Thursday prior to Lent 3

 

1 Corinthians10:1-13–St. Paul pleads with his hearers to turn from their sin (repent) to avoid destruction. He uses lessons to be learned from the Israelites’ experiences in the wilderness. The gist of Paul’s pleading: don’t think that just because you were baptized and receive Holy Communion, you are safe from sinning. Look at the Israelites who were baptized into Moses and ate supernatural food. They perished for their sins. Christians can sin, too. Pride goes before a fall. Do not be smug and think you have it made, that nothing can happen to you, and that you are safe from God’s judgment. Yet God will provide an escape from temptation to sin that you need not perish. As Christians, you need to live a life of daily repentance.

Paul encourages his readers to turn from sin, to repent to avoid destruction. He cites lessons to be learned from Israel’s experience in the wilderness.

Paul writes a warning to Christians to beware of indulging in immorality. He cites the example of the Hebrews in the wilderness who had the supernatural food of Christ; according to Paul, and still failed morally to the point that God was not pleased with them and overthrew them. Paul warns that the Israelites were confident of themselves, but they fell away, and goes on to warn Christians to take care lest they, too, fall.

Fifty million freshmen can be wrong! Truth and the issues of life are not determined by majority vote. Lent is a reminder of this very fact, as we can see in our text that God was not pleased by the attitudes and actions of most Israelites who had been set free from Egyptian bondage. The greater part of this special people was wrong and so perished. The apostle introduces these “fathers” as examples and warns us v.6 of the false security and even indifference that have their source in the failure to realize that the majority can be wrong.

A prayer for newness of life in Christ – Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon ourselves the armor of life, now in the time of this mortal life, in which Your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility, that in the last day, when He shall come again in glory to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal  .[1]

T

---

[1] Collect for newness of life in Christ, Lutheran Service Book, © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis

[1]

---

[1] Collect for newness of life in Christ, Lutheran Service Book, © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis