You may in a different way be affected. Why to be invited to this table by so an important a person. I am accepted. I am special. I am approved. And it goes to your head. But equally, of course if you are too involved in the food, you may miss the purpose. Why, the man has called you to this meal to put some proposal to you, may be a business proposal, whatever it is. And you miss it and the implications of it because you have been side-tracked by the splendour of the occasion and by the food.
This last is the kind of thing that could happen to believers. In Corinth, the believers dividing themselves into parties – I am for this preacher, I am for that preacher. There was a time this happened in England in a big way. Towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, when church going was still a social convention and a national habit, there were lots of people who went to church, but they did not have much spiritual taste. Well it is mighty boring in church if you have not got spiritual taste, unless there is something else you can enjoy while you are there. So the churches made the music more elaborate and bought ever bigger organs and more brilliant musicians and instrumentalists. And they engaged more flowery preachers, preachers who were brilliantly eloquent, and would engage in great florid displays of speech.
This is a picture of a far more general problem. The scene set in this illustration is a very specific on, but an analogous situation takes place regularly in our lives. We are offered friendship at work perhaps by those who know we are Christians but who want us to loosen up a little. Our strict lifestyle is a reproach to them and therefore they want us to compromise our principles somewhat. Join with them on some sports event on the Lord’s Day instead of going to worship God. Come with them to the pub for a drink at the end of the day, or at least join them and have a soft drink. Come out for the evening and watch this film; yes, it has some parts which are not so savoury, but you can ignore these. Are these sincere approaches of friendship to us? Don’t they have a very clear objective of moving us away from our faithful obedience to the Lord? Let us be very careful and remember where the boundaries lie.