What Does 1 Corinthians 10:20 Mean?
But I say that what the nations offer, they offer to demons and not to God, and I do not wish you to become sharers in common with demons.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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.THE KEY
What English calls “fellowship” is sharing in common, so this verse treats sacrifice as real participation with the power receiving it.
THE MEANING
An offering is not spiritually empty: it places the one who gives it in real participation with what receives it. This verse names the recipients as devils rather than God and makes the distinction between those tables concrete now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a sincere offering is automatically directed to God, whatever receives it.
THE ROOT
κοινωνούς
koinōnous
GROWS FROM
κοιν-
koin-
Common, shared.
“become sharers in common with” in this verse is koinōnous. The Greek word means partners or participants in something held in common. “Fellowship” here is more than association: the offering makes the worshiper a participant with its recipient.
ALSO GROWS
koinōnia: Sharing in common; participation.
κοινωνία
The same word family describes participation in the cup and bread in 1 Corinthians 10:16.
koinōneō: Share in; participate.
κοινωνέω
This verb makes the family’s active sense clear: to be in common with something is to share in it.
θύουσιν
thyousin
GROWS FROM
θύω
thyō
To sacrifice or slaughter as an offering.
“offer” in this verse is thyousin. The verse repeats the verb: what they sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God. The repeated action ties the offering directly to its stated recipient.
ALSO GROWS
thysia: Sacrifice; offering.
θυσία
This noun names the offering that carries the act of sacrifice.
thysiastērion: Altar.
θυσιαστήριον
The altar is the place associated with the same sacrificial word family.
THE PATTERN
Worship is participation with its recipient, so an offering establishes whose table is shared.
They slaughtered to demons, not to God; to gods they had never known, to new gods come up from nearby, before whom your fathers did not shudder.They slaughtered their sons and their daughters to the demons.Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a sharing in common of the blood of the Anointed One? Is not the bread that we break a sharing in common of the body of the Anointed One?THE THREAD
Is not the cup of blessing that we bless a sharing in common of the blood of the Anointed One? Is not the bread that we break a sharing in common of the body of the Anointed One?The Greek word translated “communion” is κοινωνία (koinōnia), from the same word family as “fellowship” here: sharing in common. That makes the distinction in verse 20 concrete, the table marks who participates with whom.
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