Reflections on 1 Corinthians 10:19–20
What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing? But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. (1 Corinthians 10:19–20, KJV)
Paul asks a plain question this morning: is the idol anything? Is the food offered to it anything? The translations I laid side by side answer him with real force. Williams puts it, “Of course not!” Phillips says, “Not at all!” The Remedy says it best for me: the sacrifice is nothing, and the idol is nothing, “for neither have any power.”
No Power in an Idol
There is no healing or restorative power flowing through false idol worship. We are healed and restored by and through our connection with our Creator and Redeemer. Christ has the only answer, the only power to raise the heart, mind, and physical body of humanity above our current condition to a place of healing and restoration.
Made to Become Like Him
We were created to take our place in the universe, to mature, to grow up into the image of God Himself. He even endowed humanity with the power to create living creatures like ourselves, to give our life, to instil our very self, the whole of who we are, into the creation of another life. This gift is what Satan could never have, and his jealousy of it became his hatred of us. Adam “begat a son in his own likeness, after his image” (Genesis 5:3); the image of God passes on through us. This is truly an amazing gift for God to grant to a creation He knew would fail the test, fall into sin and need rescuing. Even so, He chose to go on with the creation of man. God is Love, and it is apparent in every form of life on this planet.
Man is the highest intelligence on planet earth; no other creature here has the reasoning, the heart and the mind of man. And another natural law of life is that we model whatever we take into our minds and hearts as our god. We become like the god we worship. Since this is reality, a proven truth, how can man receive anything good into himself from worshipping an object he has shaped with his own hands? It makes no sense. There is no life or power in a thing made by the hands of man.
Fantasy Is Not Harmless
You can degrade your mind by imagining an idol has something to offer, but that is just a fantasy, magical thinking. Living in a fantasy world, believing it to be true, does not make it so. All it will do is wear down your own mind and heart to the place where reality has no draw for you. The fantasy and the magical are all you will accept as your reality.
The mind that chooses to live unto itself in this way breaks completely with reality and is finally sealed, settled for eternity in a fantasy of its own making. Such a mind is lost to life as it really is.
The First Fantasist
Fantasy has a ruler. To worship idols is to join your heart and mind to the kingdom of magical thinking, ruled over by the king of liars, the first and greatest magical thinker of them all, Satan himself. He got it in his mind that he could be God, that he should be God, that Christ, who is God, was no different from himself. “I will be like the most High,” he said (Isaiah 14:14). He is still living in that delusion, and he passes it on to anyone who will listen. It was the very promise he made in Eden: “ye shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:5). He wanted to be a creator, and he was not and is not. He cannot give life; Jesus called him “a murderer from the beginning” and “the father of it,” of the lie (John 8:44). He can only counterfeit, and his fantasy land is the only creation he has to offer.
Picture someone on a beach, arms raised, crying, “I am God.” It is Eden’s lie all over again, and it is tragic, because the one who believes it is trading the true greatness God offers for a fantasy. We cannot do a thing to save ourselves; we will die just like everyone else, and nothing we declare on a beach will change that. The scene is ridiculous, but the person is someone Christ died for.
Not Nothing After All
And now Paul shows what stands behind that empty idol. It is not nothing after all. It is demons. Phillips calls them “evil spiritual powers.” The Remedy says the sacrifices of pagans are offered “with hearts in harmony with demons.” The idol has no power, but the worship still goes somewhere.
Once you refuse to offer your heart in worship and service to Christ, our God and Creator, the only other thing left to worship, no matter how you dress it up, is demons. Reality, truth, what actually is: this is a narrow way, with only one right answer. We are free to reject reality and truth, but once we reject what is real, every other option is a counterfeit, and the ruler of the counterfeit is the king of demons.
You are free to worship God and grow beyond your wildest dreams, or you can choose to live in the land of the lie, separate yourself from every ennobling truth, and worship the king of demons. There is no future with the devil. His only goal is to take as many with him as he can.
Unmasked at the Cross
He knows the truth about him is out. He was unmasked to the entire universe when he murdered Christ, his Creator. The only place in the universe where anyone will still listen to him is here on earth, and his delusions still have weight here with those who refuse to think for themselves.
You can see who lives in that land by its fruit. The selfish, me-first attitude is the attitude of those living in the lie and worshipping demons. The call to take the easy way, to self-protect, to be safe, is the call of our lower, unhealed natures.
The Mind of Christ
When we worship our God and Creator, we connect ourselves with the only source of life and power in the universe. We can have the mind and heart of Christ in us. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). Imagine it: we can be so connected to Him that our natural response is to love as He loves, to uplift and ennoble everyone we are in contact with. Everyone in our sphere of influence will feel the flow of Love coming down from Christ and flowing through us.
This is the mind of Christ. We are joined to Him when we worship Him by choosing to love others above ourselves.
A quick note: if you received several emails from me yesterday, I’m sorry for the flood, and no, I haven’t been hacked! I’m rewriting my herbal formula posts so they teach each formula in full, with the herbs, proportions and how to make them at home. The rest will be added quietly, and you can find them all in the new Herbal Formulas section of my Herbal Healing Index.
Oct 2, 2026 · @Dara Dietz
