Why should we study 1 Corinthians 8 if we do not face the meat-offered-to-idols problem today?
We should study 1 Corinthians 8 because it addresses a real Corinthian problem—whether believers could eat meat offered to idols—that no longer confronts us directly, yet it provides an analogy for other issues in our society that are just as important. Its principles can help us cope with comparable contemporary matters.
Les explains that 1 Corinthians 8 deals with yet another problem that was holding the Corinthian church at bay: they did not know how to cope with meat in the marketplace, or at the table of someone who invited them to dinner, whether they could eat it if it had been offered in a pagan temple. It was a problem. Les grants that we do not have to face this particular thing, but he still thinks it is appropriate for us to study it for a little bit, because we have other things that are probably just as important to our society today and that are analogous to this.