So, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. You are reasonable people. Decide for yourselves if what I am saying is true. When we bless the cup at the Lord’s Table, aren’t we sharing in the blood of Christ? And when we break the bread, aren’t we sharing in the body of Christ? And though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body. Think about the people of Israel. Weren’t they united by eating the sacrifices at the altar?”
1 Corinthians 10:14-18 NLT
Paul summed up much of what he had been saying with the exhortation to “flee from the worship of idols”. It is worth mentioning what an idol is – it is anything that is worshipped in place of God, and it has a much further reach than statues or figurines. Idol worship won’t necessarily involve bowing with prayers and the like. In Paul’s day, it also included certain practices, such as sexual activity with a prostitute and eating meals with other worshippers. Today, idol worship is still with us, focused on activities, people or objects, any of which can be a problem if they get in the way of the true worship of God.
Paul continued with an appeal to the Corinthian believers, based on his assessment that they were “reasonable people”. Such a person had the rational and mental ability to follow a line of logic in questions that Paul then put to the believers. If we read the previous chapters, we find that issues had emerged around idols, meals, and sexual morality, and the believers in Corinth had adopted sinful practices based on a false understanding of God’s grace and what He expected of them in their Christian walk. Having addressed these issues, Paul then appealed to these “reasonable people” with several questions. He started by doing what all good pastors do – he pointed the people to Christ. The Corinthians obviously were familiar with the sacrament of sharing in the blood and body of Christ at the Lord’s Table. So his first question was simple: when they blessed the cup containing the communion wine and then drank from it, were they not sharing in Christ’s blood? Similarly, when they each took some bread off a single loaf, were they not sharing in Christ’s body when they ate it?
In a subtle way, Paul introduced the concept of unity between believers. Individual believers might have thought that through the grace of God, what other believers thought of them and their behaviour didn’t really matter. But through the lens of Holy Communion, everything changed. By sharing in the sacrament at the Lord’s Table, they were united, one with another. Such a logic, Paul thought, would surely resonate with these “reasonable people”, meaning that they would set aside their marginally divisive but sinful practices and instead prefer one another in their lives of fellowship. Paul wrote to another fellowship of believers in Galatians 3:28, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus”.
So, for us pilgrims, the Christian life is not to be lived alone. It is, of course, possible to be a Christian without attending any church or fellowship. But, of course, by implication, such a Christian is still part of Christ’s body, and even if they are involved in some sinful practice, God will see what is going on and will be grieved by such behaviour. Being present in a fellowship of believers is an essential requirement for a Christian, whenever possible. There, we believers are accountable to one another in Christ, something that we of course understand because we are “reasonable people”.
Dear Heavenly Father. Thank You for the unity we believers have with one another, through Your wonderful Son, Jesus. We praise and worship You today. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 