1 Corinthians 10:14-22
Please be seated and turn in your copy of the scriptures to First Corinthians chapter 10. Today, we’ll be looking at verses 14 through 22.
Today, in our minds, we want to hold on to the word participation. Participation is the word, perhaps you’ve heard the New Testament Greek word, koinonia, which means participation, fellowship, communion, partnership. Uh, it’s used in all kinds of ways in the new Testament. Uh, but it’s common, uh, I guess it’s common meaning is, uh, to together, uh, we come to the Lord’s table today. Sometimes we call it this or that, but frequently it is called communion, uh, participation.
Um, remember before we read where we are in Corinthians, we’re in this long argument chapters eight, nine, and 10. Is it okay for Corinthian believers to go to the pagan idol meat market and buy steak on sale that had been previously offered to idols? Now, when Paul first discussed this, he said, you have Christian liberty. Christian liberty allows you to do things which your conscience, according to the word of God, believe to be okay for you. But there are times where because of our love for other brothers and sisters, our love limits our liberty. And so if we have a brother or sister who thinks that eating meat, which was offered to an idol, is a really bad, horrible thing, And you’re going to upset them that perhaps you should limit your liberty because you love. And then he went in this long deal about how he limits his liberty and gives up his rights as an apostle, uh, in order to save people. Now he’s going to come back to it. And what he’s going to tell them today is you need to not mess with anything connected to idols. Uh, not, not mess with anything connected to pagans or demons. And so that’s the thing we want to consider today.
Let’s do pray before we read God’s word. Father, help us to hear the scriptures, not as the word of men, but as the word of the living and true God. Help us to hear. with expectation that you are speaking and that you are judge over us. We are not judge over your holy word. We often have it backwards. Sometimes we don’t like what we hear. But when we consider, when we remember it, it’s your word, that certainly helps. But we need your spirit. We need your grace. And so give us your help and blessing now. And we ask for it in Christ, the living word’s name, amen.
First Corinthians 10, beginning at 14, Paul uses the conclusion word, therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people, judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body. For we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar. What do I imply then that food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagan sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
There are church words that we hear from time to time. And I don’t mean church words like churchy sounding words. I mean, church words that mean the church, like the people of God. Sometimes we’ll hear the emphasis come from the Old Testament, where often the meaning is the assembly of God’s people. Oftentimes, you’ll hear the verb. In the Old Testament, God will tell Moses, assemble the people together tomorrow at the foot of the mountain. Tell them to consecrate themselves, take a bath, You know, put some oil on their head, abstain from different things and be here at the foot of the mountain. I will come and I will visit the assembly of the people. That’s the Old Testament word.
You do hear that word in the New Testament, in the book of Hebrews, which is kind of an Old Testament book. In the New Testament, you hear that we come, I think it’s in Hebrews chapter 10 or 12, I forget. We come to the assembly of the firstborn from among the dead. So who’s in heaven? It’s the assembly of the people who have died on earth, like Moses and Aaron and the rest. It’s the assembly of them who’ve gathered in heaven.
We come to the New Testament and we hear very often the New Testament phrase, the church is the ecclesia. If you know your Languages a little. Ek is a prefix that means from out of. The kaleo is the call word. And so what is the church? Most essentially, it’s the people called out of the world to serve the living and true God. So who are the church? You add the New and Old Testament together and you’ve got an assembly of people called out of the world. leaving things behind like paganism and idols to serve the living and true God.
Well, you pass through history a little bit and you come to the word church, which is not in the Old or New Testament. The concept, yes, but the church or the maybe you go back to the Kirk in Scotland or the I can’t even pronounce the German way because I don’t have the hook, the guttural or whatever. But the Kirk would have been based on the Greek word Kyrie, Lord, we are the Lord’s people. And so when we come together as an assembly of God’s people called out of the world, called to worship the living and true God, we are the Lord’s people, the church.
It’s important for us to understand this as we think about Paul’s command to the Corinthians and to us and our need to be sanctified, our need to be set apart, our need to be out of the world, different from the world and set apart for the living and true God.
Remember repentance. Repentance is I was going this way, I was worshiping pagans and I turned 180 degrees and went towards the living and true God. That’s what we find in the life of Abraham. You go to chapter 12 of the book of Genesis. Abraham was living in Ur of the Chaldeans. He was living in a pagan land, in a pagan country, and he himself had idols. And he worshiped those idols. And Yahweh came to Abraham and said, Abraham up, leave your family, leave your idols, leave your nation, leave your country and go to Canaan. Go to the land I will show you and there you will worship me.
Well, what do you read when you get to the rest of the story of Abraham? Everywhere he went in the land of Canaan, he built an altar. And he pitched his tent and he sojourned there and he obeyed God. He lived for God, worshiping him and calling on his name, building altars, making sacrifices.
Now, remember when Abraham and his nephew Lot went off to Egypt, there was a famine or some kind of situation where they needed to go down to Egypt for help. That was a bad thing, going to Egypt bad. But nevertheless, he went and he comes out of Egypt. He comes back richer than before. A little bit of a foretaste of when Israel comes out of Egypt later with all the riches of Egypt, all the livestock of Egypt, because they lived up in Goshen and took care of their animals. But here’s Abraham coming out of Egypt with nephew Lot and their herdsmen are having a little strife. Yours are drinking too much water. You’re hogging the well. You know, there’s not enough feed for my flock or Abraham’s.
And so Abraham comes to nephew Lot and says, you know, our herdsmen are getting into it. We’re going to have a smack down if we’re not careful. So he says a lot. If you go that way, I’ll go this way. And then if, you know, I can’t get it right. If you go that way, I’ll go this way.
Well, we’re told in Genesis that Lot looked toward the valley, the beautiful valley where Sodom was. You know what that means. That’s a very foreboding hint there. He was looking toward Sodom and he saw it was a beautiful land and Lot moved toward Sodom. Later, we find Lot living near Sodom and in Sodom and has to be rescued from Sodom.
But what does Abraham do? He looks to Canaan, he looks to the promised land, and that’s where he takes his wealth and his flocks, continues to pitch his tent and build his altar because he knew that he must obey, he must live for, he must serve and he must worship the true and living God and him alone must he serve.
Several times in the Bible, the church, the called out ones, the separate ones, are called to have nothing to do with outsiders, nothing to do with idols, nothing to do with demons, devils, nothing to do with unbelievers.
But here is our rub. We like to straddle both worlds. We like to think we can dip a toe in this water and dip a toe in this water and have it both ways just fine. And we think that we can do it safely. And that’s why we see a lot of people in unequally yoked marriages. It’s why we’re seeing the church bless same sex unions. It’s why we see churches sometimes hold interfaith services. It’s why a lot of American evangelicals have welcomed in syncretism into their worship services. And we say it’s just innocent. We’re just having fun. It won’t hurt.
I can remember as a kid, probably, I’m guessing eight years old, my next door neighbor had a birthday party and we all went over there and ate cake, hot dogs, whatever, and he opened his presents and one of his presents was a Ouija board. Now, innocent, I thought it said alga. I go home to my mom and say, neighbor boy got a Algebra and my mom was freaking out. You should have left. Didn’t know what the thing was. It felt a little weird, a little anonymous. But we have to be careful.
Tarot card readings and horoscopes and all the rest. It is not innocent fun. Whereas Paul has said in chapter eight or so, we know that demons are, we know that the false gods aren’t real. We know the idols aren’t real. Nevertheless, he’s saying they are connected to spiritual and demonic powers and we should have nothing to do with them.
Well, Corinthians are living among pagans and they like having their toes dipped in both pools of water. And here’s the rub. Some of the Corinthians are eating at the temple steakhouse and they’re getting a ribeye that was previously served to idols. They’re getting a filet mignon that had been served on the altar, but they are also attending ceremonies in their friends’ homes or places of business where a quick sacrifice is made. And when that sacrifice is made, Paul is saying, just like Old Testament Israel was participating in the altar, just like we who sit at the Lord’s table are participating in the blood and the bread, you are participating in idolatry and you’ve got to flee idolatry. What does Jesus say in his high priestly prayer? Heavenly father, I’m coming back to you. They’re going to be in the world. I pray that you would protect them, that they would be in it, but not of it.
Now, lest you think all this separation business is old Testament and that the new Testament really has no way of saying Christians, you need to separate from ungodly things. Listen to what Paul will say to the Corinthians again, second Corinthians chapter six, which is his fourth letter to them. We don’t have two, but we got, we don’t have all four, but we have two. In 2 Corinthians is letter number four. Chapter six, he says, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership, what’s that word? Koinonia, fellowship, communion. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship… What’s that word? That’s the Koinonia word. What fellowship has light with darkness? You see, he’s making a very clear contrast. What accord has Christ with Belial? Belial is just another word for Satan. Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. And as God has said, I will make my dwelling place among them. I will walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing. Then I will welcome you. I will be a father to you and you shall be sons to me and daughters to me, says the Lord.
This separation business, is based in the covenant. What does God do? He calls a people from out of the world to himself, beginning with Abraham and all the way through today and Gentiles and Jews alike. He calls us out of the world to be separate to be holy, to be sanctified. And he calls us to live for him. And so he says very clearly in this passage, we must flee idolatry. You cannot have your toes dipped in this pool of water and this pool of water. In fact, he makes it so clear. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and at the same time drink of the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and also the table of the demons, and you could fill in the blank here. You cannot.
You know, we struggle with the same sex union thing, if somebody I know and love is going to go through a same sex union, should I go? What do you think the implication is here? Or should I marry an unbeliever? I’ll evangelize them. Should I marry someone who perhaps believes a couple doctrines that strike at the heart of Christianity? Should I go to this place or see this thing? You read in the scriptures over and over, we separate ourselves. But remember, we love to dip our toes in. We like to have it both ways. And here Paul is making it very clear. We can’t have inconsistent lives, though we’re really good at it.
And what’s the practical and theological reason here to flee idolatry? What’s the practical and real reason here to flee? It’s we do not want to provoke God to jealousy. Do you need a better reason? We don’t want to provoke God to jealousy. What has God said? I am a jealous God, and I will visit the iniquity of the children onto the generations that follow. So we don’t want to provoke God to jealousy. Why? He’s stronger than you are. Remember the big context here. There’s the weak in the church who think they’ve got it all figured out. We’re the Bible thumping, Bible believing people. And then there’s the weak brothers. And you see what Paul is doing here. You strong people think you can fool around with idolatry. Are you stronger than God? Don’t think so. Don’t mess with him.
So let me point out five very quick things here that will help us think about what we do in communion. And these all have to do with the word communion. The first is horizontal communion. The second is vertical communion. The third is an example of communion. The fourth is pagan communion. And then the fifth is a communion inclusion. And these are just quick popcorn points to make.
Horizontal communion. Which way is horizontal? Up, right? No, vertical is that way. Okay, I knew I messed this up. Okay, the first one’s vertical. You see, I’m human. Okay, first is vertical communion. See, it’s a good thing I checked. Which way is vertical? That’s up. Our communion is with God, right? And if you look at verse 16, the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? The way Paul asked this question, is he asked it grammatically with an anticipated yes answer. He asked the question knowing that the only answer they could give is yes. They may not believe it, but that’s the answer they should give. And so vertical communion is us communing with God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit through the elements of bread and wine that we hold in our hands.
And so there is a horizontal aspect to our communion when we come to the table. There is something where we by faith are raised up to heaven where Christ is seated and we feed on him spiritually and he nourishes us spiritually.
Then there’s the horizontal communion. I got this right. That is this way, right? Side to side. And who is that with? That is with each other.
Sometimes in our communion practice, we pass the plate. And as you pass the plate from one to another, there is a vertical communion. Sometimes we say the body and blood of our Lord Jesus shed for you, broken for you, and we pass the plate.
There is, verse 17 says, there is one bread. We who are many, Jew and Gentile in this context of Corinthians, there’s one bread. We who are many are one body for we all partake one bread.
We come to the table. We come to the cross, we come to worship, we come to what God has promised to bless in his believers to nourish them spiritually. We come and we come together in communion and fellowship and partnership.
And so all of the one another passages of scripture come to bear all of the different and varied backgrounds that we share come together. There can be, I know we’re in America, the melting pot, but in this room are many nations, in this room are many backgrounds, different levels of socioeconomics, different levels of education, different levels of all this.
But all of us share one thing and it’s identity in Jesus Christ. And so when we hold the bread, when we hold the cup, we all shed those identities that would distinguish us And we hold together in our hands what is common.
Perhaps you travel and you go to worship somewhere else and you take communion and you feel a strange sense of maybe wonder that you don’t know these people, but yet you do. You don’t know anything about them, yet you know more than is normal because you know their past and their future.
This is covenant life. This is life with God dwelling in our midst and us dwelling together.
Now, some of you have grown up in the Christian faith and you’ve had to shed very little in your life. You’ve just grown up knowing Christian things, Christian beliefs, Judeo-Christian values. And so a lot of these things are pretty normal. But if you’ve not grown up a believer, yet you’ve been called out of the world to live for the true God, you’re having to escape bit by bit. And perhaps you have toes dipped in both pools, the world or idolatry in the covenant community and God. And you’re having to pry that one foot out of idolatry. You’re having to pry your fingers off of things that you used to hold dear and can no longer. But that’s part of the fellowship of God’s people. That’s part of fellowship with God as we live separate. and holy lives.
Well, he’s going to give an example of communion. If we look at the vertical, we look at the horizontal, what’s an example? It says in verse 18, consider the people of Israel. Remember, they all lived together. They lived in a camp together. Then they lived in a land together. And he says, consider them, are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? He’s proving his point here. There was a cultic practice in the old covenant. A lot of things slaughtered, a lot of things killed. There’s meat being offered to idols in Corinth. And if there was a connection in the Old Testament, if you brought the offering, the priest slaughtered it, sacrificed it, cooked it, and the priest ate some and you ate some, you were a participant, you were a communicant, you were communing. And so the whole covenant community, when they participate in these things, are connected to one another in deep and spiritual ways. And that’s why loving the weaker brother or the weaker sister, that’s why it’s better to exercise love than liberty is the kind hearted thing to do. He’s showing how in the old Testament, this principle was there and now in the new.
Then the fourth communion, the pagan communion, verse 19, he says, what pagan sacrifice. They offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you, he says, to be participants with demons. What does he imply then? You go there and you do the thing. You are identifying it and you are connecting to the reality. You may say it’s all fun and games. I’m just being a friend. It’s just a business meeting, a business lunch, whatever. But you are connected to the reality behind it. Go back to the outset of our passage. Flee idolatry. If you’re connected, You’re connected and you need to flee from it.
Well, what’s the communion conclusion? We’ve looked at the vertical, the horizontal, the example from the Old Testament, the pagan communion. What’s the communion conclusion? Well, it’s this, it’s serious business. You can rationalize in your mind if you want. You can rationalize in your heart if you want. I can keep my toes dipped in both pools of water. But Paul is saying here, you cannot do both. You cannot drink of the cup of the Lord. and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. His conclusion is, well, it’s at the beginning. He says, I speak to you as sensible people. I speak to you as rational human beings who can take facts and arrive at a right conclusion. So he says, judge for yourselves what I say. And so you can imagine as they’re reading this letter, there are some in the room saying, now Paul’s wrong. Remember, some of them don’t like Paul. They think he’s a bad apostle, a fake apostle. They like the other apostles that say the stuff they want to hear and who justify their lifestyles. Paul is taking a wrecking ball to some of that and some don’t like him. So he appeals to them at least if you’re rational and reasonable. Hear what I have to say.
Some of you are strong and you say it’s my right, my liberty to do this, and I’m going to keep on doing it. I am able to do both. And Paul says very clearly, though, I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can’t have your toes dipped in both pools of water. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. And here is his verdict. Here’s his conclusion. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? And what is the answer? Say it out loud. No.
Let’s pray together. Father, we thank you that you have given us a new life in Christ. We thank you that you’ve called us out of the prisons, out of the dungeons, out of the chains, out of the darkness. And you freed us in the light of the gospel to live for you, to serve you. And yes, we live in this world. Yes, we have friends and influences, but we have a stronger call, and that’s to separate ourselves But it’s also to call others to the gospel. And so, Lord, make us today bold to separate ourselves from unholiness, but also to call others, even boldly, out of unholiness to godliness. It’s a tough thing in this world. It’s a good way to lose popularity. It’s a good way to get flagged, to get canceled, to get deleted, even perhaps to lose a job or a station in life. But what greater thing is there than knowing you and serving you and living with you forever? And so help us to be wise and bold, we pray in Christ’s name, amen.
We want to prepare to come to the Lord’s table and we have hymn number 424 and we’ll stay seated as we sing.