Lessons #317 and 318
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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual delivery not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GW = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+AMP = Amplified Bible, UBS = United Bible Society +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
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Death of some Israelites in the desert (1 Cor 10:5-13)
… 7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.” 8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. 9 We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. 10 And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel. 11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
The message of 1 Corinthians 10:5-13 that we started to consider in our last study is that Enjoyment of God’s blessing under a good spiritual leader will not shield you from His judgment if you displease Him. We indicated that we presented the message of this section as we did, first, because the Holy Spirit conveyed to us through Apostle Paul that the death of majority of the Israelites in the desert was due to God’s displeasure with them. A second reason for stating the message we have given is that the death in the desert of most of the Israelites that left Egypt is to dissuade believers from evil desires that we indicated is the concern of 1 Corinthian 10:6-10. In verse 6, the apostle referenced the evil things the Israelites, the Lord killed in the desert, desired. We stated that the evil things they desired are described beginning from verse 7.
It is our assertion that beginning in verse 7, the apostle began to mention the evil things the Israelites who were killed in the desert desired not only because of the things listed beginning from the verse but also because the Greek begins with a particle that is not translated in the NIV. The Greek particle (mēde) that began verse 7 in the Greek may mean “and not” or “but not.” The word may be used to continue a negation from a preceding sentence. Although there is no word in verse 6 that indicates that a negation is concerned but the concept expressed in it is that which is negative in that the people who died in the desert desired things that are evil. So, it is likely that the apostle was thinking of what should not have been done when he began verse 7 with the Greek particle he did, to convey that what follow are to be viewed as continuation of prohibition against the actions of those who died in the desert that apostle listed. Thus, verse 7 can be taken as either introducing three results of the evil desires of the Israelites who died in the desert, or the verse begins the enumeration of three examples of the evil desires of those that died in the desert.
The first result or example of evil desires of the Israelites the Lord killed in the desert is idolatry as we read in the prohibition given in 1 Corinthians 10:7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. The prohibition here is a general instruction that the Holy Spirit gives through the apostle. It is true the apostle used a present tense in the Greek in the command Do not be that in many contexts may imply an instruction to stop an action that is in progress but that is not the case here. Although some, such as the translators of the ISV, interpret the use of the present tense to mean that the apostle intended for the Corinthians to stop their involvement in idolatry, but the apostle had not indicated that they were involved in idolatry despite their background in idolatry or its lingering effect on some of them as the apostle referenced in verse 7 of the eighth chapter of this epistle. Thus, it is safer to understand the apostle was giving a general instruction of what believers should avoid than instructing the Corinthians regarding stopping something they were involved with as a matter of practice.
The command Do not be idolaters is concerned with entering a state of idolatry. This is first because of the word be is translated from a Greek verb (ginomai) that may mean “to be” although it is different from another Greek word (eimi) that may also mean “to be” in that our Greek word emphasizes that of being what one was not before. That aside, our Greek word has several meanings. For example, it may mean to come into a certain state or possess certain characteristics so it may mean “to become” as Apostle Paul used it to indicate that he possessed temporarily characteristics of others or acted in some respect to others to help them spiritually, as we read in 1 Corinthians 9:20:
To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.
The word may mean to experience a change in nature and so indicate entry into a new condition, hence means “to become something” as Apostle Paul used it to indicate he became a messenger of the gospel of Jesus Christ in Colossians 1:23:
if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 10:7, the word is used in the sense of “to become something” or “to assume a certain state.”
The prohibition that we are considering involves the negative so the apostle described what believers should not be or the state they should not assume in the word idolaters since the command is Do not be idolaters. The word “idolaters” is translated from a Greek word (eidōlolatrēs) that means “image-worshipper, idolater” as the word is used to describe unbelievers in Revelation 21:8:
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
The word is also used to describe a greedy person in Ephesians 5:5:
For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
In our passage of 1 Corinthians 10:7, the word refers to a person who worships a deity in or through material representations.
It is the declaration of the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul that some Israelites who died in desert were idolaters in that they worshipped something other than the supreme God, the creator, that cannot be represented with anything material. In effect, the Holy Spirit tells us that the sin of those Israelites described is idolatry.
3“You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
The giving of the Ten Commandments is an act that followed the Lord’s appearance and speaking to Israel in Mount Sinai in such a way that Israel did not want to hear directly from Him because of how terrifying it was for the Lord to manifest Himself to Israel. Thus, they requested Moses to get words from the Lord and communicate to them. Remember that Israel had been delivered from Egypt where there was idolatry. So, the Lord wants Israel to recognize that it is not permissible for anyone in a covenant relationship with Him to be involved in the so-called other gods. It is for this reason that the first two codes of the Ten Commandments involve prohibition against idolatry. Even after giving of the rest of the Ten Commandments, the Lord immediately focused Israel’s attention to the fact that idolatry was not tolerable by Him, as indicated in Exodus 20:22–23:
22 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites this: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven: 23 Do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold.
Consequently, the Lord not only began Ten Commandments with prohibition against idolatry but before any further communication of His word to Israel, He reinforced the prohibition against idolatry. Therefore, it should not be difficult for us to understand that the Lord takes idolatry to be a serious challenge to His glory that He conveyed through Prophet Isaiah that He would not share with anyone, according to Isaiah 42:8:
“I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.
Anyway, a reason to recognize the gravity of the sin of idolatry is that it is the concern of the first two codes of the Ten Commandments.
Another reason we know that idolatry is a grievous sin before God is that it was considered the great sin of Israel and its kings. During the exodus, Israel committed several sins that included failure to believe the Lord, maligning the Lord and His servants, Moses, and Aaron, as we can gather from the people’s confession in Numbers 21:7:
The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
Despite the many sins of Israel in the desert, none of them was described as “great sin” but when the people got involved in idolatry by the worship of the idol Aaron made at their request, their sin was repeatedly described as “great sin” by Moses. He first stated that in Exodus 32:21:
He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?”
His further description of the sin of idolatry as “great sin” is given Exodus 32:30 -31:
30 The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. But now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”31 So Moses went back to the LORD and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold.
When Israel got involved in fully blown idolatry because of King Jeroboam, their sin of idolatry was described as “great sin” in 2 Kings 17:21:
When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat their king. Jeroboam enticed Israel away from following the LORD and caused them to commit a great sin.
Later in the history of Israel, the Lord threatened great punishment through Prophet Jeremiah, the people of Judah wondered why the Lord would punish them, as recorded in Jeremiah 16:10:
“When you tell these people all this and they ask you, ‘Why has the LORD decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against the LORD our God?’
The Lord’s answer to them is that their sin was that of idolatry, according to Jeremiah 16:11:
then say to them, ‘It is because your fathers forsook me,’ declares the LORD, ‘and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law.
Hence, it should be clear that the Lord considered idolatry the great sin of Israel.
Another way we know of the grievousness of idolatry before God is that Israel was warned constantly by the prophets together with threat of judgment. In the early part of Israel’s history in the land of Canaan, Prophet Samuel warned Israel against it in 1 Samuel 12:21:
Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless.
Prophet Isaiah warned against the fate of those involved in idolatry in Isaiah 44:9–11:
9All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame. 10Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit him nothing? 11He and his kind will be put to shame; craftsmen are nothing but men. Let them all come together and take their stand; they will be brought down to terror and infamy.
Prophet Jeremiah warned of God’s judgment due to idolatry in Jeremiah 16:17–18:
17 My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes. 18 I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin, because they have defiled my land with the lifeless forms of their vile images and have filled my inheritance with their detestable idols.”
Prophet Ezekiel warned of God’s judgment due to idolatry, as we read in Ezekiel 5:8–10:
8 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations. 9 Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. 10 Therefore in your midst fathers will eat their children, and children will eat their fathers. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds.
Prophet Hosea declared the wrath of God against idolatry in Hosea 8:5:
Throw out your calf-idol, O Samaria! My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of purity?
Thus, we can see that these prophets conveyed God’s displeasure to Israel regarding idolatry because God considered it a grievous sin against His person.
Still another way we perceive the grievousness of idolatry before God is that it is one sin that the prophets constantly charged Israel with. This we can see from Prophet Isaiah’ charge against Judah. The prophet spoke of the blessings of the Lord at the end of time, but he surprised his audience who were hoping to enjoy these blessings by indicating they would not, the reason being their involvement in idolatry, as recorded in Isaiah 2:8:
Their land is full of idols; they bow down to the work of their hands, to what their fingers have made.
Prophet Jeremiah charged Judah of blatant idolatry in that they boldly displayed their idol worship in the temple in Jerusalem as stated in Jeremiah 7:30:
“‘The people of Judah have done evil in my eyes, declares the LORD. They have set up their detestable idols in the house that bears my Name and have defiled it.
The setting up of idols in the temple of the Lord certainly refers to the activities of the people because of the influence of King Manasseh who built altars for continuation of his practices of idolatry, as stated in 2 Kings 21:5:
In both courts of the temple of the LORD, he built altars to all the starry hosts.
The prophet makes the same charge of idolatry against Judah by asserting the charge of the Lord against Judah of forgetting Him to turn to idolatry, as we read in Jeremiah 18:15:
Yet my people have forgotten me; they burn incense to worthless idols, which made them stumble in their ways and in the ancient paths. They made them walk in bypaths and on roads not built up.
Prophet Hosea repeatedly accused or charged Israel of idolatry. This charge of idolatry is expressed in several ways in his book both literally and figuratively. Literally, the prophet mentioned Israel’s involvement in idolatry using the word “idol” and “Baal.” The noun “idol” together with the adjective “idolatrous” occurs at least nine times in his book. Consider for example the following two passages:
Hosea 4:17:
Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone!
Hosea 8:4: They set up kings without my consent; they choose princes without my approval. With their silver and gold they make idols for themselves to their own destruction.
The word “Baal” appears six times in the translation of NIV in Hosea. Let me cite two examples:
Hosea 2:13:
I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot," declares the LORD.
Hosea 11:2:
But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images.
Figuratively, Israel’s idolatry is described in terms of prostitution or unfaithfulness to God. For example, the phrase spirit of prostitution appears twice in the book of Hosea. The first usage is in Hosea 4:12:
of my people. They consult a wooden idol and are answered by a stick of wood. A spirit of prostitution leads them astray; they are unfaithful to their God.
In this passage, the prophet charged the people of consulting wooden idols, so it should be clear that he meant that the people were involved in idolatry. Therefore, when he used the phrase spirit of prostitution in the next clause of the same verse, he could not have meant physical prostitution but a spiritual prostitution that means the worship of idols. By the way, the phrase unfaithful to their God is also a figurative description of Israel’s idolatry. The second usage of the phrase spirit of prostitution is in Hosea 5:4:
"Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God. A spirit of prostitution is in their heart; they do not acknowledge the LORD.
The first sentence of this verse points to idolatry because if the people did not return to their God, it must mean they were worshipping idol. So, when in the next sentence of the verse the prophet used the phrase spirit of prostitution, he was certainly using a figurative expression to describe Israel’s sin of idolatry. The point is that idolatry is a grievous sin before God since it is a challenge of His person.
Be that as it may, the command of 1 Corinthians 10:7 Do not be idolaters is one that we should be careful to obey. This is because we modern believers have a myopic understanding of idolatry. We think of it often in terms of only involving the worshipping of the supreme God, the creator, by an image. This may be due to Israel’s experience in the wilderness. The Israelites knew of the existence of the supreme God because they had seen His power demonstrated in their deliverance from bondage in Egypt. They sang a song of praise to the Lord for their deliverance. A stanza of that song recognizes the uniqueness of their God, as stated in Exodus 15:11:
“Who among the gods is like you, O LORD? Who is like you— majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?
Furthermore, God appeared to them in Mount Sinai so that they heard His voice that was certainly terrifying. Consequently, as we stated previously, they asked Moses to represent them before God in the sense of relaying God’s message to them instead of hearing directly from Him, as we read in Exodus 20:18–19:
18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”
Moses complied to Israel’s request in that he continued to be their representative before God, receiving His word to Israel. God spoke to him to convey to Israel that because they have known by experience that He exists, they should not erect any image of worship, as we read in a passage we cited previously, that is, Exodus 20:22–23:
22 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites this: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven: 23 Do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold.
So, there was no doubt in the minds of the Israelites of the existence of the true God. But not too long after this experience, Moses was gone from Israel’s camp to receive the written law from God in Mount Sinai. His absence meant that the people lost the agent of their interaction with God, so to speak. As a result of this, the people clamored and received a representation of God in form of a calf, as we read in Exodus 32:1–6:
1 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” 2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” 5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD.” 6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
The word “gods” in verse 1 is translated from the same Hebrew word (ʾělōhîm) the Israelites used to describe God in their request to Moses not to have God speak to them directly. Hence, Israel’s request to Aaron was because they did not have Moses to serve as one who would go between them and God. This void led them to seek for a means to have a physical representation of the God that spoke to them in violation of His instruction to them. The reason we insist that Israel’s idolatry at this instance is not that they in their minds had set out to replace their God, but they sought to have a physical representation or reminder of their God. Hence, when Aaron finished the calf image, the people declared it as Israel’s God that delivered them from slavery. The point is that idolatry involves use of image to represent the supreme God. Thus, when Moses gave his farewell address to Israel, he reminded them that when the Lord appeared to them, they saw no image of Him, implying that they should not attempt to represent Him with an image, as we read in Deuteronomy 4:15–18:
15 You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, 16 so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, 17 or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, 18 or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below.
The fact we are stressing is that many of us assume that we are not involved in idolatry because we do not represent God with images or do not worship images, but we should understand there is more to idolatry than merely worshipping an image. For this reason, let me elaborate on the concept of idolatry in a manner we could easily relate. I am, of course, going to draw on what I have taught in detail in our study of “Warning against Idolatry” that is available in the Berean Bible Church website.
A form of idolatry that many of us seem not be keyed in is devotion or commitment to things, other than images or so false gods of worship, more than God. In effect, idolatry may involve improper devotion to things so that devotion to God becomes secondary. It is this kind of idolatry that we modern people get involved. In other words, while most people today do not worship images of any kind, but idolatry persists in the sense of a person being more loyal to things other than God. So, to help us understand this kind of idolatry, we will mention some of the things that many may not be aware as idolatry but are.
Idolatry may take the form of being in love with material possessions at the expense of devotion to God, as the Lord Jesus implied in His Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in Matthew 6:24:
“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
The concern of our Lord Jesus in this verse is that of exclusivity and devotion. For example, a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time. Nor can a person show the same level of loyalty to two things that are diametrically opposed to each other. So, our Lord asserts the impossibility of serving two masters at the same time. Thus, it is impossible to show the same devotion to the Lord and material things. The implication is that once a person shows greater devotion to material things than to God, the person is involved in idolatry. The issue is whether we be totally devoted to Lord and avoid materialism. We cannot be materialistic and be devoted to the Lord. Thus, when a person is materialistic that individual is involved in idolatry that involves love and devotion to material things instead of God. We will say more about materialism later.
Anyway, the point of our Lord in Matthew 6:24 is that to serve God requires total devotion. A believer cannot be devoted to wealth in the same sense that such an individual is devoted to God. Because this type of statement is quite easily misunderstood, we need to clarify this. Our Lord is not teaching here that a believer should not show devotion to work or business. If anything, the Scripture requires believers to be the best in everything they do since they must also do it as unto the Lord. To be the best in anything requires devotion. No one can excel in anything without truly being devoted to it. However, the point is that while a believer should work hard, such a person must always have God in the individual’s thinking. How? By constantly remembering God’s word that demands everything must be done to God’s glory. This means that a believer would not be motivated by envy or greed (which we will say more later) in what he does, nor would he be motivated by human glory or praise; instead, he should use whatever work he is involved in as a platform for witnessing for his Savior. Anyway, idolatry may take the form of being in love with material possessions at the expense of devotion to God.
Idolatry does not only take the form of being in love with material things than with God, but it may involve being in love with prestige and power. This, we may gather from Satan’s temptation of the Lord Jesus in which he offered these things in exchange for worshipping him that Luke recorded for us in Luke 4:6–7:
6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. 7 So if you worship me, it will all be yours.”
As we have stated, Satan tempted Jesus with the offer of prestige and power as in the phrase their authority and splendor in exchange for worshipping him. Idolatry, of course, is the worship of any being or object other than the supreme God, the creator. Consequently, when a person is in love with prestige and power such a person worships Satan since such devotion to prestige and power is promoted by him. Thus, idolatry takes the form of love for prestige and power. By the way, when people want power or want their side to win in a power struggle they ignore the truth, that is, an example of idolatry.
Another form of idolatry is “greed” as revealed in Colossians 3:5:
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
What is greed? This question may appear simple because the word “greed” is a common word in English so that every English speaking person seems to know what it is since the Webster Dictionary says it is “a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed.” This is certainly a good working definition, but we need to explore what is said in the Scripture about greed to elaborate on this basic definition. In other words, it is important to understand its meaning from the perspective of God’s word so we can know how to avoid it and to know to confess it when we become guilty of it.
The word “greed” is translated from a Greek word (pleonexia) that in its more basic sense conveys the idea of having more, receiving more, and wanting more, as it pertains to power and property. Exploring the meanings of this Greek word as used in the NT Greek shows that there are three important words involved in understanding the concept of greed. These words are “desire,” “more,” and “need.” These three words create a problem in understanding the concept of greed because they are words that define everyday experience of normal existence of human beings. We all want something, and we want more of it because of our varying needs. Thus, the question is when would more desire for something that we need become a sin? It is the answer to this question that enables us to get a grip on the concept of greed. But before we get to the answer let me make two observations. First, the object of our desires is not limited to material possession but extends to power. Of course, the desire for power is usually related to material possession but we should not think of only material possession when we think of greed; instead, we should recognize that greed extends to the desire of power of control of others. Second, there is nothing wrong with having abundance of things as a concept. You see, abundance of things is related to prosperity. Unless a person has abundance of things, we could not really say that the individual is prosperous in a specific area. But then, it is the Lord that brings prosperity to an individual, as we may deduce from Jacob’s prayer when he reminded God of His promise to prosper him, stated in Genesis 32:9:
Then Jacob prayed, "O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, 'Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,'
In addition, Moses in his final address to Israel, assured them that the Lord would prosper them on the ground that they obeyed Him as he stated in Deuteronomy 30:9:
Then the LORD your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The LORD will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers,
This may appear to be an indirect assertion that God prospers an individual so let me mention a more direct assertion that indicates that the Lord brings prosperity. Prophet Isaiah asserts this in Isaiah 45:7:
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.
If, as we have argued, having abundance of things imply prosperity and that God brings prosperity, then there could be nothing wrong with having more of things. However, the definition of greed as we have noted is that strong desire to acquire more and more material possessions or to possess more things than other people have, often associated with selfishness. Consequently, we must understand clearly when the desire to have more things becomes greed, which is a sin of idolatry.
The desire to have more things becomes a sin whenever it leads us to ignore God. Therefore, whenever you have the desire to have more of anything that is forbidden by the word of God then you are not only sinning, but you are also guilty of greed and so of idolatry. Take for example, stealing is prohibited but if a person has the desire to take what belongs to another, that desire is greed. Subsequently, it is not surprising that in the Ten Commandments, we have the prohibition that certainly guards against greed. I am referring to the instruction of Exodus 20:17:
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
There is another situation in which the desire to have more things would lead us to ignore the word of God. It is the situation in which the desire to have more possessions or power keeps a person from being generous to the truly needy. I am saying that you should consider yourself greedy if because of your desire to have more things you neglect to help the poor. It is God’s instruction that we should help the poor, or should I say those who are poorer than we are since being poor in a sense is a relative concept. I mean that a poor person in one country may be considered rich by standards of living in other countries. Therefore, it is better to say that a person is greedy if the individual’s desire to have more material possessions keeps the person from sharing what the individual has with those who are poorer. In any event, the point we are emphasizing is that if your desire to acquire more and more possessions makes it difficult for you to help those in need then you can be certain that you are greedy. God demonstrated this concept in a practical way by the detailed instruction He gave to Israel about harvesting their crop. He instructed them not to harvest everything in their farms or fields but to leave some of their crops to the poor, as demanded in Leviticus 23:22:
"'When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.'"
A person who obeys this instruction would not be a greedy person. The farmer desires to have more crops harvested but in obeying this instruction he would have just a little less than he would otherwise have if he harvested his entire field. Thus, we get the concept that it is not that we should not desire to have more things or more possessions, only that we should ensure that such desire does not lead us to ignore those who are needy and poor. Whenever we ignore those who are needy and poor purely because we desire to have more possessions, then we are guilty of greed.
Still, there is another dimension to greed. It is having excess of things than one has need of. A person who has more things than he needs is indeed guilty of greed. In other word, when a person has more things in this life than he could possibly use then that person should examine his soul to determine the reason for that state. If it is because the individual wants simply to be selfish then that person is also guilty of greed. Take for example, a lady who has a closet full of clothes and shoes more than she ever wears but continues to buy more is guilty of greed. By the way, if you find yourself exploiting others for your material advantage that also is another form of greed.
We have been expounding on greed because the Scripture describes it not only as a sin but a specific sin of idolatry. Why is it described as idolatry? In a short answer, it is because it involves placing something above God or His word. To understand further why greed is described as idolatry, it may be better to give a one-word term to what we have considered about greed as the desire to have more things at the cost of ignoring God or His word. The one word that describes this today is “materialism” that the Concise Oxford English dictionary defines as “a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values.” Hence, materialism should be understood as the desire to possess things at the expense of one’s spiritual life. In other words, the desire to acquire wealth or power at any cost because one is in love with wealth or power than he is with God is what we mean by materialism. We do not mean that a believer should never desire to enjoy the good things of life that God has created for His children to enjoy. No, we are saying when these things become our focus instead of God and our spiritual life then we find ourselves in materialism. Materialism is one form that idolatry manifests itself today. Thus, a person who is materialistic is involved in idolatry. Anyway, the command we are considering in 1 Corinthians 10:7 is Do not be idolaters. There is more to what the Holy Spirit says through the apostle about this command, but we are out of time, so we continue with it next week.
06/04//21