First Corinthians 10:6 tells believers that the wilderness generation of Israel was recorded as a warning, so that Christians would not crave evil things the way those earlier people did. Paul wrote this to the church in Corinth, a city of mixed wealth, rivalry and moral temptation, and he drew on the story of Israel’s journey out of Egypt to address it.
Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
1 Corinthians 10:6 (WEB)
What 1 Corinthians 10:6 Means
The phrase “these things were our examples” tells you that the events Paul has just described were not written only as history. They were written so that the church could learn from them. Paul is saying that Israel’s experience in the desert functions like a set of lessons placed in front of later believers.
The phrase “the intent we should not lust after evil things” names the purpose of those lessons. The word lust here means a strong, grasping desire for something harmful, the kind that pulls a person away from God. Paul is not only forbidding a behavior. He is pointing to the appetite underneath it and warning that the appetite is where the danger starts.
The final phrase, “as they also lusted,” connects the warning to the past. Israel had a real craving for things God had not given them, and that craving led to disaster. The verse does not promise that a believer will automatically avoid this pull. It states that the story was preserved so believers would take it seriously and guard their hearts.
The Context of 1 Corinthians 10:6
First Corinthians was written by the apostle Paul to a church he had founded in Corinth, a busy port city in Greece. The letter addresses divisions, lawsuits, sexual immorality, questions about food sacrificed to idols, and disorder in worship. Paul writes as a pastor trying to shape a community that is still learning how to live under Christ.
The verses just before and after 1 Corinthians 10:6 show why it matters. Paul reminds the Corinthians that Israel shared in the same spiritual food and drink, yet many of them still fell, and then he gives a list of specific sins, including idolatry, sexual immorality and testing Christ. Verse 6 is the hinge of that list: it explains that the failures were examples, and the rest of the passage applies that example to the Corinthians’ own choices.
Key Phrases in 1 Corinthians 10:6
Exodus 16:3
And the children of Israel said to them, “We wish that we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots, when we ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
(WEB)
This verse records the Israelites complaining in the wilderness about their hunger and longing for the food of Egypt. It shows the craving behind the warning in 1 Corinthians 10:6 in a specific moment, helping you see what the desire for “evil things” looked like in their daily life.
Numbers 11:4-6
4 The mixed multitude that was among them lusted exceedingly: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, “Who will give us meat to eat? 5 We remember the fish, which we ate in Egypt for nothing; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic; 6 but now we have lost our appetite. There is nothing at all except this manna to look at.”
(WEB)
This passage describes the rabble among the people who craved meat and longed for Egypt, and the people who joined them in grumbling. It deepens the picture of Israel’s lust in the desert and shows how easily a craving can spread through a community and pull others along with it.
A Short Prayer From 1 Corinthians 10:6
Lord, you know how easily my heart reaches for things that cannot satisfy it. You have preserved the story of your people in the wilderness so that I would learn from their failures and not repeat them. Show me the desires that pull me away from you, and give me the honesty to name them. Strengthen me to turn toward what is good, and remind me that you are faithful even when I am weak. Shape my wants so that they follow you. Amen.
