1 Corinthians 10 Discussion

Some Bible passages don’t let you stay comfortable, and 1 Corinthians 10 is one of them. We sit down as pastors and walk straight through Paul’s warning that spiritual privilege can turn into spiritual presumption. Israel had real miracles, real provision, real closeness to God’s work and still collapsed into idolatry, sexual sin, and grumbling. That’s not ancient drama for Sunday school; it’s a mirror for the church right now.

We also slow down on a line that changes how you read the Old Testament: “the Rock was Christ.” Jesus isn’t a late arrival in the biblical story. He’s present, divine, and sustaining his people even as they resist him. From there, Paul’s language gets even more direct about spiritual warfare. An idol may be “nothing” as an object, but worship offered to idols is offered to demons. That raises serious questions about what participation means, why the Lord’s Supper matters, and how seemingly small compromises can become real fellowship with darkness.

Then we tackle Christian liberty and conscience in everyday life: when you can receive God’s gifts with gratitude, when you must refuse, and how to think clearly about gray areas where your presence can imply approval. We end with hope you can actually use today: temptation is common to man, God is faithful, and he provides a way of escape, especially when you stop flirting and start fleeing. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review if it helped; what’s one “gray area” you’re trying to navigate wisely right now?

Text us at 737-231-0605 with any questions.

Transcript

Welcome And Chapter 10 Outline

Pastor Plek 0:10

And welcome back to a chapter a day. Keeps the devil away. I'm Pastor Pleck, and that is Pastor Holland. And we are talking First Corinthians chapter 10, uh, where we're gonna outline it, then we're gonna observe it, then we're gonna interpret it, and then we're gonna apply it so that you will be fulfilled in your spiritual maturity for the day, so that you can follow Christ along the way. All right, so verses 1 through 13 of chapter 10 talks about a warning from Israel's history, the classic bad example motif. Don't presume on the grace of God. He uses the Exodus generation as a sober example of those who once experienced God's blessings yet fell into sin and judgment. Then in verses 14 through 22, he says, Listen, flee from idolatry, have no association with demons. Then verses 23 to the end, he's like, Look, here's some principles governing Christian liberty. And he gives us kind of lands the plane on uh all the gray areas. All things are lawful, but not all things edify or glorify God. So you're gonna have some gray areas, and so the thing that you're gonna have to choose is this thing glorifying God. Okay. So let's take a look at this. What observations can you make about this text?

Pastor Holland 1:34

Okay, Jesus was with the people in the wilderness in the Old Testament. He says the rock. Yeah, the rock was Christ. And so you're like the the eternality and divinity of Jesus, very clear here. Um, to anyone who's like, uh Jesus was just uh a good man, a good prophet, you know, the Muslim conception of Jesus that he was uh a prophet of God, but he's not God, you're like, nope, there he is. The rock was Christ. They were drinking from the spiritual rock, um, it says that followed them. Jesus has you know existed from all eternity.

Pastor Plek 2:17

Do you think maybe this is why Moses didn't get to go to the promised land because he hit Jesus a couple times with a staff?

Pastor Holland 2:23

When he smacked the rock, yeah. Man, and Jesus was like, all right. You're right.

Pastor Plek 2:28

Yeah, that hurt.

Pastor Holland 2:29

All right.

Flee Idolatry Without Hesitation

Pastor Plek 2:30

Like I'm a gracious man, but uh I'm a gracious rock. And but that was too far. Yeah. Um, okay. What about um fleeing idolatry decisively? Like, this is some character observation of like a person of great character just makes a decision and runs from sin.

Pastor Holland 2:52

Yeah, yeah, I love that. Flee. Don't um walk away, don't tiptoe around it, flee from it.

Pastor Plek 2:59

Uh, I also like he points out like for godly people, they're gonna have this uh God-glorifying motive in all of their life. I uh like whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

Idols, Demons, And Spiritual Reality

Pastor Holland 3:16

Yeah. And and don't um be participants with demons. All right, we gotta talk about that. There's a lot about a lot of demon stuff in here.

Pastor Plek 3:25

Yeah, like it seems like the demons are really coming on strong here.

Pastor Holland 3:29

Yeah, so there's been several mentions of angels already. And then Paul said previously, like, what was it back in chapter eight, where he's talking about an an idol has no real existence.

Pastor Plek 3:42

And so he says here, you know, um He's talking material idol, although there are clearly idolatrous things you could do with that. However, there was no demon inside the rock.

Pastor Holland 3:54

Yeah, he says, What do I imply then? That food author offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything. No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. So the idol itself has no power, but it represents um an actual demonic power. Um and Paul, you know, so Paul has mentioned lots of angels. Uh he's mentioned a lot about demons right now. He also mentions verse 10 the people who grumbled were destroyed by the destroyer or the destroying angel. Um yeah.

Pastor Plek 4:26

Keep going. Sorry. Uh I got it.

Pastor Holland 4:28

No, go ahead. What you got? On the destroyer.

Pastor Plek 4:30

Yeah, well, no, not that specifically, but because I I'm gonna take it to a different route. Like this, how they're just like it's you know those um motivational posters, like the demotivational posters.

Pastor Holland 4:40

Yes, yes, yeah. We need some demotivational posters of people getting destroyed by the destroying angel and be like, don't grumble. Don't grumbling.

Pastor Plek 4:50

You deserve it. I don't know. Like, you know, like uh, you know, I don't have ever seen like those hang-on posters, you know, with the cat or whatever. Like, this is the demotivational failure when your best is not enough. I don't know, like like you know, like anyway. I feel like Israelites, when you've been blessed with everything, but you completely throw it in the toilet.

Pastor Holland 5:10

And it's a picture of 23,000 people falling in a single day.

Pastor Plek 5:13

Yeah, yeah.

Pastor Holland 5:14

So like that. And people being destroyed by serpents and the destroying angel.

Pastor Plek 5:18

This was done for us, for them, and just a literal demotivational per poster so that we wouldn't be. Don't be like that. Don't be like that.

Pastor Holland 5:25

Yeah, don't be like that.

Who Is The Destroyer

Pastor Plek 5:26

Sorry, I I just couldn't help myself. Back to the destroyer. Uh, who is the destroyer? Because it's like in my Bible, it's capitalized. Yeah. And so what does that mean? Is it a destroying angel? Uh Grim Reaper. Is that Satan? Who is that?

Pastor Holland 5:43

Uh, I don't think it's Satan. It was a servant of the Lord, right? Um uh what's what's the reference here? The destroyer.

Pastor Plek 5:51

Uh, verse 10. So go to verse 10. Let's take a look at it because I feel like this could be something that we need to.

Pastor Holland 5:58

Um, yeah, I it said like the study Bible note says the destroyer is not mentioned in numbers, although Paul apparently views the angel who executed God's judgment during the Exodus as the destroying agent in these instances.

Pastor Plek 6:13

Yeah, that's the Septuagint translate. It's the same word for the destroying angel. So Grim Reaper?

Pastor Holland 6:19

Yeah, yeah, essentially. Um, well, you know, not the lore of the Grim Reaper is just the person who comes, you know, when your time has come. Uh I don't I don't see this teaching that this is like But he does have a big sickle. He does have a big sickle in the Bible?

Pastor Plek 6:35

No, in the at least the pictures I've seen.

Pastor Holland 6:36

Well, yeah, the Grim Reaper pictures, yeah. But I mean that's the idea. Right is that God uh uses he used an an angel, an angelic being to destroy unbelieving people for their grumbling and lack of faith and you know covenant failures. Uh and so angels and demons, very real. I mean, Paul's just talking about them like duh, everybody knows this.

Pastor Plek 6:59

Everybody knows about the angels, everybody knows about the demons, and the destroying angel who wipes out bad examples.

Pastor Holland 7:04

Yeah. And so he says, I mean, he literally warns them, I don't want you to be participants with demons. It's kind of like he's saying, you might not realize that you're doing this. Um, and I want you to realize it. And I don't want you to, there are other like dark spiritual forces that you could be like um engaging with, participating with. And you need to be aware of that and not do that. Yeah. Um, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.

Pastor Plek 7:30

That's wild. All right, let's get into the nature of man because I think that kind of fits. There's a huge propensity for us to engage with demons without even knowing it. Whenever we serve um the darkness, uh, obviously we're serving the father of lies. Obviously, we're we're serving Satan in those moments. Um, but what would you say? I guess people have maybe unwittingly served Satan and his minions when they engage in sin.

Pastor Holland 7:58

Um well, I think so. Like one thing that comes to mind is I I think Paul's saying um you might you might see like the pagans around you making their food sacrifices to these statues and think it's all imaginary because the idol's nothing, food's nothing. Right. But he's like, there are um, even though the the idol is nothing and the food sacrifice means nothing, there is a real demonic force. Because it gets into like it's not just imaginary. Because it gets into the Lord's Supper.

Pastor Plek 8:30

Yeah. And he's like, when you participate, you are participating with the Lord. Yeah. You are you are drinking the Lord's blood in this in this uh ceremony.

Pastor Holland 8:40

Uh yeah, and and when you are eating food sacrificed to idols, um you're participating in the worship of them if you're doing it, if you're doing it knowingly, and someone says, this is presented as the God of whatever. It's not like the food itself becomes some magical demon food. Rather, he says, you know, he brings up the specific situation that um if uh if an unbeliever invites you to dinner, yeah um, and says this has been offered in sacrifice, essentially it's like it's it's like a worship service meal. It's like a covenantal meal in the same way that we would treat communion. Right. And so he's saying, in that case, do not eat that.

Pastor Plek 9:20

But if they don't say anything about it, there's like, hey, here's your grub.

Pastor Holland 9:23

Yeah, then sure, eat, because the earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof. Um, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. He said it all belongs to God. But he's saying don't be a participant in some kind of covenantal meal, some kind of liturgical meal that's been offered up to some demon or deity.

Pastor Plek 9:38

Yeah. Um, a line that I love here for why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience? I really appreciate that. It seems to contradict a little bit of what um he said before, but I don't it obviously doesn't. He's saying, like, don't um rein on the parade of whoever whoever's eating their conscience when they're saying, Hey, I'm I sacrifice this to an idol, I'm gonna eat this with you, please partake with me. And you're like, No, it's gonna hurt their conscience if you eat of it because you've declared yourself to be a believer in Christ.

Pastor Holland 10:15

Yeah, you are still free to eat it. Right. He's saying your your liberty is not determined by their conscience. Right. But um, their conscience ought to inform what is the most wise thing for you.

Pastor Plek 10:27

So, in that circumstance, as soon as that person leaves and it's like this amazing steak that's left over and you don't want to throw it out, you go, you just make sure no one's looking and you can eat it. Fair enough. Because your conscience, your liberty isn't determined by their conscience.

Pastor Holland 10:39

Yeah, I think if so, like modern day, what's you know, if you're like eating with um, you know, a Muslim or a Hindu or a, you know, and they're like, hey, here's this food that we want to eat this in, you know, in offering to blah, blah, blah, you know, Allah or Brahma or Brahma, whatever um God, and you're like, oh yeah, no thanks.

Pastor Plek 10:58

And then they leave and you're like, right? I mean, fair enough, because you could do that because you're not gonna, their conscience is no longer gonna be messed with because you know that's just food. Yeah, you're free to eat the food.

Pastor Holland 11:10

Okay, but you don't want to you don't want to lend any credibility to their demon worship.

Pastor Plek 11:16

100%.

Pastor Holland 11:17

Okay.

When Attendance Implies Approval

Pastor Plek 11:17

So let's get to I I also sorry, we were on the nature of man. Let's let's get back to that. Um I think it's easy to flirt with compromise for for people, meaning we want to partake in the Lord's table and the demon table, provoking God and thinking we're strong and he's not. I love how like do you think you're you know, are are you gonna provoke God to jealous jealousy? Are you stronger than he? Yeah. I I kind of love that. We we we wanna we flirt with compromise. We're when we're in that situation, there's this huge propensity in us to to cave. Yeah. Because we don't want to be weird.

Pastor Holland 11:52

And not not just so like I think tell me what you think about this. I don't think this just applies to food. Yeah, I think it's like um, you know, the we wanna we want to not make anyone feel left out, and so we're gonna recognize all religions as like equally valuable. Right. And so we're gonna sell celebrate Dwali Festival of Lights because we want to honor like our Hindu neighbors. And it's like, no, that's like a there, it's another religion that worships false gods, demons, and stuff like that. And and when you go, the compromise is saying, like, oh yeah, your religion is good too. We're they're all like equal religions going pointing to the same truth. Right. No, they're not. Like you got to recognize that's demon worship, don't participate in that.

Pastor Plek 12:34

So there, but there could be a part of they're going to the Diwali worship service and then they're starting to eat. You show up late to this to the show, they they're they haven't mentioned anything about this being sacrificed to whatever. You can eat with them and enjoy and have a conversation and talk about it.

Pastor Holland 12:47

Potentially. I I would say like the situations like that require wisdom and you know it's fact in two, not all things are all things are um what we say lawful.

Pastor Plek 12:58

Lawful when not all things are helpful. Yeah.

Pastor Holland 13:00

There there are events where your simply your attendance or participation implies affirmation and approval.

Pastor Plek 13:08

Like the gay wedding.

Pastor Holland 13:09

Yeah. And so that's where I go, yeah, you don't you don't go to that. You're by being there, you are there um publicly approving of it. Um, you are there, you know, um affirming that this is like, hey, this is something to celebrate. Right. Uh in the same way you go to and if you're like going to another religious festival and eating there, it could be that that your participation or attendance is um communing with demons. Right. Yeah.

Temptation And The Way Of Escape

God’s Jealous Love And Ownership

Pastor Plek 13:36

That's good. All right. What about character of God? How about God's faithful and temptation? I love that. First Corinthians 10 13. That's such a great no temptation has seized you except which is common to man. In fact, maybe this is also uh nature of man. There's no sin that's unique to you. Yeah. Every sin is common to everybody, and you know, Jesus was tempted in every way without sin. Um yeah, it was without sin. So he but he provides a way of escape and then endurance to stand up under the temptation. Yep. I think that is huge. I I like to think of um you know the way of escape as like you've got these doors, and uh initially the door is always huge, and you can walk through it easily, but as you start walking down, flirting with sin, the door on the way of escape gets smaller. There's still one, but man, you're gonna have to make a real effort to squeeze out because it's gonna be a lot harder um later on than earlier on to escape. Yeah, very good. Um what else? Character of God.

Pastor Holland 14:38

I love that you know, God, there's so much about God's character here. He uh when it says these things took place as examples for us in verse six, it's like, hey, God, God is wanting to instruct you in right living, and he's given us his scriptures. Um, he's given us examples so that you know we might um understand what it looks like to walk in righteousness. God is also protective. The fact that Paul gives these warnings about demons is God saying, like, I want to protect you from that which is harmful to your soul. Um, essentially, God is a good father, he's a provider, he's a teacher, he's a protector. Um, yeah, he's a good father.

Pastor Plek 15:15

How about God is jealous for exclusive worship? Yeah. Like, and that's it's not like a crazy, you know, jealous husband, ragey, who, you know, if if he sees you in public with talking to another person, assumes the worst and then like gets angry and murders everybody. We're talking about a jealous, okay, a little extreme, I guess. Uh, a jealous husband. Uh, he's jealous in the sense he wants what's best for you. Yeah. And what's best for you is him. Exclusivity.

Pastor Holland 15:43

Yeah. Exclusivity of um worship is good for your soul. And God wants that and is worthy of it. He is. Yeah. Um also uh uh let's see, where is it? Um you mentioned God is faithful. Um the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. God is um sovereign and he owns everything.

Pastor Plek 16:06

Um every animate, no, every inanimate object is of the Lord. And so use it, eat it, whatever. Can we say that? I guess, I guess. Wait, what? So, like all meat. You can eat any meat.

Pastor Holland 16:22

Yeah, food. All of that food.

Pastor Plek 16:23

He's given us but even like rocks, like even if like that rock was used as a whatever. Do you think there's a freedom there? Like when you're as a Christian, you take that rock, and now I'm gonna use this as a I don't know, uh a chair in the house. I don't know. So along those lines, is it are you are you free from any sort of like, or do demons live in rocks?

Pastor Holland 16:46

Sorry, this is a bizarre question. Um uh the earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof is just like all everything created by God, you know, is for our use. Um yeah, stewardship. I would say our stewardship and how you steward one thing versus how you steward another thing is gonna be different, but all for our stewardship, whether to eat or sit on or live in or you know, use for fuel or whatever it is.

Pastor Plek 17:12

Like he's given us the hall of Tyrannus, for example, in Paul's day, it was just a meeting hall. They turned it into a church.

Pastor Holland 17:20

Yes.

Pastor Plek 17:21

Uh and so like inanimate objects can be used for godly use or for demonic use, depending on who the user is.

Pastor Holland 17:29

Yeah, and for us to steward all things is we should seek to have all of creation oriented unto the service of God.

Pastor Plek 17:36

Yes, that's where I was going. Yeah, yeah. I'm with you.

Pastor Holland 17:39

No, no, no, you're good.

Pastor Plek 17:40

I just I think probably I'm an abstract thinker. Uh I think about rocks and meat. Very good. Rocks are great. Yeah.

Pastor Holland 17:48

Especially the rock that was Christ.

Pastor Plek 17:50

Yes.

Pastor Holland 17:51

This character of God. Um, the idea of a rock, you know, being solid, being firm, being a foundation. Um, that Christ is that. He's he's the rock that you know our faith is built upon. And he is the water, right? Yeah.

Pastor Plek 18:04

And he is the fire.

Pastor Holland 18:05

He's our spiritual nourishment. He's our um, yeah, he's he's everything.

Application And Warnings Against Presumption

Pastor Plek 18:09

I mean, he's the manna. So like Jesus is the the fire, right, in uh in the burning bush. Jesus is the fire that is the that leads the Israelites into the wilderness. Jesus is the cloud that leads the um Israelites in the wilderness. Jesus is the manna that feeds them, Jesus is the water that uh satisfies their thirst. Jesus is the rock that provides uh for their thirst. It's it's wild how many different things you see Jesus being in the story of Exodus with all the people of God rejecting him over and over and over again, although he's providing grace after grace after grace after grace. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. All right, let's get into some application. What's good in spec, which is a sin to avoid or confess, a promise to claim, an example to follow, command to obey, or knowledge to believe. What do you got there, Holando?

Pastor Holland 19:03

Um verse seven do not be idolaters, as some of them were. Uh as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. And um, yeah, I just the it's interesting the way uh um that this is this is the example for idolatry. Um is this reference back? It's a reference back to Exodus 32.

Pastor Plek 19:30

That's whenever they come down with the Moses comes down with the Ten Commandments. Yeah. And they in 40 days, after he's given the first basic Ten Commandments, and then he goes up the mountain and he's like, hey, check it out, you know, uh don't make any graven image like worship Lord alone, don't make any graven images, don't take the Lord's name in vain, honor the Sabbath, honor your mom and dad. Don't commit adultery. Uh don't uh what's number seven? What? What's the seventh commandment?

Pastor Holland 20:01

Oh, uh oh snap. Uh stealing. No, that's eight. Uh lying is nine. Coveting is ten. What is seven? What do we what do we miss?

Pastor Plek 20:11

Lying, cheating, stealing. Uh what's seven? How do we not know this? It is. Are you ready? I had to look it up. That's really sad that I had to go to the I'm like teaching these on uh It's adultery.

Pastor Holland 20:27

Wait, how's it? I thought you said that. No, six is murder.

Pastor Plek 20:31

Six is murder. That's why I missed. That's why I got messed up.

Pastor Holland 20:33

Oh, okay. I was so confused. I was like, I th okay.

Pastor Plek 20:36

Sorry, murder. We forgot murder of all those things. There you go.

Pastor Holland 20:39

Uh and and so like the point of bringing this up, that's really funny, by the way. Um uh he says uh he references this. It's the idea that they were, they had just received the law and immediately committed idolatry. Right. And sexual morality. Yes. Sexual immorality, idolatry. And so he says, you know, don't be idolaters. He he's writing them this letter, and you know, there were sexual immorality and idolatry going on in this church. And he's saying you're repeating the same things that they were back then. And remember what happened to them, you know, like they got 23 balls dead. 23. Like, what are you thinking, repeating that? This is supposed to be an example for you to repent from these things. So, anyway, today we can be guilty of the same thing. We can go, I go to church, um, I'm one of God's people, um, and then still think it's fine to um uh commit idolatry, to commit adultery, to look at pornography, and just kind of feel safe that we're I'm good. I'm a I'm a Christian, I'm a church person.

Pastor Plek 21:42

Even God saved me. Look what he did for me. He saved me. Now here I am. I'm like, you know, he made me this way. Uh and then as opposed to no, no, no, no. He saved you so that you wouldn't be this way, and he wants to change you for this.

Pastor Holland 21:56

Yeah. So the in the the command then verse 12 kind of sums this up. Let anyone who thinks that he stands, take heed lest he fall. Right. Don't presume that everything's fine. If you're walking in sin, just because you go to church, doesn't, you know, make sure that you are actually repenting and following Christ.

Pastor Plek 22:13

And this is why it's so important to have brothers and sisters of Christ surrounding you. Romans 1 says you can have your conscience seared. Yeah. So I always say, you know, there's God's word, God's spirit, God's people. And if your conscience is seared because you've been, you've isolated from God's people and you've you've isolated from the Holy Spirit and you can't hear it anymore. And then you're like, I'm a Christian, I read the Bible, but you're you're no longer convicted. That should be, if you're no longer convicted by the word of God over your sin, it should scare you that you have been given over to your sin. Yeah, exactly. I know that. Okay. Um, how about example to follow? Um, maybe it's the non-example to follow. Don't be Israel.

Pastor Holland 22:56

Don't be like that.

Pastor Plek 22:58

Don't be a demotivational poster.

Pastor Holland 22:59

And on the other side, um, verse 31 command obey. Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Pastor Plek 23:06

Follow the example of Jesus. There you go.

Pastor Holland 23:08

Imitate Christ.

Pastor Plek 23:09

All right. Um, how about um uh knowledge to believe? He he warned listen, God has warned us through scripture, through Israel's example. He wants to protect us, he wants to provide a way of escape, and call us to an exclusive devotion to him. Uh anything else you got?

Pastor Holland 23:32

Do not seek your own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. Verse 33. Example to follow of Paul. Um, yeah, live your life to see other people saved.

Pastor Plek 23:42

Nice. All right. Hey, thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time on a chapter.