The Unity and Diversity of Spiritual Gifts
12: 1-31a

Just when you think that Paul has run out of things which unite the Church, he reaches back into his seemingly limitless resources and brings out yet another – the gifts that the Ruach Ha’Kodesh gives to every believer. This particular chapter can be of great help to believers today in their effort to build unity within their fellowship – unity through diversity. We go to an athletic event where there are several players on one team. And while they have different positions to play and different skills, that very fact is the source of their unity and the thing that makes it possible for them to play the game. The same is true when we go to the symphony. There is a great variety in the instruments played and the skills required of the musicians, but all those instruments and all those different musicians create a musical unity as they play their songs and perform their concert.

But often in the Church we have a tendency to seek unity in conformity. Rather than encouraging each person’s uniqueness we often discourage it. In the congregations of God, far too often this quest for uniformity is not satisfied with loyalty to the pastor and staff and faithfulness to all the ministries, but often there is an effort to get all the members to think alike on all issues. Where there is a certain short-term efficiency in any authoritarian approach to leadership, in the long run, it is self-defeating because it does not recognize the giftedness of each member of the congregation. The kind of unity God wants comes from the exercising of those gifts. As Paul writes to the Corinthians about their gifts, we can learn from his letter valuable lessons for ourselves and for the place where we worship.³⁴⁸

The Pagan Background
of Counterfeit Spiritual Gifts

Pagan backgrounds: As related in his commentary on First Corinthians, John MacArthur teaches that the pagan cults of Greece and Rome were part of what are commonly called the mystery religions. By Paul’s time they had dominated the near eastern world for thousands of years and indirectly would dominate much of western culture through the Middle Ages and, to some extent, even today.

These mystery religions had many forms and variations, but one common source. In his vision on the island of Patmos, John was shown the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, on whose forehead a name was written, a mystery, “Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth (Revelation 17: 1 and 5 NASB). Here, the Lord pictures His judgment of world religion. Before the Great Tribulation begins, the true Church will have already been raptured (see the commentary on Revelation, to see link click By – The Rapture of the Church), and by the second half of the Great Tribulation the world will begin to establish a religion of its own that will be truly universal. It will embrace all the world’s false religions, which will give their power and authority to the beast, the antichrist (Revelation 17:13). The final form of that all-powerful, universal religion will represent the completion of the mystery religions that historically originated in ancient Babylon.

In its organized form, false religion started with the Tower of Babel, from which Babylon derives its name. Cain was the first false worshiper, and many people have followed after his example. But organized pagan religion began with the descendants of Ham, and one of Noah’s three sons, who decided to erect a great monument that would reach into heaven and make themselves a great name (see the commentary on Genesis Dm – Let Us Build a City and Make a Name for Ourselves). Under the leadership of the apostate Nimrod they planned to storm heaven and unify their power and prestige in a great worldwide system of worship. That was man’s first counterfeit religion, from which every other false religion has emerged.

God’s judgment frustrated their primary purpose of making a grand demonstration of humanistic unity. By confusing their language, they did not understand one another’s speech. So, from there ADONAI scattered them all over the earth, and they stopped building the city. For this reason, it is called Babel [confusion] – because there ADONAI confused the language of the whole earth, and from there ADONAI scattered them all over the earth (Genesis 11:7-9), thus halting the building of the Tower and fractured their solidarity. But those people took with them the seeds of that false, idolatrous religion, seeds that they and their descendants have been planting throughout the world ever since. The ideas and forms were altered, adapted, and sometimes made more sophisticated, but the basic system remained, and remains, unchanged. That is why Babel, or Babylon, is called the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth (Revelation 17:5 NIV). She was, and is, the mother of all false religions.

From various ancient sources, it seems that Nimrod’s wife, Semiramis (the First), apparently was high priestess of the Babel religion and the founder of all mystery religions. After the Tower was destroyed and the multiplicity of languages developed, she was worshiped as a goddess under many different names. She became Ishtar of Syria, Astarte of Phoenicia, Isis of Egypt, Aphrodite of Greece, and Venus of Rome – in each case the deity of sexual love and fertility. Her son Tammuz, also came to be deified under various names and was the companion of Ishtar and god of the underworld.

According to the cult of Ishtar, Tammuz was considered a sunbeam, a counterfeit version of Yeshua’s virgin birth. Tammuz was called Ba’al in Phoenicia, Osiris in Egypt, Eros in Egypt, and Cupid in Rome. In every case, the worship of those gods and goddesses was associated with sexual immorality. The celebration of Lent is not Scriptural, but developed from the pagan celebration of Semiramis’ mourning for forty days over the death of Tammuz (Ezeki’el 8:14) before his alleged resurrection, another one of Satan’s mythical counterfeits.

The mystery religions originated the idea of baptismal regeneration, being born again merely through the rite of water baptism, and the practice of mutilation and beating oneself to atone for sins or gain spiritual favor. They also began the custom of pilgrimages, which many religions follow today, and the paying money for the forgiveness of sins for oneself and for others.³⁴⁵ In the Catholic church, for example, purgatory is supposed to be under the special jurisdiction of the pope, and it is his prerogative as the representative of Christ on earth to grant indulgences (in other words, relief from suffering) as he sees fit. This power, it is claimed, can be exercised directly by the pope to alleviate, shorten, or terminate sufferings, and within limits it is also exercised by the priests as representatives of the pope.³⁴⁶ The Catholic church teaches that a person can shorten a loved ones time in purgatory by paying indulgences.

Several pagan practices were especially influential in the church at Corinth. Perhaps most important, and certainly the most obvious, was that of ecstasy, considered to be the highest expression of religious experience. Because it seemed supernatural and because it was dramatic and often bizarre, the practice strongly appealed to the sin nature of mankind (see the commentary on Romans Cd – The Reason for the Inner Conflict). And because the Ruach Ha’Kodesh had performed many miraculous signs in the apostolic age when God was establishing His Church, some of the Corinthian believers confused those true wonders with the false signs counterfeited in the ecstasies of paganism.

Ecstasy (Greek: ekstasis, a term not used in Scripture) was held to be a supernatural, sensuous communion with the deity. Through frenzied hypnotic chants and ceremonies, worshipers experienced semiconscious euphoric feelings of oneness with the god or goddess Often the ceremony would be preceded by vigils and fasting, and would even include drunkenness (Ephesians 5:18). Contemplation of sacred objects, whirling dances, fragrant incense, chants, and other such physical and psychological stimuli usually were used to introduce the ecstasy, which would be in the form of an out-of-body trance or an unrestrained sexual orgy. The trance is reflected in some forms of Hindu yoga, in which a person becomes insensitive to pain, and in the Buddhist goal of escaping to Nirvana, the divine nothingness. Sexual ecstasies were common in many ancient religions and were so much associated with Corinth that the term Corinthianize meant to indulge in extreme sexual immorality. The pagan temple dedicated to Bacchus still stands in the ruins of Baalbek (in modern Lebanon) as a witness to the debauchery of the mystery religions.

The situation in Corinth: B’rit Chadashah Corinth was filled with priests, priestesses, religious prostitutes, soothsayers, and diviners of the mystery religions who claimed to represent a god or gods and to have supernatural powers that provided their claims. Unbelievably, some of their dramatic and bizarre practices were mirrored in the church.

The Corinthians knew of the prophet Joel’s prediction: After this, I will pour out my Spirit on all humanity. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions; and also on male and female slaves in those days I will pour out my Spirit (Joel 2:28-29). They also knew that Yeshua had said that the coming of the Ruach Ha’Kodesh would be accompanied by amazing signs and events (Mark 16:17). Perhaps they might have even heard firsthand from Peter of the miraculous events at Shavu’ot, with the tongues of fire and speaking in other languages (see the commentary on Acts Al – The Ruach Ha’Kodesh Comes at Shavu’ot). Perhaps they were so determined to experience those wonders that they tried to manufacture them.

First Corinthians was one of the earliest written letters (see the commentary on Galatians Ae – Dates of Books in the B’rit Chadashah). Yet even in a short period of time, Satan had begun to confuse believers about many doctrines, practices, and signs. The pure water of the truth of ADONAI was being muddied, and nowhere more than Corinth. The father of lies began to passionately counterfeit the gospel and its wonders, and the gullible, worldly, self-centered, thrill-seeking Corinthians with their pagan backgrounds, ate it up.

People do not counterfeit what is not valuable. The Deceiver counterfeits the Spirit’s gifts because he knows they are so valuable to God’s plan. If the Evil One can get God’s people to become confused about or abusive of those gifts, he can undermine and corrupt the worship and ministry of the Church. Counterfeit gifts, whether through false manifestations or through misguided and selfish use, poison the Church and make it weak and ineffective.

One of the chief evidence of the spiritual immaturity of the Corinthian believers was a lack of discernment. If an occult practice seemed to have supernatural effect, they assumed it was of God. If a priest or soothsayer performed a miracle, they assumed it was by God’s power. Like many believers today, they believed that if something seems to “work” it must be right and good. Some of the believers there, however, realized that the confusion, division, and immoral practices that characterized many of the Corinthian church members could not be of God. They asked Paul to tell them how to determine what was of the Ruach and what was some other kind of spirit. The apostle John would later write: Dear friends, don’t trust every spirit. On the contrary, test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world (First John 4:1).³⁴⁷

Spiritual Gifts During Worship
12:1 to 14:40

For a considerable time now (Chapters 8 through 11) Paul has been dealing with matters related to worship. In the opening argument (to see link click Bj – Concerning Our Freedom in Messiah), despite their protests to the contrary, he absolutely forbid the Corinthian believers to participate in temple meals where meat was sacrificed to idols – partly on the basis of their own sacred meal, the Lord’s Supper. That is followed by three distinct issues involving their own gatherings for worship. The first involved head coverings in public worship (see Bv – Head Coverings in Worship), the second centered on the Lord’s Supper (see By – Issues Surrounding the Lord’s Supper). The present section is the third of these issues. It is also probably the most important from Paul’s point of view because here, in particular, the differences between the apostle and the Corinthians come to a head, especially over gifts of the Spirit. That seems to be the reason for the close relationship between these chapters and the final issue – the future bodily resurrection of believers (see Dq – The Resurrection of the Dead). Together, these final two matters, Spiritual gifts and bodily resurrection, bring the letter to a fitting climax.³⁴³

The Answer: Wait for Each Other
11: 33-34

The answer: wait for each other DIG: Why does the phrase, “Wait for each other,” get at the heart of what Paul was saying? What changes did Paul call on the Corinthians to make in their observance of the Lord’s Supper? Why wasn’t merely “waiting” enough? Why were the Corinthians under divine judgment? What was the simple remedy for that judgment?

REFLECT: Who are the “haves” and the “have-nots” where you worship? What can you do to bring them together? What have you done for a “have-not” lately? How can you help someone this week? What in Paul’s instructions on the Lord’s Supper do you need to take to heart? What unfinished business would Yeshua come personally to talk to you about?

Only by “the haves” sharing their food and fellowship, could they ease the acute embarrassment of “the have-nots” and capture the spirit of Yeshua’s sacrifice.

Paul is ready to wrap up this discussion and move on to another topic. His words here bring a brotherly touch at the end, but at the same time shows in what spirit Paul was writing throughout. So then, my brothers, when you gather together (Greek: synerchomenoi) points us back to the verb used in 11:17-18 to open this discussion, and serves to bracket this unit (to see link click By – Issues Surrounding the Lord’s Supper). When you gather together to eat at the fellowship (Greek: agape) meal, wait for one another (11:33). This seems to get at the heart of things. Just as “the ground is level at the foot of the cross,” so it must be level when it comes to sharing at the Lord’s Supper. Paul’s conclusion was clear: the Corinthians were to wait for everyone to arrive before they began eating.

The agape feast went like this: The “haves” provided everything that was needed, the “have-nots” brought what they could, and the slaves probably brought nothing at all. The agape feast did not take place like an ordinary meal as we know of today where people eat to satisfy their hunger. Its purpose was to reveal the congregation as a loving, united Body. The fitting climax was the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.³⁴⁰

But the problem was not so easily solved because the “have-nots” brought barely anything, and what they did bring, the “haves” probably wouldn’t want to eat anyway. So, the problem of sharing would not be solved simply by the early arrivals waiting for them to show up. If everyone was to wait before unpacking their own food basket, it stands to reason that the contents of these should have been shared on common platters. Otherwise, the waiting, which was supposed to prevent some from remaining hungry, would be useless. Even if Paul meant wait until everyone showed up, it still would necessitate sharing. But that is exactly what was not happening. So only by the “haves” sharing their food, could they ease the acute embarrassment of the “have-nots” (see Bz – The Problem: The Abuse of the Poor) and capture the spirit of Yeshua’s sacrifice.

If the “haves” come only to fill their belly, the Lord’s Supper was not the place to do it. But to say that they should celebrate the Lord’s Supper in their own homes misses the entire point. Paul does not believe that the “haves” can retreat from the demands of the gospel in their own homes. This command to eat at home connects with Paul’s first warning that they did more harm than good when they gathered together (11:17). If they were intent only on indulging their appetites, then they should stay at home and not even show up at all (11:34a). If the agape feast was to be meaningful, it had to be an expression of real fellowship.³⁴¹

That real fellowship was Paul’s intent is supported by the fact that he warned “the haves” regarding their behavior: So that when you meet together it will not result in judgment (11:34:b). This picked up on the “judgment” motif in 11:28-32. Yes, they were meeting together to eat the Lord’s Supper, but in doing so they were “devouring” their own private meals with their privileged portions and thereby humiliating those who barely had anything. Therefore, because they had treated the Lord’s Supper so badly, neither proclaiming the salvation for which His meal is intended, nor honoring the “have-nots” who are a part of His Body, they were presently experiencing divine judgment. The remedy was simple. When they gathered together to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, welcome everyone with true fellowship.

As for the other matters, Paul would instruct the Corinthians more about them when he returned personally to Corinth (see Ea – Doing God’s Work) (11:34c). How much we are left in the dark because Paul was not writing first of all to us! Indeed, it is not possible even to know what the other matters refer to. The Lord’s Supper? Traditions that were being kept but requiring further instruction? Relationships between the “haves” and the “have-nots?” We simply don’t know. What a sentence like this does, is to remind us of how little we really do know, and to teach us to be grateful for what we have received – even if it had to be at the expense of some unfortunate abuses in the church at Corinth.³⁴²

Dear Heavenly Father, Praise You for Your excellent example of sharing Your righteousness with those who love You. He made the One who knew no sin to become a sin offering on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (Second Corinthians 5:21).Thank You for Your sure gift of righteousness for all who love You. Thank You for Moses’ example of keeping his eyes on the future rather than being caught up in treasures that would soon pass away. He considered the disgrace of Messiah as greater riches than the treasures of Egypt – because he was looking ahead to the reward (Hebrews 11:26).

Thank you for the example of the Messiah’s communities in Macedonia – that in much testing by affliction, the abundance of their joy and their extreme poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part (Second Corinthians 81c-2). Often it is much easier to look at those who have more than we do and so we want to keep what we have; but if we look thru Your eyes that see everywhere, we will see brothers and sisters in Messiah who have much less than we do. Please help us to remember always that this world and its treasures are but a blink – while the treasures we will get as we share what You have given us, will last for all eternity! We love to please You in our sharing! Thank You for Your sharing. In Yeshua’s holy name and power of His resurrection. Amen

The Answer: Honor the Body
11: 27-32

The answer: honor the Body DIG: What does it mean to honor the Body? How would honoring the Body of believers honor the Body of Messiah? How might a person approach the Lord’s Supper in “an unworthy manner?” What should happen before partaking of the Supper?

REFLECT: What actions do you personally take to safeguard against abusing or ignoring the observance of the Lord’s Supper? What might one do to properly observe the Lord’s Supper? What in Paul’s instructions on the Lord’s Supper do you need to take to heart?

By honoring the Body of believers, the Corinthians would be honoring the Body of Messiah.

Having told the story of the Last Supper, Paul is now ready to draw its lessons for the Corinthians. The way they participated in the Lord’s Supper actually dishonored Him in two ways. First, the “haves” had been abusing the “have-nots” by going ahead with their own private suppers (to see link click Bz – The Problem: The Abuse of the Poor). Second, they had thereby been abusing the Lord Himself by not properly “remembering” Him (see Ca – The Problem: The Abuse of the Lord), especially in terms of the salvation He had paid for through His death, which was intended to make them one, not divided, as their current version of the Supper did. Paul’s purpose here was to correct the first abuse by warning them of the dire consequences they would face if they persisted in behavior at the Lord’s Supper that exposed their failure to understand its true nature and purpose.³³³

Therefore, whoever eats the Lord’s bread or drinks the Lord’s cup of redemption (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Kk – The Third Cup of Redemption) in an unworthy manner (11:27a). The verb unworthy manner (Greek: anaxios, meaning of unequal weights) refers to the drawing up of weights and thus signifies unequal weight, one side of the scales rising high, the other dropping low. The context demands that the side of the scales which holds the bread and the wine drops down because of its weight, while the side that holds the Corinthians attitude rises up because of its lack of weight. Then scales of the Lord’s Supper are uneven. The unworthiness of the Corinthians participation in the Lord’s Supper has already been made plain and Paul will continue to do so.³³⁴

Will be guilty (Greek: enochos, meaning liable) of desecrating the body and blood of the Lord (11:27b)! While this is Paul’s only use of the word enochos, it is used elsewhere primarily as a judicial word meaning guilt before the law. Both Matthew and Mark use the word with respect to the Jewish authorities’ agreement that Yeshua was guilty of death (Matthew 26:66; Mark 14:64). Yeshua used the word in the Sermon on the Mount of believers’ being subject to judgment (Matthew 5:22), and James insists that whoever stumbles on one point of the whole Torah, has become guilty of breaking all of the 613 mitzvot (James 2:10). Therefore, those who participate in the Lord’s supper without properly thinking of what it means in relationship to the crucified Lord and in the context of fellow believers, will have to answer to Ha’Shem for their actions.³³⁵

Paul didn’t say that we had to be worthy to partake of the Lord’s Supper, but only that we should partake in a worthy manner. The Corinthians had turned the Lord’s Supper into a hypocritical farce that heaped scorn upon the crucifixion of their Lord and His sacrifice for their sins.³³⁶ Paul’s concern was not with the bread and the wine themselves, but with how through them, the participants together remembered their Messiah.

Paul gives three key tests to determine whether one is eating worthily:

The first test: All are to examine themselves: Paul is serious when he says: So, let a person examine himself first, and then he may eat of the bread and drink from the cup (11:28). Every time we come to the Lord’s Supper; therefore, we should examine ourselves, looking honestly at our hearts for anything that should not be there and sifting out evil. Our motives, our attitudes toward the Lord, His Word, His people, and toward the Supper itself should all come under private scrutiny before Yeshua Messiah. The Lord’s Supper thus becomes a special place for the purifying of the Body.³³⁷

The second test: All were to honor their brothers and sisters in Messiah: By emphasizing the differences between the “haves” and the “have-nots” they humiliated their brothers and sisters in Messiah, His Body. Since they took the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner, it was no longer the Lord’s Supper. They needed to recognize all the believers in Corinth, rich and poor, were joined together in Messiah to share equally in His blessings and should be honored as such.

The third test: All were to honor the Body of Messiah: Humiliating fellow believers in the Body of Messiah at the Lord’s Supper was, in effect, an offense against the body and blood of the Lord. This responds to the second problem (see By – Issues Surrounding the Lord’s Supper). For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring (Greek: diakrinon, meaning to distinguish or judge properly) the body of Messiah, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment (Greek: krima) upon yourself (11:29 NLT). The great difference in Paul’s use here of krima (judgment) and katakrima (condemned) is seen in 11:32, where it is clear that krima refers to discipline of the saved and katakrima refers to condemnation of the lost.

To come unworthily to the Lord’s Supper does not simply dishonor the ceremony, it dishonors the One in whose honor it is celebrated. The Corinthians had utterly destroyed the sanctity of the Lord’s Supper. Paul now states what eating and drinking a judgment really means; he does it by pointing to the judgment which had already begun among them. Perhaps the Corinthians were wondering about these afflictions. Paul gave them an explanation: A number of them had not observed the Lord’s Supper properly and paid a price for it.

This is why many among you are weak and sick, and some have died (11:30)! This took place even though some of the Corinthians had the gift of healing (see Cn – The Gift of Healings). This does not imply losing one’s salvation (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Ms – The Eternal Salvation of the Believer), but physical death. The Lord will not have His good name and reputation dragged through the mud. Sin can lead to sickness or even death (5:5). One does not get the impression that death was a common occurrence, but instead they were disciplined. For this argument to have any force behind it, one would assure that the readers could readily identify those who were sick or who had died as guilty of despising and humiliating their brothers and sisters at the Lord’s Supper.³³⁸

Paul offers a means of escape from such judgment. If we would examine ourselves, we would not come under judgment (11:31). On the one hand, there is no Scriptural support that the Lord’s Supper will heal the sick; the bread and wine are not good-luck charms, nor do they serve as medications. On the other hand, the bread and wine do not act as a poison which makes the unworthy people sick or kills them. It is the sin of failing these three tests that brings on judgment. Neither does Paul say that the penalty of this unworthiness is invariably physical sickness or untimely death. The Lord alone decides what the judgment would be.

But when we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined (see the commentary on Hebrews Cz – God Disciplines His Children), so that we will not be condemned (Greek: katakrima) along with the world (11:32). Thus, the Lord’s judgments which He visits upon believers for the serious sins they commit are evidences of His Fatherly love and not of His damning wrath; in the case of unbelievers, however, the judgments which He visits on them in this life are merely the advance indications of His final consuming wrath.³³⁹

Dear Heavenly Father, Praise You for being such a wonderful Father! You not only give Your righteousness to those who love You (Second Corinthians 5:21) and put their sins as far as the East is from the West (Psalms 103:12); You also lovingly guide and discipline Your children for their eternal good. ADONAI disciplines the one He loves. . .  Now all discipline seems painful at the moment – not joyful. But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:6b, 11).

Though discipline is never enjoyed, the fruitful outcome of godly discipline will last for all eternity. To be wisely disciplined and learn the lesson on earth, is so better than getting to an eternal heaven and find we had been on some unwise path. Thank You, Father, for always having time to walk with Your children, even in trials (First Peter 1:6-7) and in discipline to mold us to be more godly, like You in Your awesome patient and wise character! In Yeshua’s holy name and power of His resurrection. Amen

The Problem: The Abuse of the Lord
11: 23-26

The problem: the abuse of the Lord DIG: How did the plural “you” in these verses confront the selfish individualism of the Corinthians that Paul was addressing? What are we to look back on? What are we to look forward to? What does it mean to examine ourselves?

REFLECT: What must we do to prepare our hearts for participation in the Lord’s Supper? How can the Lord’s Supper be a means of sharing the Gospel with others? How does observing the Lord’s Supper give a believer confidence in his or her salvation?

The Lord’s Supper is a visible sermon that proclaims the message of the cross.

Some call it Communion, the Lord’s Supper, or the Eucharist. Call it what you will, it is a reminder of Yeshua’s Last Passover on earth with His apostles (see the commentary on The Life of Christ, to see link click Kd – The Last Passover in the Upper Room) before His arrest, tails, and execution. He then made clear His intention that the Church should remember His death on the cross with the bread and the wine, thereby remembering His sacrifice for us. From its inception in Acts 2 to the present day, the Body of Messiah around the world have regularly participated in this beautiful memorial. Thus, we can understand how horrifying it must have been for Paul to receive a report that this singularly spiritual memorial had, along with everything else in the church in Corinth, been so corrupted by the believers there.³²⁴

The Lord’s Supper is rooted in history (11:23): For what I received from the Lord is just what I passed on to you (Greek: paradidomi) – that the Lord Yeshua, on the night he was betrayed, He took bread (11:23). The Greek has a wordplay not effectively brought out into English. The word translated betrayed is also a form of paradidomi. Yeshua, on the night he was passed on [to the authorities]. Paul contrasts himself with the Corinthians. What they had received from him was different from what they were then practicing in Corinth. To address the problem, Paul could find no better way than to recall for the Corinthians the actual words of the Lord’s Supper. Paul was not striking out into new ground here; rather, he was simply passing on to them what he had received from the apostles. Because the teaching of the apostles derived from Yeshua Himself, Paul was able to say that ultimately he had received it from the Lord.³²⁵

At Pesach it is traditional for a child to ask his father, “Why is this night different from other nights?” and this would be the signal for that father to recount how ADONAI delivered Isra’el. Paul’s explanation is an effort to remind the Corinthians of the historical roots of the sacred rite they were abusing.³²⁶ Paul now goes to the upper room scene, where Yeshua ate His Last Passover with His apostles on the same night He was passed on [to the authorities].

The Lord’s Supper is about God’s gift (11:24): And after he had made the b’rakhah, which means blessing. One sentence or paragraph of praise to God, usually commencing with the formula Baruch atah, ADONAI (Praise be to you ADONAI, quoting Psalm 119:12), and continuing with a description of the specific reason for praising God at that moment.³²⁷ Yeshua broke it and said: This is my body, which is for you. Do this as a memorial to Me (11:24). The unleavened bread that had represented the Exodus now came to represent the body of Yeshua Messiah. To the Jewish mind, the body represented the whole person, not just the physical body. Yeshua’s body represents the great mystery of His whole incarnate life, His whole teaching, ministry and work – all He was and all He did. But we make a mistake if we interpret His caution to do this as a memorial to Me as a call to remember only His death. We are to remember that His death brings life.³²⁸

Dear Heavenly Father, Praise and thank You for giving Your righteousness to those who love and follow You. He made the One who knew no sin to become a sin offering on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (Second Corinthians 5:21). Thank You for giving us this special celebration, The Lord’s Supper, to remember and celebrate your surpassing love (Ephesians 3:17-19) in dying and great power in rising (Mt 28).

Praise Your awesome power to completely conquer the ugly enemy of death. Yeshua proved He was God when He brought back to life: Jairus’s 12 yr. old daughter (Luke 8:41-56), the widow of Nain’s son who was being carried out of town in a casket (Luke 7:11-15), and Lazarus who had been dead for three days (John 11). What a comfort it is that we do not have to fear death, but we can look it straight in the eye and declare we are going to live with our Savior forever in His wonderful home in heaven!

Please help us to remember during trying times of problems and trials that this life will be over in a blink and we will spend eternity with You. For I consider the sufferings of this present time not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed to us (Romans 8:18). We bow before You in love and worship. In Yeshua’s holy name and power of His resurrection. Amen

For you, two of the most beautiful words in all of Scripture are given in the middle of a strong rebuke of worldly, selfish and insensitive attitudes and behavior. Yeshua gave His body and His life for us who trust in Him. It was, and is, His gift to us. It’s as if Yeshua is saying, “I became a man for you; I gave the Gospel for you; I suffered for you; and I died for you.” Our gracious loving, generous, merciful God tabernacled among us (John 1:14), not for Himself, but for you. To receive the benefits of Messiah’s gift is an individual choice; but Yeshua made the sacrifice and offers it to everyone (John 3:16). He paid the ransom to set us free.³²⁹

The Lord’s Supper celebrates a New Covenant (11:25): Likewise, also the cup after the meal. This is the cup of blessing, otherwise known as the Cup of Redemption (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Kk – The Third Cup of Redemption). Saying: This cup is the New Covenant (see the commentary on Jeremiah Eo – I Will Make a New Covenant with the People of Isra’el) affected by My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, as a memorial to Me (11:25). The wine was a poignant reminder of Messiah’s blood, without the shedding of which there could be no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22), and through which cleansing a New (relationship) Covenant was made (Hebrews 9:14-15).

Today’s Messianic community tends to widely regard the Lord’s Supper as an annual observance to take place in conjunction with the Passover seder. With the Lord’s Supper, or “communion” in the Christian vernacular, to be more or less a once-in-a-year event, this should highlight its importance for men and women of faith. As in Isra’el’s participation of Pesach, assembled believers are brought to the cross, to allow it once again to reshape our mind-set and our lifestyle. The Lord’s Supper definitely has a Passover theme to it, something which is unfortunately not often seen in many Christian churches, and is decisively lost in communion rituals which involve leavened bread.³³⁰

The Lord’s Supper institutes a new proclamation (11:26): The Lord’s Supper is a visible sermon that proclaims the message of the cross. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes (11:26). Most of us try to forget how those we love died, but Yeshua wants us to remember how He died. Why? Because everything we have as believers centers around His death.³³¹

Using the Pesach Haggadah, Jews all over the world recount the story of the plagues and the Exodus and thus recall the central event on which their peoplehood is founded (5:6-8). Likewise, members of the Messianic Community, Jews and Gentiles alike, are to proclaim the death of the Lord as our exodus from sin and the basis for our existence. Both proclamations look back toward a past redemption from Egypt, and also look forward to a future redemption. Hence, the proclamation until Messiah comes again (see the commentary on Isaiah Kg – The Second Coming of Jesus Christ to Bozrah).³³² This was a needed reminder to all believers, but especially those in Corinth, because when they abused the Body of believers (see Bz – The Problem: The Abuse of the Poor), they were, in reality, abusing the Lord. Paul will soon have an answer to this problem (see Cb – The Answer: Honor the Body).

The Problem: The Abuse of the Poor
11: 17-22

The problem: the abuse of the poor DIG: What was the root problem with the “love feasts?” Why were they so upsetting to Paul? Why would such a scandalous report not have been hard for Paul to believe? How are the actions of the Corinthians and the actions of Yeshua contrasted? There are thousands of  Messianic Congregations in the world today, how do they view the Lord’s Supper?

REFLECT: What are some of the ways a religious observance can be misguided? What factors contribute to the observance becoming misguided? What can be done to keep the focus of a religious practice on God and His purposes? How do the “haves” treat the “have-nots” where you worship? How can you be more sensitive to the poor and needy?

The Corinthian problem was not their failure to gather,
but their failure to be a reflection of God’s people when they gathered.

There is little doubt that the various practices, rituals, attitudes, and other hangovers from the mystery religions had infiltrated the church at Corinth. Just what would it have been like to go to church there? Imagine visiting that city in the first century and you and your family went to attend the First Church of Corinth. You arrive on time and go in to find that all the wealthy people have already been there for an hour and are just finishing the love feast. There is nothing left for you, and you notice that a lot of the poor people, who are just arriving, will have nothing to eat either.

Not only do you notice that the wealthy people are gluttonous as they gobble down the last bits of food, but some of them are also stone drunk. And so there are two groups: the poor people who sit on one side of the room totally sober with their stomachs gnawing, and the wealthier people on the other side, stuffed with food and intoxicated with too much wine. Because of the division, there is arguing and discord.

Someone announces it is time for the Lord’s Supper, but this also turns into a mockery. Those who have had nothing to eat or drink become gluttons. Next you go to the worship service, and this finds many people standing up, shouting, and talking at the same time. Some are speaking in ecstatic utterances, while others are trying to give prophecies and interpret what is being said. In other words, chaos. That is close to what it was like on a typical Sunday in the First Church at Corinth. Now you understand why Paul said: I do not praise you, because when you meet together (Greek: synerchomenoi) it does more harm than good (11:17)!³¹⁶ The tragic state of affairs, which could only feed arrogance and nourish bitterness, made him wish that they had not met at all. Their love feasts were not only a waste of time, they were downright harmful.

Now Paul begins to explain how their gatherings did more harm than good, which really extends from 11:17 to 14:40, for it applies to the Lord’s Supper and the spiritual gifts. His concern is clear, and his point is singular: For, in the first place, I hear that when you gather together as a congregation you divide up into cliques (11:18a), the “haves” and the “have-nots.” Paul views these divisions as nullifying the very purpose for gathering together for worship in the name of Yeshua Messiah. It contradicted what the Lord’s Supper proclaims as the foundation of the Church: Yeshua’s sacrificial giving of His life for others. In Messiah’s Church, there was to be neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free (12:13), and as the present context strongly suggests, neither rich nor poor.³¹⁷

Paul may not have wanted to believe the scandalous report; yet, those from Chloe’s household seemed credible (1:10). So, in the final analysis, he had to conclude: To a degree I believe it (11:18b). Such a report would not have been hard to believe. Paul began his letter by strongly rebuking the Corinthians for their divisions based upon cult “fan clubs” (to see link click Ak – Splits and Division in the Church at Corinth) and immaturity (see Ar – The Immaturity of the Worldly Believer). Those divisions inevitably ended in quarrels. The Corinthians were also divided socially, as this passage indicates. The “haves” brought their food and selfishly ate it before the “have-nots” arrived. Far from having all things in common and sharing with all, as anyone might have need, as Messianic community did after Shavu’ot (see the commentary on Acts Ao – The New Covenant Community Begins), the Corinthian “haves” disdain form even sharing a “pot-luck supper” with the “have-nots.” It was every person for themselves.³¹⁸

In a statement of ironic rebuke, Paul declared: Granted that there must be some divisions among you in order to show who are the ones in the right (11:19). In the mess that Paul describes here, who is shown to be faithful and truly worshipful? The divisions at the Corinthian Lord’s Supper did not reveal which ones were in the right. Instead, they revealed a church that had failed to take to heart of the message of the cross. The Greek word for divisions here is aireseis, and comes from the verb to choose. The Corinthians had chosen to divide themselves along socioeconomic lines, and therefore stand condemned. The splits in the Lord’s Supper were imposed by prideful, insensitive believers seeking to differentiate the elite of society from the rabble. The tragedy was that they failed to honor the Body of Messiah at the memorial for Messiah.

Paul then turns to the crux of the problem at hand. Thus, when you gather together, presumably in a house large enough to accommodate the group, it is not to eat a meal of the Lord (11:20). It was their supper, not the Lord’s, because the Lord’s Supper was intended to convey to each person that he or she is someone precious to ADONAI. The Corinthians meal, however, communicated that the “have nots” were worthless nobodies. The “haves” arrived early, but instead of waiting for everyone to arrive, they immediately began to eat and drink, missing the greater purpose of the meal. But the time the “have nots” arrived, anticipating a decent meal in connection with the love feast, little was left and they went away hungry – both physically and spiritually.³¹⁹ Paul will soon have an answer to this problem (see Cc – The Answer: Wait for Each Other).

The selfish devouring of their own food contrasted with Yeshua’s taking the bread. Both “take.” The Corinthians “take” on their own behalf; Yeshua “takes” on behalf of others. The Corinthians actions will lead to condemnation; Yeshua’s action leads to the salvation of others. Each believer gets an equal share of the benefits of His sacrifice.³²⁰

So, Paul declared: Because as you eat your meal, each one goes ahead on his own; so that one goes away hungry while another is already drunk (11:21)! They mocked the very purpose of the occasion, and turned the memorial of selflessness into an experience of selfishness, and had made a symbol of unity a chaotic mess. They acted no differently than the wealthy pagans in Corinth would have acted. As a result, fellowship was broken. This was certainly no way to remember the Savior who died for all sinners, rich and poor alike. Call it what you like, but you could not call it the Lord’s Supper.

The descriptions of hunger and intoxication in this passage may sound strange to modern readers. Messianic Congregations and churches today generally celebrate communion much differently from the way believers did in the first century. Now believers observe the ordinance with a pinch of bread and a modicum of drink, but the early Church celebrated the Lord’s Supper with great banquets. These meals came to be known as love feasts and were probably climaxed in an observance of the Lord’s Supper.³²¹

How do Messianic believers handle this today? There is no unanimity of thought or practice. In general, Messianic believers do not tend to wrestle with labeling, a distinct partaking of the bread and wine, in remembrance of the Last Supper between Yeshua and the twelve apostles, as the Lord’s Supper. Messianic believers have some challenges and disagreements concerning how contemporary Christianity completely removes the Lord’s Supper from the Passover Seder. Some of this has to do with differences within the Messianic community itself. Some will remember the Lord’s Supper at a regular or semi-regular time, whereas others will only remember the Lord’s Supper once a year at the annual Passover Seder.³²²

The situation Paul had just described filled him with such indignation that he wrote a series of rhetorical questions that hammered away at the evil that the Corinthians practiced. The first question responded directly to what has proceeded and is full of irony: What! Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? If they intended to selfishly indulge themselves, couldn’t they go home and do it rather than at the Lord’s Supper where sharing was expected?

The second question gets to the real issue regarding their behavior. Paul wrote: Or are you trying to show your contempt for God’s church in Corinth and embarrass those who are poor? By their behavior, they were casting shame on the “have-nots” and thus showing how much they despised the church and the Lord Himself. Whatever the reasons may have been, they could not justify the harm being brought to the church. If they could not show love, why have a love feast?

The third and fourth questions bring the argument full circle. What am I supposed to say to you? Am I supposed to praise you? Just the opposite. Well, for this I don’t praise you (11:22)! Thus, in the strongest kind of language Paul asserts by their actions they despise God’s Church. No church can long endure if the differences of Jew or Greek, male or female, rich or poor, are allowed to persist. Especially so at the table, where Messiah, who had made us all one, had ordained that we should visibly proclaim that unity. So, to that issue Paul now turns, and he does so by first reminding the Corinthians of what the Lord Himself said about this meal (see Ca – The Problem: The Abuse of the Lord).³²³

Issues Surrounding the Lord’s Supper
11: 17-34

Since Paul’s letters were written before any of the gospels,
this is the oldest record of the Lord’s Supper in the B’rit Chadashah.

The custom of the early Messianic Community in Jerusalem properly placed a high value on their observance of the Lord’s Supper. We read that they continued faithfully and with singleness of purpose to meet in the Temple courts daily, and breaking bread in their several homes, they shared their food in joy and simplicity of heart, praising God and having the respect of all the people. And day after day the Lord kept adding them to those who were being saved (Acts 2:46-47). Apparently, fellowship meals in connection with the Lord’s Supper were commonplace among the early believers, a tradition that no doubt expanded to other churches as they were established throughout the Roman Empire, including Corinth. Like most everything else in Corinth, the Lord’s Supper became tainted when carnal believers were involved. If you feel yet another of Paul’s sharp rebukes coming, you’re right.³¹⁵

A. The Problem: The Abuse of the Poor (11:17-22)

B. The Problem: The Abuse of the Lord (11:23-26)

B. The Answer: Honor the Body (11:27-32)

A. The Answer: Wait for Each Other (11:33-34)

The final conclusion: The Answer: Wait for Each Other, responds to the first problem: The Problem: The Abuse of the Poor; in the same way, the first conclusion: The Answer: Honor the Body, responds to the second problem: The Problem: The Abuse of the Lord.

Man is Born of Woman
11: 13-16

Man is born of Woman DIG: What was the real issue that Paul was concerned about, the Corinthian women wearing a head covering? Or something bigger than that? What are the last two reasons why Paul wanted the women believers in Corinth to wear a head covering?

REFLECT: What issue is there in your place of worship that might be causing some of the immature believers to stumble, or cause believers to lose their testimony in your community, thus not being able to reach the lost? Who can you help this week to overcome that issue?

For as the woman was made from the man,
so also the man is now born through the woman.

There was no reason for believers to needlessly scoff at accepted cultural traditions that did not violate Scripture. The Corinthian women had every right to not wear head coverings in the worship service because of their freedom in Messiah; but by refusing to voluntarily yield their right for the sake of others, they stumbled other weak believers and ruined their testimony with unbelievers in the community.³⁰⁸ Thus, they violated Paul’s basic principle: With all kinds of people, both Jews and Gentiles, I have become all kinds of things, so that in all kinds of circumstances I might save at least some of them (9:22b).

Dear Great Heavenly Father, How fantastic it is to have such a loving, wise and wonderful Father! You abide in Your children and are always there to guide and love us. For God Himself has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5c). It is so wonderful to never be alone but always have You with me. It is a joy to please You. One way to please You is when Your children love one another. So, we have come to know and trust in the love that God has for us. God is love. Now whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him (1 John 4:16). Pleasing ourselves is so natural, but it is so much wiser and better to please You. The law of love is what You want us to follow. And Yeshua said to him, “You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39). I want to please You by loving others ahead of myself. In Your holy Son’s name and power of His resurrection Amen.

Paul changes direction and introduces a caveat to his argument. What follows is not integral to his case (to see link click Bw – The Head of a Wife is Her Husband), but is inserted to offer some balance to the previous emphasis on women’s secondary role in creation. He does this by observing that the man is now born through the woman. In other words, men are dependent on women for their existence.³⁰⁹ Every man has a mother, and this reduces the temptation of men to think themselves free from the obligation to honor women. The principle of honoring mothers (see the commentary on Exodus Do – Honor Your Father and Your Mother) implies that husbands ought to have a high regard and honor for their wives. Therefore, when all is said and done, we need each other.³¹⁰

Paul offered five reasons in verses 2-16 why women should wear head coverings in public worship.

4. The fourth reason was to emphasize the distinction between sexes (11:11-15): Lest anyone mistake his description of headship in 11:3, Paul makes it clear that women (wives) also have a direct relationship with God. Nevertheless, in union with the Lord neither is woman independent of man nor is man independent of woman; for as the woman was made from the man, so also the man is now born through the woman. While Eve did come from Adam, so too are male children born through female mothers. Paul reminded the Corinthians that everything comes from God (11:11-12). In other words, that fact that Eve came from Adam’s rib does not contradict that fact that God Himself fashioned the first woman.

To be sure, husbands have a headship role because they are held responsible for what goes on in their marriage (see the commentary on Romans Bm – The Consequences of Adam), this does not eliminate the need for wives to cultivate their own relationship with Messiah. Wives worship and honor ADONAI directly because there is neither . . . male or female (Galatians 3:28). Moreover, this common origin implies a commonality of worship; the distinctions between the sexes in their worship roles does not imply complete separation. Both men and women must fulfill their proper roles together if worship is to be acceptable.³¹¹

This section begins with an unusual expression: Decide for yourselves (11:13a). By these words Paul did not encourage the Corinthians to ignore his instructions. Rather, he meant that they should not blindly obey his directives, they were to think through the issue. Paul said this because he was convinced the believers in Corinth had the ability to think properly on this issue. He hoped they would reason through the issues with him and see how he came to his conclusions. In fact, since this was an area in which he knew the church was following his instructions, he probably expected the majority of his readers to agree with his position.

Paul then circled back to the main point of his argument: Is it appropriate for a woman to pray to God when she is uncovered, akin to a prostitute advertising her wares (11:13)? Within their new found freedom in Messiah, some of the “liberated” women in the Corinthian church adopted the “for me, everything is permitted” (6:12a) attitude, and were praying and prophesying with uncovered heads, contrary to the cultural norms of the time. As a result, Paul wanted the Corinthian women to wear a head covering in public worship because their actions were damaging to the women themselves, the Corinthian church, the Corinthian community, and most of all to God Himself. Other spiritually immature believers in the church were being stumbled upon; and in addition, those women were losing their testimony in the community. Thus, they violated Paul’s basic principle: With all kinds of people, both Jews and Gentiles, I have become all kinds of things, so that in all kinds of circumstances I might save at least some of them (9:22b).

To clinch his case, Paul throws in a final argument by appealing to nature, which is assumed to reveal what is fitting, honorable and glorifying. Doesn’t the nature of things itself teach you that a man who wears his hair long degrades himself? The mentioning of hair only serves as a final illustration as to why women (wives) should have a cover on their heads, but men (husbands) should not.³¹² Long hair was a woman’s glory because it gave her the visible expression to the differentiation of the sexes. This was Paul’s point in noting that long hair is given to her as a covering (11:14-15). Since she had a natural covering, her hair, she followed the custom of wearing a physical covering, a veil, in public worship. Whether women today should wear a head covering or men should wear a hat depends on the customs where they live.

When Paul speaks of nature, he means what his society at the time understood to be natural. In general, it was shameful for men in his culture to have long hair. The only surviving statues from Corinth portraying men wearing long hair, besides male deities, were those appearing in the façade of the captives in the forum in Roman Corinth. Their long hair was intended to portray those captives were weak, soft and effeminate.

The Corinthian women went to war against their culture and what society considered natural at the time. Paul only brought up hair as an analogy. God has given women a glorious, natural head covering, namely, their hair. Therefore, Paul wanted the Corinthian women (wives) to follow the lead of nature, as defined by social custom at that time, and cover their heads. Men (husbands), on the other hand, did not use their hair as their cover, since it was shameful for them to have long hair in their culture.³¹³

5. The fifth reason was the universal practice (11:16): It was time to wrap things up. So, Paul brought to a close his argument over the rightness of the Corinthian women maintaining the tradition of covering their heads in the worship service. Some of the women were being contentious about this. However, Paul refused to be contentious back. It was not his way to argue back and forth. Therefore, he concluded: If anyone wants to argue about it, the fact remains that we have no such custom, nor do the Messianic communities of God (11:16). Paul was not trying to force a new behavioral pattern on the Corinthians, but simply to hold the line against self-indulgent individual excess in the name of freedom in Messiah. As in the case of food sacrificed to idols (see Bj – Concerning Our Freedom in Messiah), Paul dealt with the immediate issue, but also put his finger on the root of the problem, the Corinthian pursuit of self-interest which was unwilling to voluntarily give up their “rights” for the needs of others (10:24) or the glory of God (10:31). For the women not to wear a head covering in the worship service was an act of rebelliousness which discredited ADONAI.³¹⁴

The Head of a Wife is Her Husband
11: 2-10

The head of a wife is her husband DIG: What does it mean to be “the head?” What is the difference between positional leadership and real leadership? How are men and women viewed as being equal? How is the husband supposed to lead? Why was it so important that the women who were praying and prophesying in public worship wear head-coverings?

REFLECT: What reasons did Paul give that the Corinthian women should wear head coverings in his day? Does the Bible teach that women should wear head coverings today? Why or why not? What was the real issue that Paul was concerned about? What is the difference between the marriage relationship and the responsibility placed upon the husband by God?

The head of every man is Messiah,
and the head of a wife is her husband,
and the head of Messiah is God.

There was no reason for believers to needlessly scoff at accepted cultural traditions that did not violate Scripture. The Corinthian women had every right to not wear head coverings in the worship service because of their freedom in Messiah; but by refusing to voluntarily yield their right for the sake of others, they stumbled other immature believers and ruined their testimony with unbelievers in the community.²⁹⁵ Thus, they violated Paul’s basic principle: With all kinds of people, both Jews and Gentiles, I have become all kinds of things, so that in all kinds of circumstances I might save at least some of them (9:22b).

Paul continued: Now I praise you because you have remembered everything I told you and observe the traditions just the way I passed them on to you (11:2). These opening words seem to flow easily from what has immediately proceeded (to see link click Bq – The Danger of Overconfidence). Having encouraged the Corinthians to imitate his imitation of Messiah, Paul now praises them for doing so with regard to the traditions with which he himself had passed on to them. But this is quite surprising because although he commends them for observing the traditions that he had passed on to them, nevertheless, in the four chapters that follow there doesn’t seem to be a single instance of them doing so. Indeed, in regard to the next matter (see By – Issues Surrounding the Lord’s Supper), they are doing anything but! And according to the final sentence of the chapter: As for the other matters, I will instruct you about them when I come (11:34), it seems as though there are still further concerns regarding these matters that this letter does not address. How are we to understand these opening words? This opening sentence most likely serves to introduce the many things that needed correcting regarding their gatherings for worship in Chapters 11-14. Even though they remembered him in everything, there were still some areas with regard to the traditions where praise was not in order. They may have been following the traditions, as it were, but not in the proper ways.²⁹⁶

As a prelude to his encouragement, Paul characteristically laid down a theological base. In this instance, it concerned headship. Paul offered five reasons why women should wear head coverings in public worship.

1. The first reason is the divine order (11:3-6): Paul began his reasoning by clearly stating a basic divine principle: The head of every man is the Messiah (11:3a). He is uniquely the Head of the Church as its Savior and Lord (Eph 1:22-23, 4:15; Col 1:18). He has redeemed and bought it with His own blood (1 Cor 6:20; 1 Peter 1:18-19; Revelation 5:9). But in His divine authority, Messiah is the head of every human being, believer or unbeliever. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me (Matthew 28:18), Yeshua declared. Most of mankind has never acknowledged Messiah’s authority, but everything has been put in subjection under His feet (Hebrews 2:8), and one day every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth and under the earth – and every tongue will acknowledge that Yeshua the Messiah is ADONAI, to the glory of the Father (Philippians 2:10-11). He is in ultimate control of everyone, now and forever.²⁹⁷

And the head (Greek: kephale, meaning prominence) of a wife is her husband (11:3b): All three, the man (husband), the woman (wife) and Messiah, equally, have a head, and are subject to that head, and acknowledge that head. The man has only Messiah as his head; the woman has another head in addition to Messiah, namely, her husband (if married). Kephale does not mean “source.” Many recent interpreters who prefer this option seek to eliminate any hint of the wife’s voluntary submission. No Greek Lexicon offers “source” as the meaning of kephale. To be “the head” of something simply means to occupy a position of authority, and there can be no responsibility without authority.²⁹⁸

There are similar verses in the Bible saying that wives should submit and be obedient to their husbands (First Peter 3:1a; Titus 2:5b; Colossians 3:18). The husband is head of the wife, as also Messiah is the head of the Church (Ephesians 5:22-23a; Colossians 3:19). Not only that, but the Bible teaches a wife that her desire will be toward her husband, but he will rule over her (Genesis 3:16b). But these verses cannot be fully appreciated without understanding the corresponding verse: Husbands, love your wives, just as the Messiah loved the Church, indeed, He gave Himself up on [her] behalf (Ephesians 5:25). And a part of God’s divine order, that children should be submissive to their parents (Ephesians 6:1), and (during Paul’s day) slaves should be submissive to their masters (Ephesians 6:5).

Dear loving Heavenly Father, Praise You for being so loving. Thank You that Your example of great love is the example You use for the husband’s love for his wife (Ephesians 5:25-26). Praise you that Your love is never selfish, never mean nor lazy – but Your love is always surrounded by Your holiness and faithfulness. In holiness You call us to be holy – yet You so willingly give those who love You Your holiness. As Your Word declares: You are to be holy because I am holy (First Peter 1:16). In Your holy Son’s name. Amen

So, the critical question for the husband is, “How did Messiah love the Church?” Once again, the Bible gives us the answer: For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve – and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). There was no sacrifice too great for her. Therefore, the husband needs to listen to his wife, take her advice seriously, and respect her. So, the husband needs to think of his wife first, making sure that her needs are met by serving her . . . washing her feet daily, as it were. There is no room for tyranny here, no such thing as bullying, lording over, or bossing. It is a gracious humility that honors the physically weak one (First Peter 3:7).²⁹⁹ When husbands abuse their freedom in Messiah, they dishonor their head, the Messiah; when wives abuse their freedom in Messiah, they dishonor their head, their husband. This is what was happening with the head coverings in the church at Corinth.

But this servant kind of a relationship seems a lot different from: he shall rule over you (Genesis 3:16b), doesn’t it? That sounds pretty harsh, not like a servant at all. Which is it? Does he come to serve or rule? If you think this is confusing, just look at the state of marital roles. It is one of the most confused areas in and out of the Church today. The main problem is the confusion between the husband’s relationship with his wife, and his responsibility with what goes on in the marriage.

Let’s look at relationship first. The Bible clearly teaches that men and women are equals socially, psychologically, and spiritually. In other words, they are equals in their relationship with each other. God created us as equals (Genesis 1:27-28), and we are to be one when married (Genesis 2:24). We are equally sinful (Romans 3:23), and equally saved (John 1:12-13; Second Corinthians 5:17; First Peter 3:7). Husbands and wives are to submit to each other sexually (First Corinthians 7:2-5) and socially (Ephesian5:21). Furthermore, the Bible teaches that there shall be no sexual discrimination (Galatians 3:28). Men and women are equally dependent on God (First Corinthians 11:11-12), accepted equally as believers (Acts 5:14), and co-laborers for Him (Romans 16:1, 3-6;Philippians 4:3). So, in their relationship, men and women are equals. There is no doubt about that. But there is another area that we need to look at.

The second area the Bible teaches us about is responsibility. Even though men and women are equal in their relationship to one another, husbands are ultimately held responsible for what goes on in the marriage. The Bible tells us that when Abram lied about Sarai being his wife, Pharaoh held Abram responsible (Genesis 12:17-20). Later, after God changed their names, Abraham and Sarah did the same thing again and Abimelech held Abraham responsible (Genesis 20:9). And it seems the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree, as Abraham’s son Isaac was held responsible for the lie about Rebekah (Genesis 26:9). Much later, God held David responsible for his sin with Bathsheba and sent the prophet Nathan to rebuke him. Here, Adam and Eve both ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; in fact, Eve led the way, but God held Adam responsible (Genesis 3:9). This principle is not only taught in the TaNaKh, but also in the B’rit Chadashah where Paul tells us that through one man sin entered the world (see the commentary on Romans Bm – The Consequences of Adam). God took Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden in order to have him work it and guard it (Genesis 2:15 ISV). When Satan came against Eve, Adam stood there and said nothing. He didn’t protect his wife or guard the Garden. Responsibility begs for accountability, and God held Adam responsible.

Therefore, with this understanding, we come back to the original question: how shall Adam rule over Eve? He rules over her in the sense that with the big decisions in life, if they are still at an impasse, he is ultimately going to be held responsible for the decision. How he handles the situation, how he listens to his wife and takes her feelings and opinions into consideration are important. She needs to be heard. Husbands who do not listen to their wives are fools, because Elohim made her a helper suitable for him (Genesis 2:18). If the wife does not feel like she is being heard or has any input in the marriage, it will crush her spirit and/or drive her away (physically and/or emotionally). Husbands and wives should make the big decisions together as a team, but if they cannot agree, he has to make the call because he is responsible before God.

When things go bad at work, nobody wants to be in charge when the boss walks in and says, “All right, who is in charge of this mess?” And all eyes are on you. It is much more comforting to be able to point at someone else, anyone else, and say, “Here’s the one!” It is in that sense that Adam would rule over Eve. It is in that sense that Eve should submit and be obedient to Adam; not in their relationship, because in their relationship they are equals. But Adam was held responsible for what went on in his marriage. Decision making can be fun without responsibility. If it works, you get all the credit, and if it doesn’t, just try something else. It just doesn’t matter. But decision making with eternal consequences is quite different. And the head of the Messiah is God (11:3c). Yeshua made nothing clearer than the fact that He submitted Himself to His Father’s will (John 4:34, 5:30, 6:38; First Corinthians 3:23, 15:24-28). Messiah has never been – before, during, or after His incarnation – inferior in any way to the Father. But during His incarnation, He willingly submitted Himself to His Father’s will as an act of humble obedience in fulfilling His divine purpose.³⁰⁰

Paul begins his argument with men (husbands). Every man who prays or prophesies wearing something down over his head brings shame to his head – Messiah (11:4). He seems to be setting up his argument with the women (wives) by means of a hypothetical situation for the men (husbands) that would be equally shameful in their relationship to their head (Messiah) as the wives were doing to theirs. The words pray and prophesy make it certain that the problem has to do with public worship. One may pray in private, but not so with prophesy.³⁰¹

Generally speaking, among the Greeks, only slaves’ heads were covered, and the uncovered head was a sign of freedom. The Romans, however, reversed this, and Corinth was a Roman colony.³⁰² A statue from Corinth of a veiled Agustus – with his toga pulled down over his head offering a pagan sacrifice, offers an important clue. Thus, Paul is asserting how shameful it would be for a man (husband) to pray or prophesy in the worship service wearing something pulled down over his head like the pagans did. He will next make the case that it would be no less shameful for a woman (wife) to pray or prophesy with her head uncovered.³⁰³

It seems that the Corinthian slogan “everything is permitted,” had been applied to the worship service as well, and the women had expressed that belief by throwing off their distinguishing attire, their head coverings. But Paul said that every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered brings shame to her head. For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head (11:5-6). By not covering her head during public worship she disgraced herself and her spiritual head, her husband.

One of the interesting facets here is the assumption Paul makes that both men and women would pray and prophesy in public worship. But what seems obvious in verses 4-6 is that Corinthian women were engaging in public worship without a proper head covering – the sort of head covering that was normally appropriate in mixed company.³⁰⁴

Greek women were usually covered in social life, except in their homes. Uncovering the head in public had sexual implications, giving nonverbal clues that they were “available.” However, respectable women did nothing to draw attention to themselves. A head covering constituted a warning. It signified that the wearer was a respectable woman and that no man (married or not) should approach her without risking repercussions. Women were not to be ogled at as sex objects during public worship. Paul’s primary interest in this passage was to prevent this from happening and he argued that women’s heads should be covered.³⁰⁵

2. The second reason was creation (11:7-9): The man, on the other hand, should not have his head covered, because he is the image and glory of God. Paul supported his conclusion from Scripture (Genesis 2:7 and 21-23). In the case of the women (wives) it would be just the opposite. Strictly speaking, according to the creation account (see the commentary on Genesis Ax – Then the LORD God Made a Woman from the Rib He had Taken Out of the Man), the wife’s glory and image is derived from, and complementary to, that of her husband (11:7). Adam was created in God’s image, and as such, if men (husbands) covered their heads in any way, it would be a denial of his being in God’s image and glory. It would be improper, even wrong, for men to cover their heads. The reverse cannot be said. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man; and indeed, man was not created for the sake of the woman but woman for the sake of the man (11:8-9).

3. The third reason was divine order (11:10): The reason a woman (wife) ought to have authority (Greek: exousia) over her head (11:10a NIV). Some translations have the phrase, a sign, but it is not in the Greek text. In the context here, exousia means to have authority over her own head. That is, she is to exercise control over her head so as not to expose it to indignity. It seems clear that Paul is playing with the word head here, using it in more than one sense, referring both to her husband as head and to the woman’s own physical head. Instead of shaving her head, she needed to wear a head covering according to the traditions of that time.³⁰⁶

Paul addressed the final phrase because of the angels (11:10), as a matter that needed no further explanation whatsoever. The simple manner in which this final phrase was added indicates that no new point is being introduced into the discussion. The brief mention of the angels caps all that preceded it.³⁰⁷ Because the angels implies that God’s holy angels are known to participate in worship (Isaiah 6:1-4; Luke 2:14; Revelation 5:11-12 and 7:11-12), so the Corinthian worship shouldn’t offend them. Such an offense would in fact occur, however, if women (wives) prayed and prophesied with uncovered heads.

In sum, Paul’s message to the first century Corinthian church was that the man (husband) stands uncovered in public worship because he reflects the glory of God; the woman (wife) must be covered because she is the glory of man (her husband). We should not take away from this that women should wear a head covering in public worship today. Paul was not laying down an unalterable command that would be in effect for every age. The Corinthians had their traditions in the First Century and we have ours. Women today have the freedom in Messiah to choose to wear a head covering in public worship or not. The application of these verses for us is that everyone, men and women, husbands and wives, should dress appropriately, especially in public worship, so as not to stumble other weak believers or ruin their testimony with unbelievers.

Head Coverings in Worship
11: 2-16

The one common thread that links Chapters 10 and 11 together is the idea of submission and yielding one’s “rights.” Many people today view these words negatively, as if they imply some forced limitation of their freedom. How unfortunate. The biblical concept of submission conveys the idea of someone voluntarily giving up or yielding his or her rights to another.

In Chapters 8 through 10, Paul elevated the ideal of submission to a place of integrity and benefit. He encouraged his readers to willingly yield to others their “rights” to eat meat sacrificed to idols if eating such meat would spiritually harm their weaker brothers and sisters. They not viewed as being inferior when they did so. Such submission was, in his view, a supreme act of love, love for God and love for one another.

By voluntarily yielding his right to eat meat, Paul followed the example of Messiah, who voluntarily yielded His “rights” when, as God, He chose to humble Himself and become a man. Yeshua further yielded His “rights” when He voluntarily allowed Himself to be put to death to save us from our sins. Throughout these three chapters Paul encourages the Corinthians to follow his example (of yielding his “right” to eat meat), just as Paul followed Messiah’s example (of yielding His “rights” as God).

Paul will do the same thing in Chapter 11. Just as Messiah submitted Himself to His Father, so each of us should voluntarily yield our rights according to a clearly organized biblical framework. The purpose of this God-ordained framework is to maintain order in a world of chaos and confusion. YHVH has brought order out of chaos from the beginning. Before the earth was formed, the Spirit of God moved to create order out of disorder (Genesis 1:1). By so yielding, we are following Paul’s example as Paul followed Christ’s example.²⁹⁴

Evidently some “emancipated” Corinthian women had dispensed with the head covering in public worship, and Paul argued that they should not do this. Jewish women were always veiled in public in the first century; thus, it can be assumed that respectable Greek women also wore a head covering in public. If so, the practice of the Corinthian women believers was wholeheartedly rejected by Paul. This was against his principle that with all kinds of people, both Jews and Gentiles, (the Corinthian women) might have become all kinds of things, so that in all kinds of circumstances (they) might save at least some of them (9:22b).

Men and Women in Worship
11:2 to 14:40

The theme of personal freedom in Messiah exercised without regard for the needs of others or the glory of God, which characterized the issue about eating food sacrificed to idols (to see link click Bj – Concerning Our Freedom in Messiah) seems no less a part of this section which deals with practices affecting the congregation of the church at Corinth. Here too, Paul responded to the Corinthians spirit of self-indulgence by stressing the principle of glorifying God and building up each other in true fellowship.²⁹³ Like book-ends, Paul begins (see Bv – Head Coverings in Worship) and ends his discussion of freedom in Messiah as it pertained to worship (see Dp – Order in Public Worship: Wives in public worship) with remarks directed primarily at the behavior of the Corinthian women during public worship on Sunday morning.

Using Freedom for God’s Glory
10:23 to 11:1

Using freedom for God’s glory DIG: What were some of the limits Paul said needed to be placed on the freedom of believers? What is the difference between tolerating differences and condoning wrong behavior? Why is it crucial for believers to love and accept one another? In light of this passage, what does it mean to “do it all so as to bring glory to God?” How did Jesus model the approach He expects us to follow?

REFLECT: Think for a few moments about what freedom in Messiah means to you. What new freedoms have you enjoyed since you became a believer? In what ways do you think your freedom in Messiah is different from any other freedom you have experienced? Based on Paul’s teaching, what should always be your primary concern in making lifestyle choices? Think of one person this week to whom you can show greater sensitivity and love.

Whatever we do, do it all so as to bring glory to the Lord.

Our freedom is always defined by Messiah. Since He gave it to us as a gift, He’s the best person to tell us how to use it. He may ask us to use it in ways that surprise us. Those actions may not seem like freedom when they involve saying no to our desires and saying yes to Messiah’s will for our lives. Some of our greatest moments of freedom come when we choose not to exercise our freedom in order to help someone else.²⁷⁶

Paul is now ready to conclude this matter of eating food that was sacrificed to idols. In this section, he deals with the secondary issue of whether the prohibition against participating in banquets in pagan temples also applies to “leftover” meat that was sold in the city meat market. Not that virtually all the ancient meat sold for human consumption in the Greco-Roman world came from pagan sacrifices; there were no general slaughterhouses or packing plants for cattle, sheep, or pigs.²⁷⁷

A. The principles for using our freedom in Messiah: In verses 23-30, Paul gives us four basic principles to guide us in using our freedom in Messiah for God’s glory.

1. Edification over gratification (10:23): Our freedom in Messiah is important, but there are some things that are not wise. Paul repeats the slogan that was apparently commonly spoken among the Corinthian believers: “Everything is permitted,” you say? Maybe, but not everything is helpful. He counters this with the same argument he made earlier in 6:12b. “Everything is permitted?” Maybe, but not everything is edifying to other believers (10:23). Desiring the spiritual benefit and edification of ourselves and others is a hallmark of maturity in a believer. Paul’s supreme purpose in ministering to believers was to promote their edification (Second Corinthians 12:19). His advice to all believers is that everything we say be for edification according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear (Ephesians 4:29; First Thessalonians 5:11 NASB). When we are faced with a decision about a practice we should first ask if we have a right to do it. If it is not forbidden in Scripture the answer is yes. But our next question should be, is it profitable, edifying, and upbuilding for ourselves and for others? If the answer to both questions is yes, then we can do it to God’s glory. If the answer to either question is no, we should refrain from doing it because it will not bring glory to Him.²⁷⁸

Dear Wise Heavenly Father, Sometimes it is hard to know how to handle a sinful situation, but I praise You that I can follow the principles of how You discipline. You are the perfect balance of love and anger at wrong. You are neither a sugar daddy who gives in to whatever your child wants, nor are you a mean and angry father. You are patient, urging sinners to come to you and gently rebuking your erring child. Yet you are wise and discerning when you correct. You wisely base the severity of Your discipline on the severity of the sin. When the situation calls for it, you discipline with great strength and power as when You sent the Northern Kingdom of Isra’el into Assyria captivity and then later the Southern Kingdom of Judah you sent into 70 years of Babylonian captivity.

Your goal in discipline is never to hurt, but to produce the fruit of righteousness.  Now all discipline seems painful at the moment – not joyful. But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it (Hebrews 12:11). Thank You for being such a wonderful example of patience and yet also you have a holy hatred of wrong. Please help us to remember when we see a wrong situation, that what is important is not our putting them down, but our correcting the issue in a way that will bless and honor You. Honor to You is always the important issue. Please guide as we see wrong to help us know how we can guide the person to move in the right way rather than to just get mad at them and punish them. May we remember what You have said. Never take your own revenge, loved ones, but give room for God’s wrath – for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay,” says ADONAI (Romans 12:19) and For we know the One who said, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay,” and again, “ADONAI will judge His people” (Hebrews 10:30).

Please help us in all we do to do it to Your honor. When we correct, may we be patient like You and correct lovingly, not in mean anger. Thank You for Your perfect example of loving and purposeful correction to produce the fruit of righteousness. I want to follow Your ways in all I do, including lovingly correcting others. Love You always! In Your holy Son’s name and power of His resurrection. Amen

2. Others over self (10:24): This repeats this same principle in different words, putting it in the form of a third person imperative: No one should seek their own good, but the good of others (10:24). In two later instances (Romans 15:1-3 and Philippians 2:4-5), Paul bases such a stance on the example of Messiah, which is precisely how he concludes this present argument below (see The pattern of our freedom in Messiah below). Later in the letter he will use the same formula as part of his description of love (13:5). For Paul, the death of Messiah, in which He gave Himself “for us,” is not only God’s offer of pardon for sinners, but also the only proper model of discipleship. Hence “freedom” does not mean “to seek what pleases me,” not even “my own good;” rather, it means to be free in Messiah in such a way that we can truly seek to build up and edify others.²⁷⁹

3. Freedom over legalism (10:25-27): Having set out the basic principles, Paul is now ready to apply them to the issue of purchasing or eating meat sold in the market. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience. It would be difficult, if not impossible to know for certain whether a particular piece of meat had, or had not, been offered to an idol. Paul sees no point in raising the issue. Paul’s attitude was revolutionary. He took seriously the truth that an idol is nothing. This refusal to ask questions shows it did not matter to him whether a piece of meat had been offered to an idol or not.²⁸⁰ After all, market food comes from plants and animals that have been created by God and belong to Him. Paul supports this by quoting Psalm 24:1, “For the earth and everything in it belong to the LORD” (10:25-26). This passage is used by the rabbis to support the contention that a blessing must be said over every meal. Since the earth and everything in it belong to the LORD, one must bless God for one’s food; otherwise, it is as though one were defrauding the Almighty. By this citation, therefore, Paul is almost certainly reflecting the Jewish use of this text for the blessings over meals, especially since he refers again to blessing God in the final rhetorical question in verse 30 below.

But what Paul does here is full of irony toward his Jewish heritage, whether intended or not. The rabbis saw the text as the reason for thanking God for their food. But Paul now uses the text to justify eating anything they wanted, even food forbidden by his own Jewish heritage of only eating kosher, since God is the ultimate source of all food – even food sold in the market. For that reason, it can be eaten with thanksgiving. The clear implication is that nothing “contaminates” food as such along the way. Apart from Paul’s radical statements on circumcision (Romans 2:25-3:1; Galatians 5:6 and 11, 6:11-15; First Corinthians 7:19) it is hard to imagine anything more un-Jewish in the apostle than this.²⁸¹

Paul goes even further. Not only can believers purchase any food for sale in the market; it is within the realm of freedom in Messiah to associate with unbelievers and have dinner with them in any other place besides the temple of an idol.²⁸² If some unbeliever invites you to a meal, and you want to go, eat whatever is put in front of you without raising questions of conscience (10:27). Paul did not expect his readers to cut themselves off completely from the fabric of all social relationships because they were absolutely necessary to survive in the ancient world. In his day, people could not merely go off on their own and expect to survive. Patronage bound freed slaves to former masters, plebs to patriarchs, tenants to landowners; and their relationships established the means of the exchange of honor and personal obligation. Therefore, Paul allowed believers to circulate in pagan society. But there were limitations.²⁸³

4. Consideration over condemnation (10:28-30): But the situation changed if another invited guest, a weaker brother or sister (ie. “someone”), says to you, “This meat was offered as a sacrifice.” The entire argument up to this point has been concerned with the exercise of our freedom in Messiah with reference to offending the weaker brother or sister. In addition, in Chapters 8-10, Paul says nothing whatsoever about the exercise of our freedom in Messiah with respect to pagans. Therefore, context dictates that this “someone” is a weaker brother or sister.²⁸⁴

Here, mature believers must use their freedom in Messiah in a truly loving way: Then don’t eat it, out of consideration for the person who pointed it out and also for conscience’s sake (10:28). Their freedom lies in the ability to choose between eating and not eating as long as they are guided by mature knowledge and true love. However, I don’t mean your conscience but that of the other person. The food’s history matters only when it matters to someone else. The mature believer knows that idols do not exist, that there is no God but One, and that all food ultimately belongs to Him. In this sticky situation, however, it is not what the mature believer knows that counts, but the weaker brother or sister believes.²⁸⁵

You say, “Why should my freedom be determined by someone else’s conscience? If I participate by God’s grace (Greek: charity, which may be understood as by grace, because it is what the grace of God means that the mature believer can give thanks for such meat and eat it), why am I criticized over something for which I myself bless God” (10:29-30)? What the mature believer eats does not matter; however, that he avoids giving offense does! But, when all is said and done, a believer is free to eat at a private home without being judged.

B. The purpose of our freedom in Messiah (10:31-32): Paul was now ready to summarize this entire three-chapter unit (Chapters 8 to Chapter 10), and draw his discussion on the meat sacrificed to idols issue to a close. Well, whatever you do, whether it’s eating or drinking or anything else, do it all so as to bring glory to God (10:31). To do something for the glory of God means to reflect God’s glory in the way we live our lives. When others look at us and how we live, they should be able to see that the standards we live by are different from those in the pagan world around us. They should be able to see Yeshua living in us. Paul deals with this concept in more detail later in Second Corinthians 3:18 to 4:6 and 15-18.²⁸⁶ However, it is obvious that some of the believers in Corinth were taking their freedom in Messiah to extremes. They were in danger of using grace as an excuse to sin. Paul needed to show them that if the exercise of spiritual freedom led to others being misled or harmed, they needed to change their ways.²⁸⁷

There is much confusion today when it comes to ignoring the simple truth that the LORD is far more interested in building your character than He is anything else. We worry when ADONAI seems to be silent on specific issues such as, “What career should I choose?” The truth is, there are many different careers that could be in God’s will for your life. What YHVH cares about most is whatever you do, you do it to His glory. He is far more interested in what you are than what you do; He is much more concerned about your character than your career, because you will take your character into eternity, but not your career.²⁸⁸

Another way of saying this same principle is that we should appear blameless (Greek: oroskopos) – before Jews, to Gentiles, and to God’s Messianic Community (10:32). Here, we see God’s threefold division of humanity. Non-Messianic Jews are mentioned, pagan Gentiles (literally “Greeks”), and God’s Messianic Community, consisting of Messianic Jews and Messianic Gentiles. Some draw an inference from this verse that a Jew who gets saved is no longer a Jew. The reasoning is that just as when a Gentile come to faith in Messiah he leaves his paganism behind, so then, when a Jew comes to faith in Messiah he leaves his “legalistic Judaism” behind; that in the Church both lose their former identity – there is neither Jew nor Gentile (Galatians 3:28), Messiah has made us both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation which divided us, created from the two groups one new person (Ephesians 2:14-15) for whom neither being circumcised nor being uncircumcised matters – what matters is being a new creation (Galatians 6:15).

Though it is true that Jews and Gentiles are equally in need of salvation, and in this regard there is no difference between them, nevertheless salvation does not wipe out their identity as Jews and Gentiles. Paul referred to saved Gentiles as “Gentiles” (Romans 11:13 and Ephesians 2:11), and to saved Jews as “Jews” (Galatians 2:13-15). Paul also spoke of himself as a Pharisee (Acts 23:6), which implies, of course, that as a believer he still considered himself to be Jewish. God’s Messianic Community, His Church, consists of saved Jews who remain Jews and saved Gentiles who remain Gentiles.²⁸⁹

Were Paul’s arguments in these chapters effective enough in persuading the Corinthians to abandon their participation in idolatrous associations? The painful visit (see the commentary on Second Corinthians Ao – Paul’s Painful Visit) and continued encouragement (see the commentary on Second Corinthians Bi – Do Not be Unequally Yoked with Unbelievers) suggest not. Such complex issues that require such enormous self-sacrifice are not solved overnight.²⁹⁰

C. The pattern of our freedom in Messiah (10:33-11:1): The final element of Paul’s conclusion makes a reference to his own personal life. In 8:3, he stated that he would not eat meat if by doing so he would cause a fellow believer to sin. In 9:19-23 he demonstrated how he became all things to all people so that by any means he might save some. Now he recites another version of the same principle: Just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not looking out for my own interests but for those of the many, so that they may be saved (10:33). Paul always lived with an eye on what others around him (especially new believers) might be thinking. Love for others must always temper our freedom in Messiah.²⁹¹

Then the apostle goes even further with his example. He is not content simply to live his life as an example for the Corinthians to emulate; he actually instructs them to literally become imitators of him. Try to imitate me, even as I myself try to imitate the Messiah (11:1). Lest we think that Paul thinks too highly of himself, he actually stresses that he himself is an imitator of Messiah and His lifestyle. That must always be the overriding goal in our lives – not to use some other human being as our model but to use the perfect, sinless Messiah. It is not too much to say that Paul is here instructing the Corinthians to imitate him only to the degree that he imitates Messiah.²⁹²

With the conclusion of Chapter 10, Paul puts a period to the discussion of meat sacrificed to idols and moves on to a variety of questions relating to how men and women should conduct themselves in the church’s worship services.

The Truth About Idolatry
10: 14-22

The truth about idolatry DIG: What is meant by drinking “the cup of blessing” and “breaking bread?” How is that “sharing in the body of the Messiah?” Why mention that the Levites ate the sacrifices offered by the Israelites in this context? How do these two illustrations relate to Paul’s call to avoid participation in the feasts at pagan temples?

REFLECT: Idolatry can take many forms. What kinds of “idols” do you see people “worshiping” by those around you? What is a contemporary parallel of how these examples and warnings apply to you? Have you ever found yourself attached to an “idol?” What steps can you take to guard against that happening again?

If anything gets between you and God, He wants it out of the way.

Paul is now getting ready to bring his lengthy section of eating meat sacrificed to idols to a conclusion. In these verses we discover beyond any doubt the specific issue that began in 8:1. As Paul has made clear, idolatry, immorality, and grumbling against God are not gray areas – they are outright sins (to see link click Br – Blessings and Abuses of Freedom in Messiah). Believers had no freedom in regard to such things. Next, the apostle explains why the sin of idolatry is especially offensive to God. It is not a moral issue to eat meat sacrificed to an idol; but it is a serious sin to engage in any form of idol worship. Some of the Corinthians were taking their freedom in Messiah too far, and were becoming involved in the wickedness of idolatry. They were free to attend pagan functions, but were not free to participate in pagan idolatry. Paul strongly rebukes those who would do that.²⁶⁴

Paul could not state his conclusion more clearly. Therefore, my dear friends, run away from (Greek: pheugo, present imperative is durative, meaning continue to run) idolatry! The preposition from (Greek: apo) instead of (Greek: ek, meaning out of) implies that Paul is not calling them out of idolatry, but encouraging them to “run away from” idolatry (10:14). The command to “run away from” idolatry here matches the prohibition to “run away from sexual immorality” in 6:18. The two are intertwined in Paul’s mind (Romans 1:18-32; Galatians 5:19-21); Colossians 3:5; First Peter 4:3). The Corinthians were not yet bogged down in the miry swamp of idolatry and in need of being extricated, but they did need to be warned that they were walking into spiritual quicksand. Idolatry is like radioactive waste: it requires them to run away from this area immediately to avoid contamination and certain death.²⁶⁵

Paul never asks for mere blind obedience: he always labors to secure obedience as a result of thorough conviction. Now Paul seeks to show them how sensible it is based upon their own experience of the Lord’s Supper. I speak to you as sensible people; judge for yourselves what I am saying (10:15). The Corinthians prided themselves on their wisdom (Second Corinthians 11:19); now Paul appeals to it. He did not have to demonstrate the point. They could see it for themselves.²⁶⁶

Idolatry is Inconsistent (10:16-18): Paul now moves to an important step in his argument: the Lord’s Supper. This becomes the key to his climactic argument. His words give us the impression that participating in the Lord’s Supper is a regular practice among faithful believers. It is commanded by our Lord (Luke 22:19 and 1 Cor 11:24-25) to remind us of His sacrifice for us and our oneness with Him and with fellow believers. The “cup of blessing” over which we make the b’rakhah (Hebrew: blessing) – isn’t it a sharing (Greek: koinonia, meaning fellowship) in the bloody sacrificial death of the Messiah? The third cup of the Passover Seder is called the cup of redemption, or the cup of blessing (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Kk – The Third Cup of Redemption). And the bread we break, isn’t it a sharing in the body of the Messiah (10:16)? Both of these rhetorical questions begin with ouchi, which means that a “yes” answer is anticipated.

Because there is one loaf of bread, Yeshua said: I am the bread of life (John 6:35), we who are many constitute one body, since we all partake of the one loaf of bread (10:17). Because we are one with Messiah we are one with each other. As we come into fellowship with Messiah through the Lord’s Supper, we come into fellowship with each other in a unique way: The person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit (6:17). All believers stand on the same ground at the foot of the cross, as forgiven sinners who possess eternal life (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Ms – The Eternal Security of the Believer).²⁶⁷

Look at physical Isra’el, literally, “the Isra’el according to the flesh” (10:18a). This is the key verse for evaluating those who believe in Replacement Theology, that the Gentile Church has replaced the Jews as “the true Isra’el,” or “the new Isra’el.” In the present verse the argument goes as follows: does Paul use the phrase “according to the flesh” to imply the existence of a different Isra’el “according to the Spirit?” Paul contrasts these two phrases in Romans 1:3-4, 8:4-5, and Galatians 4:29; and these are the only places where the phrase, “according to the Spirit” appears in the entire B’rit Chadashah; although 19 other places where the phrase “according to the flesh” is found, one can usually imagine an alternative “according to the Spirit.” However, it is in Romans 11:17-24, in his analogy with cultivated and wild olive trees, that Paul expresses most clearly his understanding of Isra’el in the present Dispensation of Grace as consisting of three groups – branches of the cultivated tree which have been cut off and remain off (non-Messianic Jews), branches of the cultivated olive tree which have been cut off and then grafted back into their own olive tree (Messianic Jews), and wild olive branches that have been grafted into the cultivated olive tree (Gentile believers, see Romans 11:23-24). Thus, physical Isra’el is a subset consisting of the first two of these three groups: non-Messianic Jews plus Messianic Jews. Nowhere in the B’rit Chadashah is the Church called “the true Isra’el” or “the new Isra’el.” For more on this see the commentary on Romans Da – The Redemption of Isra’el.²⁶⁸

Again, Paul uses Isra’el to illustrate his point. Don’t those who eat the sacrifices participate in the Altar (10:18b)? When the Israelites brought their sacrifices to the Bronze Altar (see the commentary on Exodus Fa – Build Altar of Acacia Wood Overlaid with Bronze), some of the offerings were burnt as the sacrifice, some of the offering was eaten by the priests, and some of it was eaten by those who offered it. In those offerings, everyone was involved with the sacrifice, with ADONAI and with each other.

Likewise, to sacrifice to an idol is to identify with it, to participate with the idol and with all others who sacrifice to it. Religious ceremonies, whether believers or pagans, involve participation of the worshipers with the object of their worship and with each other. Thus, it is completely inconsistent for believers to participate in any expression of worship that is apart from and contrary to their Lord.²⁶⁹

Idolatry is demonic (10:19-21): Much worse than being inconsistent, idolatry is demonic. So, what am I saying? That food sacrificed to idols has any significance in itself? or that an idol has significance in itself? No, what I am saying is that the things which pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice not to God but to demons; and I don’t want you to become sharers of the demons (10:19-20)! Since idols do not exist, the Corinthians cannot become sharers with idols. But demons do exist, and pagan sacrifice is demonic. However, the Corinthians would become sharers with demons if they willingly participated in pagan sacrificial feasts.²⁷⁰ All altars, all sacrifices, and all worship that is not intended to serve the true and living God are actually, although not necessarily consciously or intentionally, devoted to demons. As these wicked angels, under the leadership of Satan, rule the entire world, so they are the originators of the spiritual darkness of which idolatry is the most terrible evidence. Hence, all idol sacrifices, whatever the pagan ideas concerning them may be, are actually sacrifices to demons (Deuteronomy 32:17; Psalm 106:37 and 95:5).²⁷²

Fundamental allegiance was at stake. You can’t drink both a cup of the Lord and a cup of demons, you can’t partake in both a meal of the Lord and a meal of demons (10:21). Paul is not giving advice but stating a fact. Yeshua made it clear that we cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24 NASB). It is not simply that we should not . . . but we cannot! It is impossible to do both at the same time. It must be one or the other. We will hate the one and love the other, or we will hold to the one and despise the other. When we fellowship with the Lord, we cannot fellowship with demons, or vice versa.²⁷³

It’s as if Paul is saying: You can’t have it both ways. That’s exactly what Isra’el did in the wilderness. They worshiped the true God, and then turned around and worshiped a false idol (see the commentary on Exodus Gq – The Golden Calf Incident). That’s exactly what the pagan Gentile do. By saying that they wanted to worship God, but worshiped an idol instead, the Corinthians would provoke God to jealousy.

Idolatry is offensive to the Lord (10:22): Idolatry is inconsistent, demonic, and offensive to the Lord. It will make the Lord jealous. Paul alludes to the Song of Moses: They aroused My righteous zealousness with a non-god and provoked me with their vanities (32:21a CJB). The reason that idols are not to be worshiped is that ADONAI is a jealous or zealous God. The Hebrew term qanna’ combines the two concepts of jealousy and zeal (not envy or suspicion).²⁷³ So, zeal, or zealousness, meaning a passionate devotion to, would be a better term to use than jealous, which has negative, even petty connotations. Therefore, idolatry would cause God’s zeal to burn like a husband’s zealousness would burn against an unfaithful wife (Hosea 2:2-5).

Paul’s final question: We aren’t stronger than He is, are we (10:22)? Is obviously rhetorical. Does the idol foolishly think he is more powerful than YHVH? God will not allow idolatry to go unpunished; therefore, no one can escape. Even His own children will not escape His severe discipline if they persist in worshiping any sort of idol. Some of the Corinthians had done that and had paid with their health, or even their lives: This is why some among you are weak and sick, and some have died (11:30)!

What does this passage mean for us today since we probably have no inclination to eat meat sacrificed to idols? If I was traveling and found myself in a country where there were people actually worshiping an idol, I would be more inclined to take a picture of it than to bow down and worship it. But does this mean that I am no longer susceptible to the temptation to worship idols? No, all it really means is that I’m not tempted to worship that kind of idol. Like Isaiah, I have figured out the inconsistency of cutting down a tree and using part of it make a fire and cook food, and part of it to make a phony god, saying: Save me for you are my god! (see the commentary on Isaiah Hy – Worship the LORD, Not Idols).

If an idol is whatever takes the place of God in my affection, then all of us continue to be tempted by worshiping idols. Just as in a primitive society a person might make an idol of any material, in our day we may make an idol out of anything – our work, our family, our body, our house, our hobby, or even our religion. If anything besides ADONAI gets our best thoughts, our tears, our feelings, and our energy – are we not just more sophisticated idolaters?²⁷⁵

Dear Heavenly Father, What a wonderful blessing it is to have You as our awesome father, always watching over His children (Hebrews 13:5). It is easy for us to point the finger at others and call them wrong, just as Isaiah looked at Israel’s sins and called them wrong. Woe to those who . . . (Isaiah 5:8, 11) and Oy to those who. . . (Isaiah 5:18, 20, 21). Yet Isaiah was wise when he saw the holiness of God, He said, “Oy to me! For I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips (Isaiah 6:4).

Isaiah was so wise to look inside himself and to move from finger pointing at others to seeing his own sin. Idol worship is both worship of stone or wooden “gods” and living to please oneself over living to please God. ADONAI, You alone are worthy of giving You our best, and loving You with all we have. And Yeshua said to him: You shall love ADONAI your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment (Matthew 22:37-38). You are a joy to love and to put first in my life! I bow in humble worship of You. In Yeshua’s name and power of His resurrection. Amen

Blessings and Abuses of Freedom in Messiah
10: 1-13

The benefits and abuses of freedom in Messiah DIG: After reminding them of the discipline needed to “run the race” (9:24-27), Paul cites this example of Isra’el’s past. Why were these reminders necessary? How do they relate to the Corinthian situation? What is the “moral” of Paul’s teaching? Was Paul in error when he said 23,000 people died? Why or why not?

REFLECT: What temptations do you most consistently have to face? Hence, does verse 13 encourage or frustrate you? How so? How are you a witness to the people in your family, at school, in your neighborhood, or at work? Could any of your actions or attitudes be a stumbling block and disqualify you as a representative of our Lord, stumbling them?

Our freedom in Messiah is not meant to lead us to self-indulgence, but to selfless service.

The ancient Israelites were to be a channel through which all the families of the earth were to be blessed (Genesis 12:3b). It was in that race (9:24-27) that the nation had misused her freedom and became disqualified as a witness to the world by falling into idolatry, immorality, and rebelliousness. Likewise, the believers in Corinth were supposed to be a channel of blessing to that wicked city. For brothers, I don’t want you to miss the significance of what happened to our fathers as they left Egypt on their way to the Land of Promise (10:1a). This introduces an illustration showing that the reality of being disqualified by God is real (compare Psalms 78 and 106). Even though all the Israelites, believers and unbelievers, had extraordinary advantages, with the majority of them God was not pleased, so their bodies were strewn across the desert (10:5). Therefore, Paul was saying to the self-confident Corinthians, “Don’t let what happened to the nation of Isra’el happen to you!”

Isra’el enjoyed five blessings:

1. Paul begins by reminding the Corinthians about the blessings the Israelites experienced – blessings that he could relate to specific experiences of the Corinthian believers. All of them, both believers and unbelievers, were guided by the pillar of cloud (Exodus 13:21-22). The Israelites enjoyed the presence of God in the pillar of cloud that led them in their exodus from Egypt and their journey through the desert (10:1b). The Corinthians had also experienced God’s guidance (Luke 1:79) and protection (First Peter 1:5).

2. In 10:1c Paul says: And they all passed through the Sea of Reeds (Exodus 14:19-31; Psalms 105:39 and 136:13-15). The point being that just as the Corinthians’ life in Messiah began by faith and then baptism, so “our fathers” deliverance from Egypt began with a kind of “baptism” – passing through the Sea of Reeds. But even that, Paul will go on to say, did not keep them from being seduced by idolatry and thus falling short of the prize (9:24-27).²⁴⁹

3. And in connection with the cloud and with the sea they all immersed themselves into Moshe (10:2). Therefore, the immersion into Moshe means being united with him, accepting his vision, goals and leadership. The Israelites did this by trusting him in connection with the cloud and in connection with the Sea of Reeds. Translations which have the Israelites being immersed in the cloud and in the Sea of Reeds are misleading – according to the TaNaKh they were next to or under the cloud, and they passed on dry ground between walls of sea water on either side of them. Rather, as an anonymous critic has pointed out, it was the Egyptians who were “baptized in the sea, well and truly!” Nevertheless, there is an analogy here between the immersion into Moshe and immersion into Messiah (Romans 6:3; Galatians 3:27; First Corinthians 1:13-15 and 12:13), just as in the following verses the food and drink are in some measure analogous with the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.²⁵⁰ The Corinthians had been immersed into the Body of Messiah (12:13), of which He is the Head (Ephesians 1:22), and in whom they trusted (Matthew 12:21; Ephesians 1:12).

4. Also, they all ate the same food (manna) pertaining to the Spirit (10:3). The manna they ate uniquely points to the Lord’s Supper. The manna given in the desert is called “spiritual food” because it was in no way a product of nature but grain from heaven and the bread of angels (Psalm 78:24-25), a gift from the Ruach Ha’Kodesh. It’s origin was spiritual, and thus, although it nourished the body, which Yeshua points out so forcibly in John 6 on His teaching on the Bread of Life, this manna should also have had an effect upon the soul.²⁵¹ The Corinthians too had eaten bread from heaven (John 6:31-34).

5. And they all drank the same drink from the Spirit – for they drank from a Spirit-sent Rock which accompanied them, and that Rock was the Messiah (10:4), he was quoting from a story later written in the Talmud (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Ei – The Oral Law), that from the time that Moshe struck the rock at Horeb and brought forth water until the death of Miriam (Numbers 20:1), this water-giving rock “accompanied the children of Isra’el through the desert and provided water for them each day” (Taanit, 9a Bava Metzia, 86b). Throughout the TaNaKh, there are several instances where the title Rock (Hebrew: tzur) is directly associated with YHVH (Deuteronomy 32:4, 15 and 32:30-31; Isaiah 26:4 and 44:8). Yes, Paul says, a little of the story from the Talmud is true: a rock did accompany Isra’el throughout the desert wandering, a rock out of which they kept drinking all the time. But this was not the rolling boulder of the legend. This was a mass of rock that was far greater and far higher and entirely spiritual in its nature: That rock was Yeshua Messiah. The word Paul uses here for Rock is not petros, meaning a small stone or pebble, but petra, meaning a massive immovable cliff, rock or ledge, just like the one at Caesarea Philippi (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Fx – On This Rock I Will Build My Church). Messiah was also the source of supernatural water for the Corinthians. Yeshua had said: Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them (John 7:37b-38).

Nevertheless, despite all the blessings above, Paul told the Corinthians, the Israelites failed to obtain the prize: With the majority of them God was not pleased, so their bodies were strewn across the desert (10:5). All Isra’el, both believers and unbelievers, had been graciously blessed (see the commentary on Romans Cp – The Grief of Isra’el’s Past Paradox), liberated and sustained by the LORD in the wilderness, but in the “race,” that test of obedience and service, of being a witness to the world, most of them were disqualified (9:24-27). They misused and abused their freedom and their blessings. In self-centeredness and self-will they fell into temptation, and then into sin, as the book of Numbers can attest. Overconfidence was their undoing.

Many of the disqualified Israelites were believers who became unfit for God’s service. They became what Paul refers to as vessels of dishonor. They had not cleansed themselves from youthful lusts and had not pursued righteousness, faith, love and peace. They had not called upon the Lord out of a pure heart (Second Timothy 2:21-22 Berean Study Bible). As a result, they were scattered around the desert like pieces of broken vessels that were no longer useful. Since this was so, the Corinthians’ complacency in matters of self-discipline and their corresponding fondness for self-indulgence required immediate attention.²⁵²

Our freedom in Messiah is not meant to lead us to self-indulgence, but to selfless service (see the commentary on Galatians Bu – Brothers and Sisters, You were Called to Freedom). Now these things took place as prefigurative historical events, warning us not to set our hearts on evil things as they did (10:6). While a variety of sinful behaviors can be considered here, although the connection remains only implicit in the argument, the echo of Numbers 11:1-3 sounds ominous for those Corinthians who desire to eat meat sacrificed to idols.²⁵³

Paralleling the five blessings enjoyed by Isra’el in the new found freedom from Egypt, Paul proceeded to recount five failures experienced by Isra’el during that time.

1. Paul began by summarizing the sad cry: Give us meat to eat (see the commentary on Numbers Bs – The Complaining at the Kivrot Ha’Ta’avah)! The Israelites named the cemetery for those who were killed Kivrot Ha’Ta’avah, meaning graves of the craving. ADONAI gave them what they wanted, but while the meat was still between their teeth, He struck them with a plague. The application to the Corinthian situation was obvious: To sum up, if food will be a snare for my brother, I will never eat meat again, lest I cause my brother to sin (8:13).

2. Don’t be idolaters, as some of them were – as the TaNaKh puts it, “The people sat down to eat and drink, then got up to indulge in revelry” (10:7). The warning against idolatry was very relevant to the conditions in Corinth. Paul quotes Exodus 32:6, where eating, drinking and dancing point to a typical idol festival. Often such a festival degenerated into debauchery. For those believers who thought they could freely take part in idolatry, Paul intended, with illustrations like this, to knock out the false props which supported their behavior before God intervened and took their lives like the immoral brother (see Ba – Failure to Discipline an Immoral Brother).²⁵⁴ He would not have His name dragged through the mud of their spiritual adultery.

3. And let us not engage in sexual immorality, as some of them did, with the consequence that 23,000 died in a single day (10:8). In the Israelites case, the immorality associated with idolatry (Numbers 25:1-2), which also characterized much pagan worship in the first century. But the Corinthians indulged in immorality in contexts other than idolatry, as instances of rebuke in 5:1 and 6:18 illustrate. As God had brought death to the immoral among the Israelites (Numbers 25:4-9), He could also do in Corinth as with the case of the immoral brother above. This was a sobering thought for those who could flaunt their freedom in Messiah because everything seemed permissible to them (6:12 and 10:23).²⁵⁵

Was Paul in error when he said that 23,000 died in a single day? Some have linked Paul’s 23,000 with the 3,000 who died in Exodus 32:28. But it is clear that here in 10:5-10, Paul drew all his illustrations from the book of Numbers. And in Numbers 25:9 it records how 24,000 people died as a result of God’s judgment. It seems that the Numbers account records the total of those who died, including the leaders, who apparently numbered one thousand (see the commentary on Numbers Ae – The Issue of Rounded Numbers). Paul’s figure of 23,000 refers only to those who perished in the plague.²⁵⁶

4. And let us not put the Messiah to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by snakes (10:9). Because God took the Isrealites on a longer route to the Promised Land, their tempers grew short because of the detour and they spoke against God and against Moshe saying: Why did you bring us up out of Egypt? To die in the desert? Ha’Shem sent poisonous snakes and many of Isra’el’s people died (Numbers 21:4-6). Paul’s point is that the Corinthians’ challenge of his former prohibition against their attending pagan meals was actually putting Messiah to the test like the ancient Israelites had put ADONAI to the test in the desert. They wanted to eat at the Lord’s Table and the table of demons.²⁵⁷

5. And don’t grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the Destroying Angel (10:10). The verb grumble is used a number of times of the Israelites complaining against ADONAI, a complaint followed in each case by suitable punishment. The people also spoke rebelliously against God’s appointed leaders Moses and Aaron (see the commentary on Numbers Cw – The Rebellion of Dathan and Abiram). Grumbling against God calls down divine punishment.²⁵⁸ Paul was facing a similar situation (see Ai – Divisions in the Church at Corinth).

These things happened to them (the Exodus generation) as prefigurative historical events, and they were written down as a warning to us who are living in the acharit-hayamim, or the end times (10:11). These were examples and warnings to the Corinthians that the God with whom they were accountable, who was bringing His people to a close at the end of days, was the same God who disciplined the Israelites with death, and could do so again (11:30). If the Exodus generation met such a horrifying end by rejecting the spiritual Messiah who nurtured them throughout their journey, how much more the Corinthians would be condemned by rejecting the risen Messiah.²⁵⁹

Paul now brings this review of Isra’el’s history to its conclusion by directly applying these warnings to the believers in Corinth. Therefore, let anyone who thinks he is standing up be careful not to fall (10:12)! The Bible is full of examples of the dangers of overconfidence. The book of Esther, for example, centers around the plan of a proud and overconfident man who saw his plan backfire. King Ahasuerus of Persia promoted Haman to be his second in command, with the instructions for the people to bow before Haman as they would the king. Mordecai, however, would not bow down to him, and when the proud and arrogant Haman was told that Mordecai was a Jew, he persuaded Ahasuerus to declare an edict that would give him revenge on all the Jews in the land by having them destroyed. Through the intercession of Queen Esther, Haman’s evil plan was exposed, and in the process Haman was impaled on the pole he had set up for Mordecai (Esther 7:1-10), who was given all of Haman’s possessions and the royal honor Haman had expected for himself (see the commentary on Esther Cf – The Greatness of Mordecai).

Just as the Israelites kept falling into temptation and sin in spite of their redemption from Egypt, the same thing can happen to us. Thus, those who feel confident that they could be disciplined by falling under the Lord’s judgment should watch out, lest they do so. This warning will soon lead Paul back to the specific issue of participating in banquets at idol temples.²⁶⁰ If the Corinthians thought that their standing in Messiah and corresponding freedom could be exercised in sin with impunity, they were wrong . . . possibly dead wrong.

None of us are immune to temptation. Given the right situation, you and I are capable of any sin. God knows this, so He has assigned us as individual believers the responsibility of keeping each other on track. The Bible says: Encourage one another daily . . . so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness (Hebrews 3:13 NIV). “Mind your own business” is not a phrase that we should be using. We are called and commanded to be involved in each other’s lives. If you know someone who is wavering spiritually right now it is your responsibility to go after them and bring them back into the fellowship. James tells us: If you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back (James 5:19 The Message).²⁶¹

After a strong warning about self-confidence and pride, Paul gives a strong word of encouragement about God’s help when tempted. No temptation has seized you beyond what people normally experience, and God can be trusted not to allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. After kicking out the props of their false security, Paul pointed to the One on whom the Corinthians could rely. The temptations that seized the Corinthians were like those people had always faced. They could be met and endured by depending on God, who is faithful. On the contrary, along with the temptation he will also provide the way out, so that you will be able to endure (10:13). Part of the problem, of course, was that some, in the face of temptation, were not looking for a way out by endurance, but a way in for indulgence.²⁶²

Reading between the lines, it was as if Paul were saying, “There is no risk of failing as long as the Corinthians were dealing with ordinary temptations. God would help them through such temptations. But that would not be the case with idolatry. The way out in that case is simply put: run from idolatry, which is the concern of what Paul says next (see Bs – The Truth About Idolatry).²⁶³

The Danger of Overconfidence
10: 1-22

The exercise of our freedom in Messiah, absent self-control, can lead to excess. And excess, if left unchecked, can disqualify our witness to those around us. That’s the point Paul wanted to hammer home. And he used a perfectly appropriate biblical illustration to do so.

The Israelites were supposed to be a witness to the world. They suffered as slaves under the iron-fisted rule of the wicked pharaoh’s of Egypt. In rather dramatic fashion, YHVH delivered His people and led them to the safety of their own Land. ADONAI led them by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He led them through the Sea of Reeds. He supernaturally provided them with daily food and water. Yet, with all of those blessings and daily reminders of God’s presence and provision, they set their hearts on evil things (10:6) and became immoral idolaters. Consequently, some were destroyed by snakes (10:9). Still others were destroyed by the Destroying Angel (10:10). At one point 23,000 died in a single day (10:8). And eventually that entire generation died in the wilderness. Their hard-hearted behavior disqualified their witness. This is the lesson we can learn from.

What we’re sensing from the pen of Paul is the tension that exists between our freedom in Messiah and legalism. Legalism involves a man-made list of rules that, by their very nature, tend to be arbitrary and will differ from person to person. Legalism is the mentality that says God gave us 613 commandments in the Torah (365 negative mitzvot and 248 positive mitzvot), but still, He left out a few. So, we’re going to help Him out by adding to the list. Not only that, we’re going to judge others who don’t follow our rules. Invariably, however, when we add to the list, we come up with a catalog of absolute statements for which we have no scriptural backing. The comforting thing about such a list is that we don’t have to exercise any sort of discernment; we just keep the rules. Black and white. Problem is, with no scriptural backing, many people rebel against the list and are viewed by others who are devoted to the list as sinful and unspiritual.

That being said, if we opt for freedom in Messiah versus legalism, we quickly encounter the reality that for me, everything is permitted? Maybe, but as far as I am concerned, I am not going to let anything gain control over me (6:12). In other words, exercising my freedom in Messiah, if left unchecked, might result in behaviors that are harmful rather than beneficial. I might even find myself mastered by, or addicted to, something that might ultimately lead to my testimony to others being disqualified. Therefore, Paul rightly opted for freedom in Messiah over legalism, but with this one caveat: Don’t let your freedom in Messiah do to you what it did to the Israelites.²⁴⁷

With that in mind, Paul tells them to run away from idolatry. In more literal terms, they separate themselves completely from anything even close to idol worship. This echoes the reaction of Joseph who literally bolted from a woman attempting to seduce him (Genesis 39:7-12). It’s not that the man-made idols themselves had any power, Paul continues, but the demons lurking behind them did. Participating in the Lord’s Supper connected them to Him. And in the same way, the Corinthians would become sharers with demons if they willingly participated in pagan sacrificial feasts.

One of the surest ways to fall into temptation and sin is to become overconfident. Many of the Corinthians thought that they felt perfectly secure in how they conducted their lives. They had arrived. Paul surely had that attitude in mind with his sarcastic rebuke of 4:8-14. They were saved, baptized, well taught, lacking no spiritual gift, and presumably mature. They thought they were strong enough to freely associate with pagans in their ceremonies and social activities and not be affected morally or spiritually, as long as they did not participate in outright idolatry or immorality. But, Paul tells them they were self-deceived.

When a believer becomes so confident of his strength that he thinks he can handle any situation, he is overconfident and in great danger of falling. Paul summarizes: Therefore, let anyone who thinks he is standing up be careful not to fall (10:12)! The danger is not falling from salvation, but of falling from holiness and disqualifying our witness to the world. It is a serious danger that the Lord does not take lightly.²⁴⁸