Canter Bridge

Freedom and self-restraint are not often seen walking hand-in-hand. Yet they make the most compelling couple.

When the apostle Paul turns to instructing the Corinthian Christians regarding the best path though the thorn-filled gardens into which they been summoned, he is clear on the matter of freedom. Seldom has a writer who cannot be described as libertine written so lucidly about liberty. One of the astonishing outrages of Christian history is that Paul has so often been fronted as the poster child and enforcer of complex moral hang-ups. In truth, he proves an outlandish failure at those roles.

What conditions this man’s remarkably free conscience is his profound concern to maintain the Christian community intact. Alas, not all, perhaps not most of its constituents in Corinth understand how serving Christ in the way Paul does can align so fluidly with a minimalist approach to ethical conundra.

Paul’s response to the complexities of life in pagan Corinth is not simplistic, but neither is it complicated. It is, instead, simple.

One is free to choose widely from life’s menu so long as one gives thanks for the treats and meals he selects. The caveat is the requirement of self-restraint. Liberty is not liberty when it is flaunted at the expense of those who have not yet come to share in it. It is possible that Paul would consent that liberty that demands its full exercise is, rather, a subtle and foolish kind of slavery.

As he resists the temptation to fall into casuistic legalisms, Paul from time to time cuts through matters with a clarion call. Like this one:

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.

When an authority like this apostle—it could easily be someone else—is called to pronounce or even to legislate upon the kind of moral discussions that troubled the Corinthians, it is easy to trust in a suitably abstract, ever-densifying system of behavior. Paul will not do so.

He proves almost revolutionary in his trust that people who set out to act in a way that brings glory to God generally succeed in doing so. Though his questioners no doubt want much more than that, this is nearly all he will say.