Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”

1 Corinthians 10: 6-7

A most interesting man once told me that “man hasn’t created a new god in the last hundred years.” He comes from a mix of religious traditions which include hundreds of thousands – even millions of gods. Still, there is a ring of truth to what he said – there are no new gods, but there are plenty of false idols and ways to rebel against God.

In the passage above, Paul lists several of the failures of the first generation of Israelites after they were delivered from Egypt and he begins with the idea of idolatry.

Before we reject the idea of idolatry, let’s remember that anything we give preference to ahead of God is, in fact, an idol. He warned the people of Israel to have “no other gods before Me” and that message is still true for us even if we don’t worship statues made of wood and stone. But are we not susceptible to the same false gods as the newly freed people of Israel?

Paul’s language of eating and playing speaks to the pursuit of pleasure and sexual immorality. How many do we know who are caught up in something similar?

We do not have to continue to fall and fail, we can learn from the failures of those who have gone before us. The examples have a purpose for the church in Corinth and in our own lives in 2023.