Sharing the bread and cup, fleeing from idols

Good morning friends,
Today Paul takes his discussion of idolatry in something of a surprising direction. Earlier he discussed eating food sacrificed to idols as something to be avoided because it might lead weaker members of the church astray. Here he seems to think that the church is in more danger than before and warns them strongly to "flee from the worship of idols." I wonder if he felt like, while his earlier advise was sound it might have left too much room for accommodation. Here wants to be very clear that idol worship is dangerous and horrible so there can be no confusion.

We were talking on Wednesday evening about how Paul's writing can feel "changeable" because he shifts gears so often. A big part of that variability is because Paul moves from practical to theological matters seamlessly. And the reason he does that is that his practical advise is always grounded in theology. Whenever he thinks about the how the church or individual Christian should behave it comes back to who God is and what a Christian's behavior says about God.

This passage is a good demonstration of this. Paul talks about how sharing the bread and cup of communion makes the church one body and makes us one with Christ. In the same way, he warns, sharing a meal related to idol worship can have the same unifying power and we can't be united to both Christ and idols. So even though it is OK to eat food that might have been sacrificed to idols, we can't have anything to do with idol worship, because Christians only worship one God. We have freedom, but we have to use it responsibly. Paul will talk at more length a bit later about how powerful the ritual of communion is and how closely tied to the church's unity. Here we see that the bread and cup make a diverse group of people one body in the Lord. Amen.

Blessings,
Sam

Friday 1/29 1 Corinthians 10:14-22

14Therefore, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols.15I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. 16The 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? 17Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. 18Consider the people of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar?

19What do I imply then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? 20No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. 21You 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. 22Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?