The A.V. There were cases wherein Christians might eat what had been offered to idols, without sin. Or participation. Ye warlike youths, your heads with garlands crown. Keith Simons. But it is possible to move in the right direction and still fall on one’s face. There is often a wrong way to relieve a temptation, and we will often face the same temptations over and over again until we show Satan and our flesh we are able to bear it. “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Good News“(euangelizo) (v. 17a). iv. God is wise as well as faithful, and will make our burdens according to our strength. I think the discordance may be best accounted for by supposing, as above, that Phineas and his companions might have slain 1000 men, who were heads of the people, and chief in this idolatry; and that the plague sent from the Lord destroyed 23,000 more; so an equal number to the whole tribe of Levi perished in one day, who were just 23,000. That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything?… they sacrifice to demons: Paul has already acknowledged an idol is nothing in the world (1 Corinthians 8:4). Sinai, is not a cleft in the mountain, but a detached fragment of rock about fifteen feet high, with twelve or more fissures in its surface, from which the water is said to have gushed out for the twelve tribes. For the earth is the Lord's - And because God made the earth and its fullness, all animals, plants, and vegetables, there can be nothing in it or them impure or unholy; because all are the creatures of God. was the last cup presented in the Passover ceremony; this was the cup that Jesus blessed at the Last Supper, and the one interpreted as “the new covenant in my blood.” When early Christians took communion, they were aware of its connection to Passover and with the Last Supper of Jesus with His disciples. They believed that something of the person’s identity was tied up in the name—that the name expressed something of the person’s essential character. A person’s reputation also conveys a certain power or lack of it. also ignores the force of the article, the other. How did Israel fail? The emphasis and the similarity regard the meal, not the sacrifice. 1. https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/acc/1-corinthians-10.html. Each member of the body is distinctive, but all the members are dependent one on the other. b. Just as the Christian practice of communion speaks of unity and fellowship with Jesus, so these pagan banquets, given in the honor of idols, spoke of unity with demons who took advantage of misdirected worship. c. And do not become idolaters as were some of them: Israel failed to keep their focus on God, and they started giving themselves to idolatry (as in Exodus 32:1-6 and Numbers 25:1-3). d. But with most of them God was not well pleased: Despite all these blessings and spiritual privileges, the Israelites in the wilderness did not please God. We fight temptation with Jesus’ power, like the girl who explained what she did when Satan came with temptation at the door of her heart: “I send Jesus to answer the door. Pious Quesnel has well said: Every thing honors God when it is done for his sake; every thing dishonors him when any ultimate end is proposed beside his glory. 18For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are saved it is the power of God. Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Christians, by this ordinance, and the faith therein professed, were united as the grains of wheat in one loaf of bread, or as the members in the human body, seeing they were all united to Christ, and had fellowship with him and one another. Paul speaks highly of Stephanas at the end of this letter, saying that Stephanas has devoted himself to service to the saints, by which Paul means ordinary Christians at Corinth. The great privileges, and yet terrible overthrow of the Israelites in the wilderness.