Through 1 Corinthians 10, Pastor David Jang delivers the message “in the light of the cross”—the wilderness tests, the essence of idolatry, the union of the Lord’s Supper, an ethic of freedom and consideration, and the gospel’s compass that converges on “whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians 10 confronts us with the
fact that faith is not sustained only inside a brightly lit sanctuary; it must
remain alive and active even amid the winds of the wilderness and the noise of
the city. The central point Pastor David Jang (founder of Olivet University)
emphasizes as he holds onto this text is not merely the language of warning,
but the texture of grace that flows through and beyond the warning. Paul does
not fossilize Israel’s wilderness experience as a “past event.” Rather, he summons
it as a living spiritual memory—one the church, the believer, and the community
of today must rehearse again and again. The truth that even those who crossed
the Red Sea, were guided by the pillar of cloud and fire, and tasted manna from
heaven and water from the rock still fell, gives a sharp wake-up call to
believers who easily loosen their vigilance simply because they have
experienced grace. That is why Paul says, “Let anyone who thinks that he stands
take heed lest he fall.” Pastor David Jang reads this sentence not as a threat
meant to provoke anxiety, but as an invitation to recover the spiritual
sensitivity that keeps grace truly grace. Only those who face the possibility
of falling can learn not to use it as an excuse for despair, but to cling to God
all the more.
The wilderness is not merely a
geographical space we once passed through; it is an environment that repeatedly
forms within the human interior. The moment believers step out of the church
building, they face the wilderness again. Cracks in relationships, eruptions of
desire, the thirst to be recognized, and the pressure of a society that
enthrones success and efficiency as gods become the landscape of the day.
Pastor David Jang unpacks 1 Corinthians 10 like a “modern wilderness manual”
for this very reason. We sometimes mistake spiritual achievement for “spiritual
invincibility.” We served diligently, listened to the Word, even experienced
answers to prayer—so we assume we are now safe. Yet Paul’s narration does not
erase experiences of grace; it reveals that such experiences do not
automatically confer immunity. Pastor David Jang warns that the moment grace
becomes the basis for self-conceit, grace loses its function as grace and can
begin to operate like an idol. When “believing in grace” mutates into the self-assurance
of “I’m fine,” that assurance can easily become worship of the self rather than
trust in God.
And yet the tone of 1 Corinthians 10 is
not pessimism, but faithfulness. Paul immediately adds the promise: “No
temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man… God is faithful… he
will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” Pastor
David Jang introduces this verse as a passage that reorients believers who have
only repeated the prayer, “Take the test away.” God does not leave tests in
place in order to ruin us. Rather, within the harsh time called temptation, God
makes a way so that we may confess God again as God—and so that our faith may
be trained like muscle. Here, “the way of escape” does not mean a simple exit
from the problem. Sometimes the way of escape is a corridor of grace that
enables us to pass through the same reality with a different heart. It is not
merely the person who praises God because the trial ended, but the person whose
center has been rearranged so that they can trust God even in the middle of it,
who truly glorifies God. At this point Pastor David Jang defines faith not as
“managing circumstances,” but as “the continuation of worship.” The wilderness
is not only a place that snuffs out faith; it can become a furnace that burns
away faith’s impurities.
This wilderness narrative is
immediately connected to the city’s problem of idols—one of the tensions that
runs through 1 Corinthians 10. Paul speaks with clarity: “Therefore, my
beloved, flee from idolatry.” Corinth was a place where a polytheistic landscape
and temple culture permeated daily life like air. This was not merely a
theological debate; social meals, economic activity, and the very way networks
formed were intertwined with religious rites. Pastor David Jang explains that
the terror of idolatry lies precisely in its “everydayness.” Idols rarely shout
openly, “Worship me.” Instead, they offer convenience, soothe anxiety, and
rationalize desire, slowly stealing the central place of the heart. Thus
idolatry is not only bowing before a particular statue; it is the sum of all
systems and habits that persuade us we are sufficient without God.
Modern idols return under different
names. We may not invoke Zeus or Apollo, yet we absolutize success and
efficiency, use consumption as the language of identity, and train our hearts
by endlessly absorbing stimulation from screens. Pastor David Jang describes
idolatry as “the heart’s autopilot after losing God,” and urges believers to
examine what they unconsciously treat as the highest value. What governs my
time, my emotions, my choices? What do I fear losing so much that I lose sleep?
What do I believe I must gain in order to be safe? These questions are not mere
moral reflection; they are worship questions. Worship is not simply a religious
act performed at a set time—it is the spiritual reality revealed by who sits on
the throne of the heart.
This is also why Paul brings up the
Lord’s Supper immediately within the flow of his warning against idolatry. The
Supper is not only a traditional church rite; it is an embodied confession of
what kind of “fellowship” we are participating in. The words—“The cup of
blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The
bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?”—show
that the Supper is the language of participation that goes beyond symbol.
Pastor David Jang calls the Lord’s Supper “a table that turns the cross into
the present tense.” It is not merely recalling Golgotha as the past; it is
allowing the meaning of that sacrifice to rewrite the decisions of my life now.
The Supper is not information but relationship, not mere knowledge but union.
So before the table, believers do more than say “I believe.” They bodily
pledge: “I belong to Christ, and I will follow Christ’s way.”
At this point, a famous masterpiece
comes to mind. Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper is widely known as depicting the
tense, confessional moment just before Jesus breaks bread and shares the cup
with his disciples. Pastor David Jang suggests we need not treat this scene as
mere art appreciation, but can receive it as a symbolic “mirror” that reawakens
the essence of the Supper. Not only perfect people were seated at that table.
Doubt, rivalry, self-protection, and even the shadow of betrayal were present.
Yet the Lord still broke the bread and offered the cup. The Supper is not an
ordinance for “only the already mature”; it is a conduit of grace by which the
wounded and the flawed are invited under the light of the cross to participate
in the life of the new covenant. From this perspective, the Lord’s Supper is
not decorative garnish that beautifies the community; it is a furnace that
refashions the community anew.
Paul binds the meaning of the Supper
directly to the formation of the community. “Because there is one bread, we who
are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” This verse shakes
individualistic faith at the root. What Pastor David Jang consistently stresses
in his preaching on 1 Corinthians 10 is that when the Supper is reduced into a
tool of “private spirituality,” the church weakens and loses its light before
the world. The Supper does not speak only of a private relationship between me and
Jesus. It demands a reordering of my relationship with others in Jesus. As we
share the one bread, we declare to each other: “You are not my competitor; you
are a member I must love, a brother or sister I must consider.” Here, koinonia
is not emotional socializing; it is spiritual union bound by the order of the
cross. And that union flows into kerygma—not merely proclaiming the gospel with
words, but letting a life of love and consideration become a living sermon.
Further still, it takes shape as diakonia. The grace of the table does not
remain inside the sanctuary; it expands into hands that care for the weak and
into the community’s sense of responsibility.
Paul’s contrast between pagan temple
sacrifices and the Lord’s Supper is strikingly provocative. His words—“What
pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God”—are not written to fuel
mere religious hostility, but to diagnose how “misdirected fellowship” can
seize and shape a person. Here Pastor David Jang presses in the insight of “the
God who was crucified.” In the Greek and Roman imagination, the gods were often
constructed around the logic of power and victory, glory and display. A strong
god provides benefits; humans maintain the relationship through offerings and
rites like a transaction. But the God revealed in the gospel makes himself
known not through transaction but through grace. Humans do not offer sacrifices
to manipulate God; God offers himself to save humanity. The cross is not a tool
to justify human desire; it is God’s way of judging and healing desire.
The “light of the cross” Pastor David
Jang speaks of arises from this very paradox. We instinctively admire strength,
crave victory, and import success narratives even into faith. But the cross
strips away the costume of strength and makes plain that God’s chosen way is
self-emptying and humility, sacrifice and forgiveness. As Philippians teaches,
Christ emptied himself and took the form of a servant. This emptying is not
defeat; it is the shape of love. Pastor David Jang reads the cross as “the
place where God’s character shines most brightly,” and says the only way
believers can break free from an idolatrous culture is to reestablish the logic
of the cross at the heart’s center. The habit of proving everything by
achievement, the reflex of measuring one’s worth by comparison, the identity
that sways with others’ gaze—these are re-educated at the foot of the cross.
The cross stops the engine of desire with the declaration, “You are already
loved,” and sets life in motion by the power of grace.
Now Paul descends into a very practical
question: in a context where meat offered to idols circulates in the
marketplace, is it permissible to eat it? This debate is not mere table
etiquette; it asks how to balance faith and culture, freedom and community.
Paul’s statement—“All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful… not
all things build up”—still applies with astonishing breadth today. Pastor David
Jang explains that this verse guards believers against two extremes that are
frequently misunderstood. One extreme is legalism: forbidding even what is
permissible and turning faith into suffocating rules. The other extreme is
license: using “freedom” to justify desire and ignore the community’s pain.
Paul does not deny freedom, but he teaches that freedom, if not trained by
love, can destroy a community.
What Pastor David Jang especially
underscores is “consideration for conscience.” Paul acknowledges that an idol
is nothing and that, as the psalm confesses, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the
fullness thereof”—God’s sovereignty remains over creation. Therefore, in
principle, eating meat from the market can be permissible. But when someone
says, “This has been offered to idols,” Paul says do not eat—for that person’s
conscience. Here love is not sentiment but choice, and consideration is not
looking down on the weak but practicing mature self-restraint. Pastor David
Jang describes this principle as the essence of Christian ethics. Believers are
not those who become strong by expanding their rights; they are those who
beautify freedom by choosing love. Freedom is not a license granted to enthrone
the self; it can become a responsibility entrusted by God to bring life to
others.
This message translates into countless
scenes of ordinary life today. A cultural activity may not be sin in itself. A
preference or a purchase may be permissible in principle. Yet if it can shake
someone’s faith, erode the community’s trust, or blur the fragrance of the
gospel, believers do not ask only, “Can I do this?” They also ask, “Does this
build up?” Pastor David Jang says we might call this “the calculus of agape.”
The world teaches the calculus of efficiency, but the gospel teaches the
calculus of love. Efficiency counts profit and loss; love first considers the
neighbor’s good. The cross reveals how far the calculus of love goes. God chose
what looked like loss in order to give us life. Therefore, the more Christian
ethics resembles the direction of the cross, the deeper it becomes.
In the end, the conclusion of 1
Corinthians 10 gathers every area of life into worship with a single
declaration: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the
glory of God.” Pastor David Jang urges believers not to consume this verse as
decorative slogan, but to hold it as the standard that reorganizes an entire
day. The glory of God is not an abstract concept. It becomes concrete in where
the purpose of my choices is aimed, in who my words and attitudes build up, in
what fruit my freedom bears. A life that stays alert rather than presumptuous
under trial—clinging to the Lord in prayer—glorifies God. A life that discerns
the many faces of idolatry and returns the throne of the heart to God honors
God. A life that inscribes union with Christ at the table and extends that
union into communal love brings joy to God. A life that meditates on the God of
the cross—who reveals strength through weakness—and chooses humility and
sacrifice against the speed of secular values shines with gospel light in and
of itself.
Pastor David Jang’s exposition of 1
Corinthians 10 is persuasive because he refuses to reduce Paul’s exhortation
into merely “private piety,” expanding it into communal ethics and timely
discernment. The church today often wavers between two temptations. One is the
temptation to blend into the world and lose its identity. The other is the
temptation to wall itself off from the world and lose the gospel’s
expansiveness. Paul chooses neither. He presents a way to live as those who
belong to God in the middle of the world. He flees idolatry without denying the
goodness of creation. He affirms freedom without abandoning the responsibility
of love. He does not mystify the Supper and separate it from everyday ethics;
he allows the Supper to form the habits of life with the ethics of the cross.
Pastor David Jang hints that we might describe this balance as “freedom in the
light.” The freedom offered by darkness drifts toward indulgence, but the
freedom given by the light of the cross matures into consideration and sacrifice.
From this vantage point, the title “in
the light of the cross” is not a sentimental phrase but a theological
coordinate that runs through 1 Corinthians 10. Light exposes. It reveals the
idol in the heart, strips off the mask of presumption, and illuminates
indifference toward the community. At the same time, light heals. It does not
end with condemnation of exposed sin, but leads to repentance—and does not end
repentance with despair, but guides into the path of grace. Light gives
direction. Paul’s exhortation to live for God’s glory becomes a compass of
faith in an age where choices are so numerous that we easily lose our way. As
Pastor David Jang says, the believer’s calling is not to flee from the world,
but to leave the fragrance of the gospel within it. That fragrance does not
come only from grand performances. It rises from the table, from the fingertips
that hold a smartphone, from the way we spend money, from the temperature of a
single sentence, from small restraints that honor another’s conscience, from
choices that empty out time for a wounded neighbor.
Therefore, the faith that holds onto 1
Corinthians 10 becomes steady. Even when trials come, the confession “God is
faithful” anchors the center. Even when idolatry approaches in subtle forms,
the word “flee from idolatry” functions as an alarm system in life. Each time
believers partake of the Supper, the reality of participating in Christ’s body
and blood leads to the confession that life is no longer one’s own. Each time
freedom is enjoyed, the habit of asking “Does this build up?” preserves the
community and beautifies the gospel. And ultimately, the standard “whatever you
do, for the glory of God” prevents faith from shrinking into a weekend
religious event and expands it into Monday’s reality. Pastor David Jang’s
message through this text is clear: the person who lives in the light of the
cross does not fear the wilderness. They do not take idols lightly, but they
hold grace more weightily. They live amid the world’s culture without serving
the world’s gods. As a community that shares one bread, they consider one
another, use freedom beautifully through the ethic of agape, speak the kerygma
of the gospel with their lives, deepen the koinonia of fellowship, and open the
door toward the world through diakonia of service. At the end of that path, the
believer no longer makes “What will I gain?” the central question. Instead, the
questions that occupy the center of life become: “Does this choice please God?
Does this action reveal the glory of God?” And in that moment, the ancient
words of 1 Corinthians 10 begin to breathe anew inside today’s heart.
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