First Corinthians 10:20 teaches that when people offer sacrifices to idols, they are really offering them to demons, not to the true God, and Paul does not want believers to share in that kind of fellowship. The verse is a clarification within a larger discussion about eating meat that had been offered to idols. The apostle Paul wrote it to the church in Corinth, a busy port city where many Christians had been raised around pagan temples and feasts.
But I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God, and I don’t desire that you would have fellowship with demons.
1 Corinthians 10:20 (WEB)
What 1 Corinthians 10:20 Means
Paul begins with “But I say,” which signals that he is correcting a possible misunderstanding. In the previous verse he asked whether an idol is anything at all, and his answer is that an idol is nothing in itself, yet the worship offered to it is not empty. Behind the carved image stands a spiritual reality that Paul calls demons. The sacrifice is therefore not neutral, because it is directed toward something opposed to God.
The verse then draws the practical conclusion: Paul does not want the Corinthians to have fellowship with demons. The word fellowship points to shared participation, the sense of being bound together around a common table. The verse does not promise that every believer who passes a temple is harmed, nor does it say that eating meat is always forbidden. It warns against joining in worship that honors what is false and draws people away from the Lord.
The Context of 1 Corinthians 10:20
First Corinthians was written by Paul, who had founded the church in Corinth and was writing to correct problems that had reached him through letters and reports. The Corinthian believers came from a culture where meat sold in the marketplace often came from pagan sacrifices, and where dinners were held in temple dining rooms. Some believers argued that because idols are nothing, they could eat freely in those settings. Paul agrees that idols have no real power, but he insists that the act of joining a pagan meal still involves a real spiritual choice.
The verses just before and after this one make the logic clear. Paul compares the Lord’s Supper to Israel’s sacrificial meals, noting that eating at an altar means sharing in what that altar represents. He then says that you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons, or eat at the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Read in this setting, verse 20 is the middle step of an argument about loyalty: the believer’s table must be exclusively the Lord’s.
Key Phrases in 1 Corinthians 10:20
Deuteronomy 32:17
They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods that they didn’t know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers didn’t dread.
(WEB)
This verse describes Israel’s past sacrifices to false gods and calls them sacrifices to demons, which helps explain Paul’s language. Reading it alongside 1 Corinthians 10:20 shows that the warning against idol worship has deep roots in Israel’s history.
1 Corinthians 10:21
You can’t both drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can’t both partake of the table of the Lord, and of the table of demons.
(WEB)
The verse that follows gives the sharpest form of Paul’s point, that you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. It shows that the principle is about exclusive loyalty at the table, not only about food.
A Short Prayer From 1 Corinthians 10:20
Lord, you alone are worthy of worship, and I want my loyalty to be clear in every part of my life. Show me where I have been drawn toward things that honor what is false or that pull my heart away from you. Give me the courage to step back from any fellowship that dishonors you, and the grace to stay kind toward the people I love. Let my table, my habits, and my hopes belong to you. Amen.
