Food sacrificed to idols is the meal that joins a table to a false god.
You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam,
so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols
and practice sexual immorality.
What pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.
I do not want you to be participants with demons.
The meal is named with the sin. Balaam taught Balak to put a stumbling block before Israel, so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. Jezebel teaches and seduces the servants of Christ to the same two things. The Jerusalem council told Gentile believers to abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols. Paul says an idol is nothing, and also that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons. The food is not a god. The table can still be a demon’s table.
- False gods receive the sacrifice. Idolatry is the worship. The food is the shared meal of that worship.
- The letter to Pergamum and the letter to Thyatira both name the eating. One is Balaam’s teaching. The other is Jezebel’s.
- Love limits liberty. Food will not commend us to God. Participation with demons is not liberty.
Do not call the meat nothing in every sense. Do not call the idol a god. Abstain from the table that belongs to demons.
They ate food sacrificed to idols.
An idol is nothing.
What pagans sacrifice they offer to demons.
Do not be participants with demons.
- Named with sexual immorality in the letters to Pergamum and Thyatira.
- Balaam’s stumbling block and Jezebel’s teaching are the same pair.
- Acts 15 tells Gentile believers to abstain from it.
- An idol has no real existence. The sacrifice can still be offered to demons.
- The cup of the Lord and the cup of demons are not both to be drunk.
- Liberty in the market is not the same as sitting at the idol’s table.
- The Meal – Eaten as part of idol worship.
- The Pair – Set beside sexual immorality.
- The Teachers – Balaam and Jezebel.
- The Council – Abstain.
- The Idol – Nothing in the world.
- The Table – Participation with demons.
- Revelation 2:14 – “You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.”
- Revelation 2:20 – “You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.”
- Acts 15:29 – “That you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality.”
- 1 Corinthians 8:4 – “We know that an idol has no real existence, and that there is no God but one.”
- 1 Corinthians 10:20-21 – “What pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.”
So that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.
Abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from sexual immorality.
What pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.
The idol is nothing. The table is not nothing. Do not eat what joins you to demons.
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