WWUTT 1558 Speaking as to Prudent People (1 Corinthians 10:15-22)

When we partake of the elements of the Lord's Supper, the bread and the cup, are we not partakers in the sacrifice of Christ?

So be careful that you don't become partakers in worldly things that are demonic when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study in the book of 1 Corinthians, chapter 10, and I'm going to start by reading verses 15 to 24.

This is in the Legacy Standard Bible, the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. I speak as to prudent people, you judge what

I say. Is not the cup of blessing, which we bless, a sharing in the blood of Christ?

Is not the bread, which we break, a sharing of the body of Christ?

Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body. For we all partake of the one bread.

Look at the nation of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices sharers in the altar?

What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is anything or that an idol is anything?

No, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God.

And I do not want you to become sharers in demons. You cannot drink the cup of the

Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake in the table of the Lord and the table of demons.

Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable.

All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but that of the other person.

So Paul continues to lay out the principles here and even gives application. That's what we read in the latter portion of that and continues to give application, which we'll get to next week.

Hopefully be able to finish up 1 Corinthians 10 next week. So remember, this is still under the topic of food that's been sacrificed to idols, which

Paul had started talking about back in chapter eight. So in chapter eight, verse four, therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world and that there is no

God but one. So an idol is an empty thing. There's nothing to an idol. Therefore, anything that is sacrificed to an idol is not in and of itself defiled.

It's not like some evil spirit has entered into that food because those idols are not inhabited by these false gods that they represent anyway.

So just because a food was sacrificed to an idol, that does not mean that some false

God inhabits that food and therefore you don't defile yourself by eating it. Jesus even said food goes in the stomach and then it's expelled.

That's it. Food does not make the body unclean. It's what comes from the heart that makes a person unclean.

So Paul goes on to say in chapter eight, verse eight, food will not commend us to God.

We neither lack if we do not eat, nor do we abound if we do eat.

So all of this to say that whether the food is sacrificed to an idol or not, is not what makes you unclean.

But we still must be mindful of one another. If you have a brother who sees you eat something that was sacrificed to a false

God and by seeing you do that, they think to themselves, well, it's okay then if we if we participate in some of those pagan practices that we used to be a part of.

Apparently, there's nothing wrong with that because my friend over here, my brother in the Lord was eating food sacrificed to a false

God. And so then they start going after sins that God has absolutely forbidden.

And then by their actions, they fall by your witness to that brother.

You have sinned as well. You've sinned before Christ. That was some of the principles that Paul was laying out there in chapter eight.

So he's coming back to that here in chapter 10. And he says in verse 15,

I speak as to prudent people. You judge what I say, a prudent person is going to give thought to their actions.

They're going to think about what it is they're doing and the kind of ramifications that it's going to have short term and long term.

And now this is something that you can witness in our world today is just not something people think about.

There's not a lot of prudent people out there, especially not working in politics and for the government. Right. Think about inflation that's going on in our culture right now.

The amount of debt that we're racking up in the United States, President Biden has passed how many trillion dollar bills, the the the laws that he has or the budgets rather that he's passed and how many trillions of dollars all of that has cost.

There is no thought to the future when a politician does something like that. It's not just Biden.

I mean, this has been happening before. It's kind of like spending is no big deal to a president anymore.

I remember back when Reagan was president and some of the debt that we were racking up there and all the the numbers that would get thrown around about billions of dollars that generation 40 years ago had no premonition of being trillions of dollars in debt.

But that's exactly where we are. It's a number so high you will never count to it in your lifetime. That's why a trillion is it would take you 30 years to count to a billion.

If you were counting one number every second like we use these words that just get thrown around representing these massive numbers and we just don't give any thought to exactly how big a number that is.

But the reason why all of this massive spending is going on is because people who work in our government are not prudent.

They are not thinking about the economic ramifications this is going to have on a future generation and even past economists when they were asked about this kind of thing, about creating a welfare state and and using the money that was in the public coffers now for things that we needed to do and things like that.

When those economists were asked what sort of damage is this going to do to the economy in the future?

What's going to be the effect on the economy in a future generation? Those economists would respond, won't matter, we'll be dead.

So see, they don't even care how this is going to affect a future generation. We want to know how we can benefit now.

That's lacking prudence when you're not giving thought to the future, when you're not giving thought to how your actions are going to affect yourself, others, future generations.

You may skip out on family devotionals and not think that that's any big deal. I'm not talking about skipping one or two devotionals.

I'm saying you just don't make reading the Bible and talking about it with your kids a regular practice and you think it's no big deal.

They go to church. What kind of future ramification is that going to have? See a person who is prudent is going to recognize

I'm going to be diligent with my children to raise them up in the instruction and the discipline of the

Lord, because that's what God has instructed me to do. And I know that it will be the work of the spirit upon their hearts that will transform them from being unbelievers, from being inherently sinful, born in the line of Adam to a person who fears

God and desires to obey him. That's a work of the spirit that is done in their hearts. But that work is not going to be done in their hearts if you are negligent in teaching them what you have been taught according to the scriptures, what others have given to you, what we find in the

Bible. It is a job that we have as parents that God has given to each and every mother and father to fathers, especially because that's who is being spoken to in Ephesians chapter six, that we would raise up our children in the discipline and the instruction of the

Lord. And we give thought to what, how that shapes their future, how that shapes their morality, the decisions that they're going to make someday when they get older and they leave the home and they're out on their own.

And they're balancing differences between right and wrong when they're facing things that are going on in the culture in their day that we did not have to face in ours.

We've equipped them to face anything because we've given them the word that is greater than every other word, that though heaven and earth will pass away, the words of Christ will never pass away, as it says in Mark 13 31.

So we've given them objective truth that endures in any age. And that way, with this truth, they will know how to navigate the times in which they live.

We're giving thought to that. We're being prudent, responsible with that which the

Lord has entrusted us with, has made us stewards of, and that is children.

We are stewards of these children that God has given to us, that we may shepherd them according to what the word of God says and giving thought to their future and teaching them that there are consequences for our actions, both good and bad.

That's being prudent. And so Paul is addressing a church here that he says is prudent.

He says, you give thought to your actions. Now, that's a very complimentary thing for Paul to say.

He's not rebuking the church to say that I speak as to a prudent people.

Of course, he doesn't necessarily say to them, you are prudent either. He's speaking to a people that he's hoping are really going to give thought to their actions.

And some of them there in the church in Corinth do and others do not. Some are taking their

Christian liberty and they are doing whatever they want to with it and thinking, see, I can do this with immunity and there's no problem with me doing this at all because I know that I'm forgiven my sins.

And hey, eating food doesn't defile me at all. So I can still go to those pagan temples.

I can still buy in the meat markets. I can still eat this food and nothing bad is happening to me as a result.

But are they giving mindfulness? Are they thinking about what their actions are communicating to other people, even to unbelievers?

Because Paul brings up unbelievers in this chapter as well. We'll get to that next week. So he says, I speak as to a prudent people as to a people who need to give thought to their actions, what kind of effect their actions have on other people, on themselves and even on other people.

Because remember, you can and we talked about this yesterday. You can think that I can partake in this and there's nothing wrong with it.

But once you start flirting with different sins and you start thinking about how you can get as close to sinning as possible, but without ever actually crossing the line, then your attention is actually on the sin and is not on Christ.

And if you're not careful, you are jumping right over into sinfulness and then idolatry because you're exalting something to the place of God where you can't be satisfied.

You can't be happy unless you have that thing. Some of us think that some of us think too highly of ourselves, we think we're stronger than we really are so we can get close to this temptation and not actually give into it.

And so when Paul says, I speak as to a prudent people, he's also speaking to a people or thinking about a people who give thought to their actions and what kind of effect those actions will have on themselves.

So they're thinking about how their actions affect them and how their actions are going to affect other people.

I speak as to a prudent people, you judge what I say. And of course, as we consider the words here of the

Apostle Paul, we know that this is true. We know that the word that he is giving to this church is a word that comes not from himself, not from the mind of man, but comes from the mind of God.

He says in verse 16 that he gives these examples. OK, and here's where he's going with these examples, because, again, we're talking about food that's been sacrificed to idols in pagan temples.

Food that's been sacrificed to idols. Well, what about this food that we eat or drink when we're at the

Lord's table? Do we not become partakers with Christ when we when we do those things together?

So think about that. Think about the elements of the Lord's table. Think about these ordinances that we've been given by God.

We're partakers with Christ in these things. So how about that food that you're eating that comes from a pagan temple?

Are you not putting yourself at risk of partaking with a false God, even though an idol is an empty thing?

But what if in your mind you think that's what's happening? Or as Paul is given it in chapter eight, you're causing your brother to think that he's partaking with a demon when he eats meat that comes from a pagan temple.

We must certainly be careful of the kind of company that we keep when we eat, not just what we eat, but who we're eating it with.

And that all plays into this here that these examples that Paul gives. So, again, going on into verse 16 is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ.

So the cup that we partake in at the Lord's table, which represents the blood of Jesus that was spilled for the forgiveness of sins, we bless this cup, we partake of this cup, do we not share in the blood of Christ?

So Jesus took these elements in the upper room before he had even died. They were symbolizing the body that was going to be broken in the blood that was shed for the forgiveness of sins.

He was giving it to his disciples as symbols before he even died. This was the night of his arrest, the day before he was to be crucified.

He passes a cup and he says to them, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

And they drink of the cup. He takes bread and he breaks the bread. I'm going in reverse order here in the in the elements that Jesus passed to them.

But it's also the way that Paul presents it here. So he starts with the cup is not the cup of blessing, which we bless a sharing of the blood of Christ is not the bread, which we break a sharing in the body of Christ.

So Christ broke bread and he passed it to his disciples and he said, this bread is my body, which is broken for you.

And when we partake of these things, we are partaking in that which has been given to us by God in remembrance until he comes.

Paul will say that later when we get to first Corinthians chapter 11, he says, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the

Lord until he comes. First Corinthians 11, 26. He's going to get to the the elements of the

Lord's table and the proper practice of the Lord's supper when we get to first Corinthians 11, the very next chapter.

So here's saying the cup of blessing, which we bless. It's a sharing in the blood of Christ. When we eat of the bread, we are sharing in the body of Christ.

Since there is one bread that is Christ, we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one bread, which represents what it represents,

Christ's body that is broken for us. And that's probably the reason why Paul presents these elements in reverse order.

Instead of Jesus passing the bread and then passing the cup, he puts it in reverse order because he has a particular point that he's making regarding the bread.

There is one bread that has one symbol of Christ. And it is it's also necessary for him to bring this up as he does so here, because as he gets back to it in chapter 11, he's going to talk about how the or he's going to confront even how the

Corinthians have been using their agape feasts as kind of a communion meal. And that's not how communion is to be conducted.

It's not all of these different food elements all over the table. There's bread. That's what

Jesus gave us as the symbol of his body that was broken for us. He gave us bread. He broke bread with his disciples.

And so therefore, the elements of communion should include the bread and the cup. And that's it, because those are the ordinances.

That's what it is that Jesus said for us to partake in and remember him through that we partake of the bread and we drink of the cup.

So there's one bread. There's not multiple elements to the Lord's table. There's one bread.

And since there's one bread, we who partake in this, we share the body of Christ.

We are one body for we all partake of that one bread. Now, you'll notice that's been something that Paul has confronted with the

Corinthians over the course of this letter. How divided they are, the factions that have developed among them because of the different squabbles that they have or that they're not properly even practicing church polity.

The instructions that Christ give gave on disciplining one another. They're tolerating sin.

They're following different teachers and dividing themselves based on the teachers that they like.

Some of them even following false teachers will get to first Corinthians 15. And Paul rebuked some of those that have that are even doubting that Jesus Christ truly rose bodily from the grave.

So because of the different things that are happening here in Corinth, the church is very divided. They're not truly loving one another.

They're not being mindful of each other. And so when Paul says, I speak as to prudent people, he's speaking as if they truly give thought to the decisions that they make, the kind of consequences that these decisions have.

So think about this now, Paul says, think about that. When we partake of these elements of Christ, we're sharing with Christ and we're one body together in Christ Jesus, a point he's going to continue to come back to over and over again, especially when we get to the love chapter in first Corinthians 13, they're not loving.

The Corinthians have not been loving. They have not been considering others needs ahead of their own. And so consider your action.

Give thought to your actions. Look at the nation of Israel. Paul says, verse 18 are not those who eat the sacrifices sharers of the altar.

The Levites were given a portion of the sacrifices that were offered on the altar that they might eat of it and therefore even partake in the sacrifice that is being offered.

There were those that brought sacrifices to the temple and even portions that they were supposed to eat as a matter of their sacrifices.

Remember the the sacrifice of the lamb in the Passover, so they kill the lamb, they use the blood to put on the doorposts and then they eat the lamb.

That was the very first Passover. And then they remember Passover every time after that by eating the lamb, the lamb that is prepared in the way that God has said it is to be prepared.

And they partake in this sacrifice. So the Israelites partakers of the sacrifices sharers in the altar.

What do I mean then? Paul gets to the point in verse 19 that a thing sacrificed to idols is anything or that an idol is anything.

No, that's a question he'd already answered back in chapter eight. So he's not making an argument that an idol is anything, that it's actually a

God, that there's actually some kind of a spirit in it, that the food that you eat there that has been a sacrifice to the idol is actually made you defiled.

No, but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God.

And I do not want you to become sharers. In demons, you cannot drink the cup of the

Lord in the cup of demons, you cannot partake of the table of the Lord in the table of demons, or do we provoke the

Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? And that question there is something that I've been coming back to over and over again as we've been going through chapter 10, that we think too highly of ourselves and we think we can get close to that temptation as long as we don't cross this line, then we're not really doing anything bad.

Well, if you're focused on the sin, then you're already sinning. If the if the sin is what you desire and you don't desire

Christ, then you desire something that God does not desire for you. And you've already sinned because you desire that sin.

And how do you know when you cross that line and give in to that sin that you'll even be able to come back? How do you know that God won't give you over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done, since that's what it is that your heart desires?

Why do you think that you're stronger than you really are? Christ is the one who has saved us.

Christ is the one who upholds us. He is the way of escape that Paul talked about in verse 13.

So we turn to Christ and cling to Christ. Stop being enticed by the things of this world or the passions of your flesh or the schemes of Satan, thinking that it's so much fun.

It's so good for me because I like it. I love the way that it feels. It makes me feel. And so you go after that thing instead of after Christ.

The more you do that, the more liable you are to fall and find that you were never in Christ in the first place.

You were always still in and of the world. Do not provoke the

Lord to jealousy. Are we stronger than he? Turn to Christ and he will rescue you from these sins and uphold you with his righteous right hand.

We're going to come back to these things and talk about them a little bit more next week. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here in First Corinthians 10.

And I pray that this is convicting. We understand the call to holiness that you have given to us, that we're to be holy as you are holy.

As Jesus said in Matthew five, to be perfect is your heavenly father is perfect. And if we have the grace of God and the righteousness of Jesus Christ that is upon us, then we desire that righteousness, not the unrighteous things of this world, but the wonderful heavenly treasures of God that have been opened up to us by faith in Jesus Christ.

Forgive us our sins. And may we be mindful about our actions. We think about the consequences of our actions.

We think about what kind of effect it's going to have on us. We think about the kind of effect that it's going to have on others.

And may we also think about how we may guide others, our own family members, friends, co -workers, people that we go to church with, how we may guide others in your truth, that we may all be presented before Christ, sanctified on the day of glory.

It's in the precious name of Jesus that we pray. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study.

Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.