“Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.” Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.”

Twice Paul instructs us to learn from OT examples of sinning against God (vss. 6 and 11). In literary terms, this is called an “inclusio,” sort of like bookends emphasizing what lies between. The overall lesson is that “we would not crave evil like they did.” The urgency of learning these lessons is magnified by the truth that “the ends of the ages have come.”

Some have suggested that as Christian history unfolded, Paul was premature in his assertion, in that after two millennia the end of the ages has still not come, much less in Paul’s day. However, there is a better way to understand this: that the “ends of the ages” had begun in Paul’s day and continue until the present. The sense is that all that happened in the OT past has reached its destination in the Christian era. The Corinthians, and we also, stand in a new age, the dispensation of grace, the time period of God’s plan for this world before judgment comes.

So what lessons does Paul want his readers to learn from Jewish history? The list is straightforward and pointed: avoid idolatry, sexual immorality, and grumbling. All had serious consequences. Concerning idolatry, Paul quotes from Exodus 32:6, when Moses was on Sinai receiving the Law and Aaron was down with the people leading them in idol worship of an Egyptian-styled bovine statue. The term “play” carries sexual overtones, as most commentators point out. Drunken orgies would not be too strong of a description. Given the Corinthians’ issues of eating food offered to idols, “tolerance” (embrace?) of sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 5) and their abuse of the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11), this quote must have had a stinging effect.

The immorality recorded in Numbers, where the Israelites engaged in idolatry (Baal was worshipped by prostituting virgins), incurred the death of 23,000 in one day! The Israelites frequently tried the Lord’s patience and grumbled continuously, invoking God’s severe judgment. Is it not interesting that God is as displeased at grumbling as idolatry and immorality? All these are warnings to the Corinthians and to us today; God takes these things seriously.

Lord, may I learn from the examples of the OT so that I might please You.