Hello, this is Pastor Steven Anderson from Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona.
Today I want to talk to you about 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 32 where the Bible reads,
Give none offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God.
Now there's a lot of really strange doctrine that people will twist out of this verse.
Really the verse is saying something very simple when he says, Give none offense, neither
to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God.
He's just saying don't give offense unto anybody.
And the context of course is limited.
He's talking about eating things sacrificed unto idols.
You don't want to offend the church.
You don't want to offend the Jews.
You don't want to offend the Gentiles.
But some people will take this verse and try to extrapolate out of this that there are
three classifications of people in this world.
There are Jews, Gentiles, and there are the church, and the church is separate.
And here's what they'll teach based on this verse, that if a Jewish person gets saved,
they're no longer a Jew because now they're part of the church.
Because in Christ there's neither Jew nor Gentile, it's three separate groups, the Jews,
the Gentiles, and the church, and three distinct groups.
But actually that is a bizarre doctrine.
And let me explain to you some of the reasons why it's bizarre.
First of all, let's just back up in the chapter to verse 18 and see where it says,
Behold Israel, after the flesh are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the
altar.
So God makes a distinction between two types of Israel in the Bible.
There's Israel after the flesh, meaning somebody who physically is descended from Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, or just somebody who was born into that nation, even if they don't
have that genealogy that traces back.
They're born into the nation of Israel.
Their parents were Israelites and so forth.
They're a natural born citizen, born in the land, as the Bible says over and over again.
But there's the one who is a physical Israelite, and then there is spiritual Israel, or the
Israel of God, which is made up of all believers.
Two different groups here.
Being Israel after the flesh, by the way, is meaningless because it doesn't get you
saved.
It doesn't make you one of the chosen people.
It doesn't matter in the eyes of God.
He's not a respecter of persons.
But the Bible is saying here when it says, Give none offense, neither the Jews nor the
Gentiles, neither the church of God, not to give offense on anyone.
It's not saying that a person who is part of the church is no longer Jewish.
Let me just give you one, I could give you a ton of verses on this, but let me just give
you one place in Acts 22 verse 3 where the apostle Paul says, I am verily a man which
am a Jew.
And of course, this is long after he's a Christian, long after he's following Christ.
He is a member of the church.
And then even if you just back up a few verses to Acts 21 verse 39, but Paul said, I am a
man which am a Jew of Tarsus.
So he did not cease to be a Jew when he believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's just a bizarre doctrine.
And the reason it's so bizarre is that I've even heard people say this, Well, the Jews
are God's chosen people and they inherit the land of Israel.
I've heard them say that if a Jew believes on Jesus Christ, he's no longer God's chosen
people and he no longer inherits the land.
The land doesn't belong to him anymore because he's not a Jew anymore, he's a Christian.
So think about how weird this is.
Not only do they believe that a Jesus Christ rejecting blasphemous Jew in Israel is one
of the chosen people of God, they believe that if that guy believes on Jesus Christ,
he'll lose that blessing.
So basically, while the unbelieving Jew is rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ, according
to these dispensationalists, they'll say God will bless those who bless him and curse those
who curse him.
But as soon as he believe on Jesus Christ, he's no longer going to be receiving that
blessing.
God's no longer going to bless those that bless him and curse those that curse him because
he's not a Jew anymore, he's a Christian.
What kind of a bizarre doctrine do these people have?
The true story, according to Galatians chapter 3, is that those of us who are in Christ are
the seed of Abraham.
We inherit all the promises, we inherit all the blessings, regardless of our nationality.
There's no difference between the Jew and the Greek.
The only people who are blessed with faithful Abraham are the children of faith.
The only people that are God's chosen people are believers in Jesus Christ, has nothing
to do with ethnicity or nationality or being Jewish or Israelite or anything like that.
But anyway, people will take this verse, 1 Corinthians 10, 32, to try to say that these
are three mutually exclusive groups.
That if you're a part of the church, you are neither Jew nor Gentile in the sense that
you're not still Jewish, you don't have the promises.
But yet, in Acts, Paul clearly said, I'm a Jew.
What's he referring to?
His physical descent.
Doesn't mean anything in the eyes of God, but it meant something to the people he was
talking to.
So that's why he brought up the fact, hey, I'm a Jew, you know, I'm a Tarsus.
When they accused him of being an Egyptian or when they wanted to kill him and so forth.
And so, you got to watch out for this dispensational doctrine.
It's weirder than you think.
I mean, when somebody starts saying that a person has a special blessing, where God will
bless those that bless them and curse those that curse them, that they lose when they
believe on Jesus Christ.
That's a pretty scary doctrine because, you know, when I believed on Jesus Christ, I gained
all the promises.
I gained all the blessings.
To teach that you actually lose blessings and lose inheritance in Israel when you believe
on Jesus is a very strange doctrine indeed.
But that's where this warped interpretation of 1 Corinthians 10, 32 leads you.
All he's saying in that verse is not to offend anyone by eating things sacrificed unto idols.
And the list is redundant, Jews, Gentiles, the church of God.
And there are plenty of other lists in the Bible that are redundant too.
And so they're misapplying the scripture.
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