10.1 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.
Paul is setting up the model of what happened to the Israelites as an example for what could happen to the Corinthian Christians. He has retrojected Christian elements back into the story to make the model fit better. The ancient Israelites were baptized into Moses (a concept foreign to Judaism) as you were baptized into Christ, and they ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink from the rock that was Christ. So you have no advantage over them. Your baptism and participation in the eucharist are not going to protect you if you do wrong any more than it did them. He refers to the ancient Israelites as ‘our ancestors’ not because the Corinthians whom he is addressing are of Jewish descent genetically but because, as Gentile converts, they are part of the true Israel or Israel of the spirit (in Romans 11.17-21 he uses the metaphor of wild branches grafted onto a tree to describe the gentile Christians relationship to Israel).
6 Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. 7 Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.” 8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. 10 And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. 11 These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. 12 So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. 13 No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.
In this section Paul makes the point of the previous section explicit. It serves as an example (types v. 6, typical v. 11) – and a warning – to the present generation. He specifically calls out idolaters (v.7, the subject of the present chapter) and fornicators (v. 8, looking back to chapter 5.1-6.), as well as those who put Christ to the test (presumably looking ahead to 10.22) and complainers (those who don’t accept God’s will as delivered by Paul?). Paul repeats the word test or trial several time – but he also emphasizes that the test is *easy* - the test you face is no more difficult than the tests common to everyone and not beyond your strength.
It will be necessary to examine the section 1 Cor. 10.14-22 in a bit more detail, as this has proved the most controversial section so far.
14 Therefore, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. 15 I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.
Paul finally gets to the main point of the chapter 8: ‘Do not worship idols! This ought to be obvious.’
He does not directly address the implied argument of those ‘who have knowledge’ from chapter 8 that when they eat meat in the temple of an idol they are not, in fact, engaging in idol worship because they know no idol exists and there is no God but one (1 Cor. 8.4).
Paul is having none of it. If you are eating meat sacrificed to and idol in the temple of an idol with other people who are worshipping demons, then you are worshipping demons. He gives two examples of worship, that of Christians and that of Jews:
16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.
In his description of Christian worship, the celebration of the eucharist, emphasizes that worship is a communal activity four times, twice using the word κοινωνία (sharing, or ‘communion’), then ‘we who are many are one’, then ‘we all partake’.
18 Consider the people of Israel according to the flesh; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar?
With respect to Israelite worship, Paul again emphasizes that worship is a group activity using the word κοινωνία (here translated ‘partners’).
(I take Israel ‘according to the flesh’ to mean those of Hebrew descent as opposed to gentile converts who have been adopted or grafted into Israel).
19 What do I imply then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20 No,
Here Paul explicitly denies that the food is anything or that the idols are anything. He has not changed his mind on that. The food is just food. The idols are dumb objects. So what does he mean? He tells us in the next verse:
I imply that what [pagans/they] sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. 21 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.
Having clarified what he did not mean in v. 19 (the meat is nothing, the idols are nothing), Paul moves on to what he does mean: ‘what they (some manuscripts have: ‘the pagans’) sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God.’
The most controversial interpretive problem in this verse is who ‘they’ are. The word pagans (τὰ ἔθνη, literally ‘the nations’) found in many manuscripts may well be an interpretive gloss by a later scribe. There are several possibilities. The first is that, while the word pagans may be a later scribal gloss, that clarified the meaning of the verse, it may well have been correct as to what Paul meant. The second is that, since the chapter began with a discussion of the Israelites and some of them became idolaters (v.7), and the last group specifically mentioned in the chapter was the people of Israel in v. 18, ‘they’ may mean the people of Israel. Third, it could refer to Christians who participate in sacrifice.
All of these are possible. I think the third is the least likely. While Paul is most concerned that Christians not engage in sacrifice to idols, which is demon worship, he has been referring to Christians as ‘we’, meaning Christians in general including himself, and ‘you’ the ones engaged in problematic behavior. It seems likely that the third person ‘they’ indicates some other group which ‘you’ should not emulate or attach yourselves.
Neither does it seem that Israel is the most likely option. Despite the fact that Paul earlier in the chapter referred to some Israelites in the time of Moses engaging in idolatry, there is no warrant elsewhere in Paul’s letters for the idea that this is what the people of Israel do in general and as a whole. Also, the question ‘What do I imply then?’ in v. 19 seems to be concluding the examples just given of Christian and Jewish worship and drawing out a general lesson from them to be applied to idol worship.
I think, therefore, that Paul is indeed talking about pagan idolators in v. 20, both because pagans are generally regarded as idolaters by Jews (the terms are almost synonymous) and because Paul was speaking about Christians attending feasts in pagan temples and eating meat sacrificed to idols in 1 Cor. 8.10, so there is a context for that understanding in this letter.
What is this general lesson? It may not especially matter exactly which group he means by the ‘they’ (or ‘they sacrifice’) in v. 20. What Paul is emphasizing is the activity of worship and the partnership or fellowship (κοινωνία) one enters into, depending on who one worships with and who or what is the object of worship. If you participate in the worship, you enter into the κοινωνία. One cannot participate in the worship and say one is not individually involved.
Now one might object that Paul does not explicitly say he is addressing meat sacrificed to idols only in a group religious ceremony or in pagan temples in verses 20-21, so it is illegitimate to infer he is addressing only those contexts specifically as opposed to eating meat sacrificed to idols in general. There are, however, several arguments in favor of that interpretation.
First, there is a known prior context in the letter in which Paul was specifically talking about meat sacrificed to idols eaten in temples (1 Cor. 8.10), so that is a possibility.
Second, the examples Paul gives for comparison with the worship of Christians in vv. 16-17 and Jews in v. 18 involve ceremonies and being in κοινωνία with the worshippers and/or the worshipped. He emphasizes after his two examples that the meat is nothing and the idols are nothing. If meat became permanently contaminated by being sacrificed to idols so that anyone who ate it anytime afterwords, it would be strange to say the meat is nothing. It is more likely that the meat is nothing, but eating it in the context of worship is something.
Third, in the succeeding passages, where Paul specifies contexts (purchasing meat in the market v.25, attending dinner in a private home as a guest v.27) in which it is allowable to eat meat without first determining whether it was sacrificed to idols, Paul is clearly not talking about attending public rituals practiced in pagan temples.
Naturally, this reading is not indisputable, but it is a strong reading and makes sense of the text. I do not know of a stronger available reading.
22 Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? Do All to the Glory of God.
This verse contains two rhetorical questions anticipating a negative answer here. Paul clearly intends his addressees to understand that (1) no one is stronger than God and (2) you should not provoke him through idolatry as the Israelites in v. 7 did and put him to the test. Paul had said at the beginning of this section that he was addressing them as to sensible people (v.7), and no sensible person would think he was stronger than God or provoke him to jealousy.
Paul is perhaps being unfair to the Corinthians who claimed that what they were doing did not constitute idol worship. Unfair or not, Paul is saying that it does.
The following section, 1 Cor. 10.23-11.1 (the first verse of chapter 11 belongs in this section and ought to have been placed at the end of chapter 10; I’m looking at you, Stephen Langton) introduces two contexts in which meat that had been sacrificed might be eaten.
23 “All things are lawful,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. 24 Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other.
Paul returns to the argument made in chapters 8 and 9. There are rights that one has that one should refrain from exercising for the sake of another.
25 Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience,
26 for “the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s.”
26 for “the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s.”
Verses 25-26 are fairly clear: unlike whatever context is being addressed in vv. 20-21 (which I take to be public feasts in temples), you can eat meat sold in the marketplace without having to first establish whether or not it had previously been sacrificed. This is consistent with what Paul has said about meat being nothing. It is not a property of the meat itself or of eating it that constitutes partnership with demons.
27 If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience.
Verse 27 is similar to vv 25-6: In the context of a meal at someone’s home, one can eat whatever is et before them without raising questions about its origins (i.e. whether the meat had been sacrificed to a pagan idol).
28 But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience— 29 I mean the other’s conscience, not your own.
Having said that one can eat meat as a guest at dinner without inquiring about whether the meat had previously been sacrificed to an idol, Paul addresses a hypothetical situation in which one nevertheless learns that the meat has been sacrificed to an idol through another person. Paul says that in such a case, one should refrain from eating the meat for the sake of that person’s conscience, not your own. Presumably the other person is a Christian who is concerned not to eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols and has informed you that this particular meat has been. Paul is saying that you could still eat the meat in good conscience, but should refrain for the sake of the other person.
For why should my liberty be subject to the judgment of someone else’s conscience? 30 If I partake with thankfulness, why should I be denounced because of that for which I give thanks?
Verses 29 b and 30 can, indeed, cause some confusion, because having just said that one should not eat for the sake of another’s conscience, he then immediately asks why one’s liberty should be subject to someone else’s conscience.
This is not, however, an unsolvable problem. Paul is asserting two things to be true. The question is which one takes priority. He is asserting both that one could in good conscience eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols but one should refrain from doing so for the sake of the other person in that situation. But one need not accept that the other person’s conscience is correct and adopt their belief in general.
This is entirely consistent with what Paul has said of himself at the end of chapter 9, in his well known claim to have been ‘all things to all men’ saying.
Paul asserts both his own freedom (‘I am free and belong to no one’) and how he has observed the rules of the different people he was with for the sake of advancing the gospel.9.19 Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. 32 Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, 33 just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, so that they may be saved.
This again is the ethic Paul has been preaching: do not seek your own advantage but that of your brethren. This may mean not exercising one’s own rights if it comes at their expense.
11 1 Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
This concluding statement, which the chapter divisions cut off from the discourse with which it belongs, gives Paul’s basic model for how a Christian ought to behave – behave like Paul (cf. 1 Cor. 4.16). In this case, he probably means specifically being all things to all men, offending neither Greeks or Jews, even if this means not exercising one’s own rights.
Paul knows the Scriptures of Israel (at least in Greek) well and also knows something of Greek rhetoric and Greek culture. But he is not a systematic theologian and is, in effect, writing a new constitution for a new kind of society – Gentile Christianity – that is really only an idea he has in his head. He is, effectively, trying to build it from scratch. Christian Jews, Jews who accepted Jesus as the foretold Messiah, but lived in a Jewish society following the Mosaic law, already had social structures in place and could retain them. With the Corinthian church, Paul is dealing with issues on the fly and trying to provide a theological justification for what he thinks they ought to be doing.
Best,
Ken
