1 Corinthians 10

http://www.esvbible.org/1+Corinthians+10/

Paul tells the Church at Corinth that they need to learn from the mistakes the Israelites made when they were lost in the desert looking for the Promised Land. They were all following the cloud of God, eating the same food, and drinking the water of Christ that came through the rock, but God was not pleased with most of them; therefore, he killed them before they entered the promised land. We should not desire evil things like those who God killed had done. For example, many of the Israelites worshipped false gods, and when they did so, it turned into an orgy, so Paul uses this time to reiterate how bad sexual sin is. This display angered Him so much that He killed all of those who were involved. We shouldn't try to test the Lord as some of them did. This is not to say that we shouldn't question and study the word to find answers. God encourages that kind of test because He gets to show you how cool He really is. Paul is talking about testing to see if the Lord really is more powerful than us because He is, and He is not afraid to show it. A huge piece is that Paul says not to complain like some of them did. Think about how much you and other people complain. It's just a part of everyday life. But now think about how far it's gotten you: nowhere. God doesn't like when we just complain about the things we can't change. He wants us to pray about and act on the things that we can. I find the next part of what Paul says very encouraging. He says that there is no temptation that we will experience that is unusual for people. That means that there are people out there now who have gone through the same things that you have, and probably more people than you may think. God will also not tempt you beyond what you can resist. This is good. As hard as some of our temptations may seem, God knows that we have the power (with His help) to resist each of them. That is all very encouraging, but there is a big BUT after that. Paul says that sometimes the way of escape is through endurance ,which means we have to live through what the world throughs at us until it finally passes. And the temptations will come on most likely a daily basis.

Paul warns against worshipping false gods. He says that when we bless a drink, we are sharing in Christ's blood, and when we bless our food, we are sharing in Christ's body. Paul says it may be dangerous to eat or drink things sacrificed to a false god because those things are sacrificed to demons, and nonbelievers shouldn't see believers eating things sacrificed to demons. Paul asks why we would even want to associate with false gods. Do we want to make God jealous? Do we want to prove that we are stronger than Him? That's ridiculous! Christians may be allowed to do anything, but it doesn't mean that everything is helpful for us. Paul says that we should only do things that we can do with a clear conscience. It's true that everything on Earth is the Lord's and it was created by Him. If we go to dinner with a nonbeliever, we should eat anything that person serves with a clear conscience, but if they serve something sacrificed to a false god, we should avoid it because of the other person's conscience. If the other person honestly believes in this idol, then they would judge the believer who disrespected it, so why put ourselves through that situation and turn someone off of Christianity? Paul says something I think is incredibly important: DO EVERYTHING YOU DO TO BRING GLORY TO THE LORD.If you live this out, it will change the way you do everything: study, work, even take out the garbage. Do it all to bring glory to the Lord.