“For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live” (1 Corinthians 8:5-6).
The next sermon series at CTK is “The One True God.”
In the first century the predominant view was that there were many gods. People generally personified all the powers of the universe. They saw all reality as intensly personal.
It’s different today. We tend to see reality as impersonal–driven by cause and effect, understood by scientific reasoning, and managed by data driven decisions. It’s nothing personal–the job losses were driven by economic realities, the insurance rates by risk assessment, and so forth.
But there’s a part of us that rebels against this cold view reality. “What about me?” It screams inside. “Why is this happening to me?” Emotional pain isn’t very scientific, is it?
Although such questions are typically inexplicible and often unanswerable, they set up the immature or superstitious person to believe all kinds of lies, because it is often the case that a wrong answer is more satisfying than no answer at all, because an answer to the cause of the problem sets up a plausible expectation of being able to control or even solve the problem. The problem is, solutions based on lies don’t work very well.
The so-called gods of the pagans were just such solutions. Not that they were imaginary. If the Bible is taken at face value then there were demonic, spiritual beings who responded to and were empowered by the lie-based, superstitious faith of idol worshippers. Such a view is verified by observations of current practices of paganism, such as when the voodoo priest or priestess is possessed by a demon.
But for us there is one God. Immensly more powerful than all the other powers, whether personal as in demons or impersonal as in laws of nature. He is the creator of them all.
What is more, this God is intensly personal. And if we don’t come to know him personally, then it isn’t the one true God we are worshipping.
