Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf. (10:14-17)

Paul does an interesting thing here; interesting and brilliant. Appealing to their reason, and asking them to judge the issue for themselves, he brings up communion, mentioning the cup and the loaf. When we all drink of the cup, we participate in Christ’s blood; when we eat of the loaf, we participate in the body of Christ. We all partake of the same loaf, and we are one in the Body of Christ… Right?

Yes, excellent, that’s right.

Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? (10:18)

Why yes, they do participate in the altar.

Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. (10:19-20)

BAM! See what Paul just did?

Back in chapter 8, Paul agreed that an idol is nothing, and that the meat sacrificed to the idol is nothing; it’s just meat. Now, as he sums his argument up, he completely turns it around; when you participate in the meat you know to have been sacrificed to an idol, you are participating in the sacrifice as well as in the meal, just as in the old Jewish system, and in our communion. So, even though the idol is nothing, and you don’t mean anything by it, knowingly eating from the pagan sacrifice is an acknowledgement of the demon it was sacrificed to, and that we mustn’t do.

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he? (10:21-22)

Verse 21 is the bottom line in this controversy; there’s no way around that. You might rightly ask, however, “Didn’t he say eating that food was OK if you understood that an idol is just a hunk of rock, and that having been sacrificed to a non-existent god was meaningless back in chapter 8?”

Yes, he did. Lucky for us, we haven’t quite finished the section yet…