A study of 1 Corinthians 10:14–15
Paul has spent the whole chapter laying out his case about idolatry. He has walked the Corinthians back through Israel’s history in the wilderness, given his reasons, and let the Scriptures speak for themselves. Now, in two short verses, he does two things. He gives a warning, and then he hands the decision back to his readers.
Flee
The translators reach for strong words here. The NIV has Paul telling them to flee, and the NCV says run away. Knox says keep far away, the Jerusalem Bible says keep clear, and Moffatt and the Twentieth Century New Testament say shun it. Phillips puts it most urgently of all: avoid it at all costs. This is not a gentle suggestion. Paul is telling them to put real distance between themselves and anything that takes the place of the true God.
The Living Bible widens the warning to idol worship of every kind, and The Remedy carries that thought all the way home: flee from false gods and all false God-concepts. That takes us past the carved images of Corinth to something far closer to us. An idol does not have to be made of wood or stone. It can be a picture of God that we carry in our minds. A person can be in the right church, keep the right day, and read the right books, and still be bowing before a false God-concept.
Judge for Yourselves
Then Paul says something remarkable. He speaks to them as sensible people, men of good sense, intelligent people, men of discernment, and he tells them to weigh his words and decide for themselves. He has laid out the facts and given his reasons. Now he is saying, in effect, “You need to apply your God-given intelligence to what I have shared, and decide for yourself whether you find it to be the truth.”
We each must decide this for ourselves. No one else can believe for you, not the pastor, not the books you study. All of these contain facts or opinions, and you must apply your own mind to understanding them. Yet we cannot even understand truth without the aid of the Holy Spirit. Our study must be approached with a mind open and ready to follow the Truth wherever it leads. A heart filled with the Fires of Truth and Love will be eager to know and follow the Truth.
Can Facts Lead You Away from God?
So the question is, how do you know the truth? It is possible to follow a line of facts that leads you away from God. Yes, it is. You have to know by personal relationship, by your time spent in communion with Christ, who this Being is and who God is in your life.
A Testimony
My own study of the Shepherd’s Rod movement, founded by Victor Houteff, is the story of being completely convinced that a lie was truth. The God presented in that movement is a vengeful God who is going to destroy those who refuse to accept the truth as given in the writings of the Shepherd’s Rod. I studied each and every lesson, followed every line of thought, and could not find any error. All the Bible texts appeared to say exactly what Victor Houteff said they said. I read every word the man wrote. My Spirit of Prophecy books were read cover to cover, and I could find no error in the way the material was used.
But there was a problem. The people in the movement were cold and vindictive. There was a serious lack of true brotherly love among all the different factions of the movement. There was the need to lord the truth over the women, telling them what they could wear, applying a dress code to women beyond what the men followed. Little things I noticed.
At the same time I was introduced to the writings of the Shepherd’s Rod, I was also made aware of the 1888 material from Jones and Waggoner, and I read everything I could find on this truth that Ellen White supported completely. The more I read, the more I became aware of a different God. This one had a love for fallen humanity. The need to do all the rules perfectly was replaced with a relationship with a personal Christ who had always been my friend.
I moved through the Rod movement still unable to find flaws in the line of truth. Then, somewhere along my journey, I discovered Graham Maxwell’s Conversations About God video series, and that was the truth that began to shift my understanding of the character of God. Still, I did not see clearly enough that the Law lens I was trying to view God through was wrong. Then I came across the Through the 66 series with Graham Maxwell, taking every book of the Bible and asking the question, “What does this tell us about God?”
I could finally see a God who was Love. I understood the missing link: our choices either refine or destroy us. God does not have to destroy us; we do it to ourselves. It was as if all the years of reading the Spirit of Prophecy, the 1888 writings of Jones and Waggoner, and the beautiful way Maxwell presented Christ and the Father finally made sense. My spiritual vision became clearer.
Looking back at the Rod studies, it was now easy to see the lens Houteff had viewed God through. The facts were all there, but the spirit of the God being presented was a lie. Satan’s hand was in that message, putting out the same lies about Christ and the Father that he had been spreading in heaven among the angels.
Later, around 2014, my brother discovered Dr. Tim Jennings and shared his find with me. The message Dr. Jennings brings out in his Bible study classes has given me the tools to go back through all my years of study and refocus on the truth of God: seeing Him as my Healer, the One who is truly for me, never against me.
God Can Be Trusted
The Truth is that God is Love. God can be trusted, and He has poured out every resource heaven has to give for the salvation of humanity. The one thing He cannot do is make up our minds for us. That is exactly why Paul says, “Judge for yourselves.” God will not force belief, and Paul will not either. They set out the evidence and trust us to weigh it.
For me, I discovered that the Bible is truth, and “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). So flee, not only from idols of wood and stone, but from every false picture of God. Examine the evidence, draw your own conclusion, and do it in communion with Christ. Ask of every book and every teaching the same question: what does this tell us about God?
