1 Corinthians 10
10
God doesn’t want you to do anything bad
1My Christian friends, remember the story about my mob, the Israel people. A long time ago, they all followed Moses and walked out into the hot dry country. And God put a big cloud above them, and that cloud showed them where to go. Then they came to the Red Sea, and God pushed the water back so that they all walked through the Red Sea on dry ground.#Exodus 13:21-22; 14:22-29 2It was like God baptised everyone that followed Moses, at first in the cloud, and then in the sea. 3They all ate the food that God gave them,#Exodus 16:35 4and they all drank the water that God gave them. He used his power to put a special rock there for them, and water came from that rock, and they drank it. And that rock followed them all the time in that dry country. That special rock was really Jesus Christ. He went along with them.#Exodus 17:6; Numbers 20:11 5That’s how God helped the people. But later most of them went wrong, and he was not happy with them. So he killed them, and their bodies lay everywhere in that dry country.#Numbers 14:29-30 6All those things happened to the Israel people to show us that God is not happy with people that do bad things. Those things happened so that we will not want to do bad things, like they did.#Numbers 11:4 7Don’t do what some of them did. They showed respect to statues that they thought were gods. God says this in his book,
“The people sat down to eat and to drink, to show respect to those statues. Then they stood up to play.”#Exodus 32:6
8And some of them slept with a person that was not their own wife or husband, and they did what married people do together. So God killed 23,000 of them in one day. This story tells us that we can only sleep with our own wife or husband, not with anybody else.#Numbers 25:1-18 9And some of them tried to test God. They tried to see how far wrong they could go before he punished them. And he did punish them. Cheeky snakes came and killed them. This story tells us that we can’t try to test Jesus Christ.#Numbers 21:5-6 10And some of them complained about God and said that he was not fair, and one of God’s angel messengers came and killed them. This story tells us that we can’t complain about God and say he is not fair.#Numbers 16:41-49
11All those things happened to that mob a long time ago, and God got his men to write it all in his book, to show us that those things are wrong. We have to think about those stories and learn from them. You see, we’re living in the end time now, and soon Jesus will come back. 12So be careful. If you think you are standing strong for Jesus, look out. You might fall down and go wrong. 13Sometimes you will want to do bad things and you will find it hard to stop yourself, but remember that other people find it hard to stop themselves from doing bad things too. And remember this, God wants to help you. He will show you a way to stop yourself from going wrong, and he will help you to go the right way.
You can’t respect Jesus and respect bad spirits too
14Listen, my friends, I’m telling you this. Keep away from those statues that people think are gods. Don’t respect them at all. 15I know that you people can think properly, so you yourselves work out what is right.
16Think about when we get together to remember what Jesus did for us. We all drink from that cup, and we remember that Jesus Christ died for us, and his blood came out, and we thank God for him. That joins us together with him and with each other. And when we break up the flat damper and eat it, we all remember that Jesus Christ’s body got broken for us. And that also joins us together with him and with each other.#Matthew 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20 17You see, we are a lot of people, but all of us eat from one damper, so all of us are like one body when we eat from that same damper.
18Think about the Israel people. They give animals to God and cook their meat on a special table. They show respect to God as they eat that meat, and that joins them together with God and with each other.#Leviticus 7:6
19You see, this is what I’m saying. Those statues that people think are gods, they are really nothing. And if people give food to those statues, that food doesn’t get any power at all. 20Really, those people are showing respect to bad spirits, not God, and they are joining themselves to bad spirits. Don’t do that. I don’t want you to join up with bad spirits.#Deuteronomy 32:17
21You can’t go 2 ways at the same time. You can’t drink from the cup of our leader, Jesus, and then drink from the cup of bad spirits. You can’t eat the damper from the table of Jesus, and then eat food from the table of bad spirits. 22If you do, you will make God jealous, and he will get angry with you. And he is a lot stronger than you.#Deuteronomy 32:21
Don’t do anything that might give other people problems
23Some of you might say this, “We are free from that Jewish law. We can do anything we like. We can eat that food that they give to those statues, and it will not hurt us.” All right, but I’m telling you, “No. Not everything is good for us Christians to do.” And you might reckon, “We are free, so we can do anything.” But I’m telling you, “No. Not everything helps us be better Christians.”#1 Corinthians 6:12 24Don’t just think about yourself, and what is good for you, but think about what is good for other people.
25So, all right, this is what you can do. You can buy food from anyone that sells it, but don’t ask them if they first gave it to one of those statues. And don’t ask yourself, “Is it all right for me to eat this food, or not?” 26You see, God’s book says,
“The earth, and everything in it, belongs to God.”#Psalm 24:1
Yes, all food is from God, so it is all right for us to eat that food.
27Maybe there are some people there that don’t believe in Jesus, and they ask you to eat dinner with them. If you say, “Yes,” and you go to their place, then you can eat whatever food they give to you there. Don’t ask yourself, “Is this food all right or not?” Don’t think about it. Don’t ask them any questions about that food.
28But then, if somebody there says to you, “They gave this food to those statues that they think are gods,” then stop. Don’t eat that food. Think about the person that told you about it. That person might not know if it is all right to eat that food or not, and you don’t want to give that person a problem. 29It will not matter to you. You know it is all right to eat that food. But that other person doesn’t know, and he might think you are doing wrong.
Maybe you ask me, “Why can another person say what I can do and what I can’t do? 30I thank God for my food. So, if I eat that food, nobody can blame me when I eat it.”
31Don’t think like that. You have to think like this, that we have to live in a way that shows everyone that God is great and God is good. So whatever you do, even when you eat and drink, do it the way God wants. 32Don’t do anything that might give other people problems. Don’t make problems for Jewish people, or for people that are not Jewish. And don’t make problems for God’s people. 33Be like me. I always try to do what makes everyone happy. I try to help other people. I don’t just do things to help myself. You see, I want God to save those other people.
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© 2021, Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc. All rights reserved.
1 Corinthians 10
10
1-5Remember our history, friends, and be warned. All our ancestors were led by the providential Cloud and taken miraculously through the Sea. They went through the waters, in a baptism like ours, as Moses led them from enslaving death to salvation life. They all ate and drank identical food and drink, meals provided daily by God. They drank from the Rock, God’s fountain for them that stayed with them wherever they were. And the Rock was Christ. But just experiencing God’s wonder and grace didn’t seem to mean much—most of them were defeated by temptation during the hard times in the desert, and God was not pleased.
6-10The same thing could happen to us. We must be on guard so that we never get caught up in wanting our own way as they did. And we must not turn our religion into a circus as they did—“First the people partied, then they threw a dance.” We must not be sexually promiscuous—they paid for that, remember, with 23,000 deaths in one day! We must never try to get Christ to serve us instead of us serving him; they tried it, and God launched an epidemic of poisonous snakes. We must be careful not to stir up discontent; discontent destroyed them.
11-12These are all warning markers—danger!—in our history books, written down so that we don’t repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel—they at the beginning, we at the end—and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were. Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence.
13No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it.
14So, my very dear friends, when you see people reducing God to something they can use or control, get out of their company as fast as you can.
15-18I assume I’m addressing believers now who are mature. Draw your own conclusions: When we drink the cup of blessing, aren’t we taking into ourselves the blood, the very life, of Christ? And isn’t it the same with the loaf of bread we break and eat? Don’t we take into ourselves the body, the very life, of Christ? Because there is one loaf, our many-ness becomes one-ness—Christ doesn’t become fragmented in us. Rather, we become unified in him. We don’t reduce Christ to what we are; he raises us to what he is. That’s basically what happened even in old Israel—those who ate the sacrifices offered on God’s altar entered into God’s action at the altar.
19-22Do you see the difference? Sacrifices offered to idols are offered to nothing, for what’s the idol but a nothing? Or worse than nothing, a minus, a demon! I don’t want you to become part of something that reduces you to less than yourself. And you can’t have it both ways, banqueting with the Master one day and slumming with demons the next. Besides, the Master won’t put up with it. He wants us—all or nothing. Do you think you can get off with anything less?
23-24Looking at it one way, you could say, “Anything goes. Because of God’s immense generosity and grace, we don’t have to dissect and scrutinize every action to see if it will pass muster.” But the point is not to just get by. We want to live well, but our foremost efforts should be to help others live well.
25-28With that as a base to work from, common sense can take you the rest of the way. Eat anything sold at the butcher shop, for instance; you don’t have to run an “idolatry test” on every item. “The earth,” after all, “is God’s, and everything in it.” That “everything” certainly includes the leg of lamb in the butcher shop. If a nonbeliever invites you to dinner and you feel like going, go ahead and enjoy yourself; eat everything placed before you. It would be both bad manners and bad spirituality to cross-examine your host on the ethical purity of each course as it is served. On the other hand, if he goes out of his way to tell you that this or that was sacrificed to god or goddess so-and-so, you should pass. Even though you may be indifferent as to where it came from, he isn’t, and you don’t want to send mixed messages to him about who you are worshiping.
29-30But, except for these special cases, I’m not going to walk around on eggshells worrying about what small-minded people might say; I’m going to stride free and easy, knowing what our large-minded Master has already said. If I eat what is served to me, grateful to God for what is on the table, how can I worry about what someone will say? I thanked God for it and he blessed it!
31-33So eat your meals heartily, not worrying about what others say about you—you’re eating to God’s glory, after all, not to please them. As a matter of fact, do everything that way, heartily and freely to God’s glory. At the same time, don’t be callous in your exercise of freedom, thoughtlessly stepping on the toes of those who aren’t as free as you are. I try my best to be considerate of everyone’s feelings in all these matters; I hope you will be, too.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.