Culturally Savvy Christians

Culturally savvy Christians follow the path of neither the cultural glutton (who consume too much) nor the cultural anorexic (who abstain completely). Instead, they are marked by their discretion and thoughtful discernment.

To discern means to see something that is not very clear or obvious. The apostle Paul taught that only renewed minds are able to discern God's will. Because popular culture is powerful, pervasive, and persuasive, each day we will be called upon to practice discernment—but what does it mean to show discernment? How do we do it?

Fortunately, Paul used a concrete cultural example facing believers in Corinth to provide a set of timeless guidelines on how we should be discerning as we evaluate our involvement in culture. In first-century Corinth, pagan temples were common, and as part of their temple rites, pagans offered meat to the gods enthroned there. Not wanting to waste good meat, the priests gathered it up, ate what they needed, and sold the rest to the markets, where it would be resold to the Corinthians.

Wanting to be culturally savvy, some devout Corinthian Christians wondered whether buying and eating meat that had been offered to pagan gods was spiritually unwise. Because this meat wasn't specially marked, they were concerned that they would be spiritually polluted, even if they bought it unintentionally. Christians took different positions on the matter, some of them deeply held, and bitter disagreements began to divide the Corinthian believers. Paul was asked to rule on the matter, and he concluded that believers were free to eat the meat but should exercise their liberty responsibly.

Paul's guidelines can be summarized as follows....

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