First Corinthians 10:20 teaches that pagan sacrifices are offered to demons rather than to the true God, so Christians should not take part in the fellowship those sacrifices create. Paul wrote this to the church in Corinth, a city full of temples where meat offered to idols was sold and shared at 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 line of thinking. Some Corinthian believers reasoned that an idol is nothing, so eating meat that had been offered to it does no harm. Paul agrees that an idol has no real divine existence, but he insists that the worship behind pagan sacrifice is directed toward spiritual powers opposed to God. The sacrifices are made “to demons,” not to God.
The phrase “I don’t desire that you would have fellowship with demons” is the heart of the verse. Fellowship here means shared participation, the kind of bond that comes from eating together at a sacred table. Paul is saying that joining a pagan feast ties a believer into the worship that surrounds it. The verse does not say that a Christian who buys meat in the market is condemned, and Paul addresses that case separately elsewhere. What it does say is that deliberate participation in idol worship is incompatible with belonging to the Lord.
The Context of 1 Corinthians 10:20
First Corinthians was written by the apostle Paul to a church he had founded, addressing a community divided over issues of wisdom, conduct, and worship. Chapter 10 comes in a section where Paul uses the example of Israel in the wilderness as a warning: those who had received God’s blessings still fell into idolatry and suffered for it. Verse 20 sits in the middle of his argument that the Lord’s Supper creates a shared participation in Christ, and that a parallel participation in pagan altars is the opposite.
Read this way, the verse is not a general attack on every contact with unbelievers or a ban on eating in certain places. Verses 17 and 21 frame it around two tables: the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Verse 23 then reminds the reader that many things are permitted but not all are helpful. Paul’s concern is loyalty and worship, and that focus shapes how the verse should be understood.
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)
Moses describes sacrifices offered to what are not God as offerings to demons, showing that Paul’s warning draws on an older covenant teaching. The Israelites were warned that such worship was a betrayal of the God who had rescued them.
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 immediately following states the principle in its starkest form: you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. It is the practical conclusion Paul draws from verse 20 and should be read alongside it.
A Short Prayer From 1 Corinthians 10:20
Lord, you are the only true God, and I want my worship and my life to belong fully to you. Show me any place where I have quietly given my trust, my fears, or my hopes to something other than you. Give me the courage to step away from what draws me from your presence, and the wisdom to see clearly what fellowship I am sharing with. Let the table I share in be the table of the Lord, and let my heart rest in your faithfulness. Amen.
