1 Corinthians Chapter 10

vs 1

Spiritual forefathers, of course - although there may have been a mix of Jews and gentiles at Corinth, I don't think Paul is discerning between them in the same way he does in Romans. To him, Christians inherit the history of Israel as much as anyone. He makes that pretty clear in Galatians I think.

So our spiritual forefathers were all under the cloud (that represented God's presence) and all passed through the Red Sea (which proved God's power and that he was looking after them).

vs 2

Paul even sees these things as a sort of baptism - a baptism into the covenant of the Mosaic law. Interesting to note, there, that in such a pattern it goes salvation (saved from Egypt), baptism (through cloud and Red Sea walk), and then discipleship (giving of OT Law).

vs 3-4

Why is vs 3 worthy of a verse on its own?

The point being that they were all sustained by God with spiritual food and drink (manna, quails, water from the rock). That rock was Christ, apparently. I'm not sure what Paul means there. Christ could have literally been the rock that followed them around and gave them water, I guess. But surely Paul instead must be drawing an allusion to our modern Christian lives. In that case, then Christ is the "living water" which we have all received as Christians.

vs 5

But look! Our spiritual forefathers, the Israelites, who were saved, baptised, discipled, and given God's food and drink, they were still not pleasing to God - most of them ended up dead in the desert because of their grumbling and their lack of faith. Not a good sign for us, is it?

vs 6

They are to be an example to us, so we can say "Don't make the same mistakes as those Israelites! Look at everything they had! It was so much more obvious to them that God was following them around, and they were still stubborn and stupid!" (no, I'm not anti-Semitic: the Israelites were a bunch of dullards thanks to their humanity, not their descent from Shem)

vs 7

Sounds like some sort of Mooby the Golden Calf was involved there. It really beggars belief how stupid we can be, when God has clearly revealed himself, and yet we just womble around going "derpy derp derp, I think I'll worship this calf that Aaron made. Why not - I mean, it is made of gold..."

vs 8

God commanded them to be sexually pure, so they had orgies. I mean, come on. But don't we do the same thing? I mean, I'm writing a sermon currently about being a radical disciple of Jesus, and, really, how well do we stack up to what Jesus asked us, commanded us to do?

vs 9

Snakes on the Plain!

Ok, that had to be done. So some people ignored God and were killed by snakes. So Moses makes that snake out of bronze and lifts it up, and it saves them, so what do they do? They make it an idol. I mean Moses must have been saying, "Oh, come on! You're killing me here!"

vs 10

And, as anyone who has read Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers knows, the Israelites never ever ever ever ever stopped complaining. Moses and Aaron must have been at wits' end by the time they reached the Jordan.

vs 11

All these are given to us as examples, so that we don't make the same stupid mistakes. Now, that doesn't mean that God did them all just so we could see them - God had a loving relationship with Israel, and wanted to save them too. But he's given us the records of it so we can look at them and not make the same mistakes. Did it work? Well... all I'll say is that God is perfect, and that we, like Israel, aren't.