under the new covenant.
3. Paul has to flex because he wants to participate in the Gospel category.
Paul says he does all of these things for the sake of the Gospel so that he might be a participant in it (9:23).
Christ identified with others for their salvation. Christ was one with the Father for eternity as God the Son, the second person of the Trinity. He was utterly content. In this fallen, broken world, He becomes a human. And then he stands in a line of sinners to be baptized with John the Baptist. He was sinless, but he identifies with sinners. He also identifies with Israel. He identifies with sinners so utterly that He takes their place and dies for them.
Then He rises again. Union with Christ undergirds justification. My sins are reckoned to Him; His righteousness is reckoned to me.
Paul wants to be a participant in the Gospel in the way that he evangelizes. It is as if he is saying, “I am not only preaching the Gospel, I am living it. I not only want the power of His resurrection, but the fellowship of His sufferings.”
The flexibility and accommodation envisioned in this paragraph are the flexibility and accommodation of the messenger, not the message and not the convert.
You have to so promote the Gospel that when people are saved they realize that there is a third position: the position of being a Christian.
The Gospel shapes how we conceive ministry.