190818 Sermon on 1 Corinthians 10:6-13 (Trinity 9), August 18, 2019 St. Paul is doing something important with the Bible in our Epistle reading that we should learn from. He is taking the history that was recorded by Moses in the first five books of the Bible and he is applying it to the Corinthians even though they live in a different time, different place, and are even of a different people—for most of the Corinthians were Gentiles, that is, not descendants of Abraham. After recounting what happened with the Israelites, St. Paul says, “Now these things that are recorded in the Scriptures took place as types or as examples, so that we do not desire evil the way that they did.” And then a few verses later: “All these things that were happening to them had meaning as examples or as types. They were written down to warn us, to whom the end of the ages has come.” What St. Paul is saying here is that the history of Israel continues to be relevant and useful for the present day, because it reveals the way that God typically acts. It is quite common for people to neglect history and think that it is some kind of dessert that only nerds like to consume. And this might be true, depending on what you mean by the word “history.” History is often thought of as memorizing a bunch of facts—names, dates, and events. Here’s an example of such history: “The Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.” That is history, and even somewhat important history, but you could live a long and satisfying life without knowing such a fact as well as the countless others that are like it.Something similar can happen with the Bible and its history. The useful knowledge of the Bible does not consist in the bare accumulation of names, dates, and events. This is often referred to as trivia, and that’s a good name for it, because such knowledge, on its own, is trivial. The knowledge of these facts might make a person competent for the Jeopardy game show or for quizzes on facebook, but this will not do them much spiritual good. The knowledge of history that is relevant and useful and is even indispensable for the health of God’s people is different than just the bare facts. It is understanding the way that God has dealt with people over the centuries, how he has blessed them and cursed them, and then applying this also to ourselves. This is exactly the kind of thing that St. Paul is doing in this letter to the Corinthians. He is pointing to the people of Israel who were so freshly delivered out of Egypt. In the verses prior to our reading he goes through the blessings that God blessed them with. They were under the cloud of God’s glory, they passed through the Red Sea, they all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink. They drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them and that Rock was Christ. They were all richly blessed by God. But they ended up being cursed by God because of their sins as well. That is what you heard in our reading today. The wilderness was covered with the dead bodies of those who rebelled against God in many and various ways. “Now,” St. Paul says, “apply this to yourselves.” What God did to them, God has also done to us. God has blessed us by baptizing us into Christ instead of being baptized into Moses. He has fed us with spiritual food and spiritual drink. Instead of manna, quail, and water from the rock, our spiritual food and drink are the very body and true blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is how God has blessed us—even above and beyond what he did through Moses. But just as God brought catastrophe upon the disobedient Israelites, so also he will bring it upon us if we live in rebellion against him like the Israelites lived in rebellion. God dealt with his people of old the way that as we read about in the Scriptures. God will deal with us along those same lines, for he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.Understanding that the history of the Bible is relevant and useful