Temptation

“Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” – 1 Corinthians 10:12-13

These two verses have an interesting interplay. On the one hand, we have an amazing promise, but on the other, an inescapable warning. Look at the past, Paul writes. The Israelites, who had the very cloud of God’s presence, who walked through the sea, who ate food and drank water from God’s very hand—they yet were idolatrous, sexually immoral, put God to the test, and grumbled. You must never think that you can’t fall.

Take heed, he says. What does this mean? In the Greek, the word used is blepo, which means literally “to see.” There are over a dozen words for “seeing” in Greek—a common one is horao, and Vine’s dictionary compares and contrasts the two in this way: “Horao and blepo both denote the physical act: horao, in general, blepo, the single look; horao gives prominence to the discerning mind, blepo to the particular mood or point. When the physical side recedes, horao denotes perception in general... Blepo, on the other hand, when its physical side recedes, gets a purely outward sense, look (open, incline) towards [as of a situation] (Schmidt, Grimm-Thayer).”

Blepo is not seeing in a generalized way marked by deep inward understanding. It is seeing in a singularly intent, pointed, outwardly-oriented manner. It is not the vision of meandering meditation, but of a relentless and practical vigilance. I imagine Paul saying here, “look sharp about you!” As Eugene Peterson rewrites these verses, “These are all warning markers—danger!—in our history books, written down so that we don’t repeat their mistakes. Our positions in the story are parallel—they at the beginning, we at the end—and we are just as capable of messing it up as they were. Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else.”

We do carry the responsibility of jettisoning hubris and over-confidence, of being watchful and not careless in what we do. But temptation will surely come, and ultimately our vigilance is walked out in step with the promise that we can endure it when it does. There’s a part of me, or maybe it’s our culture, that says that I can’t hold out. That I will end up giving in. But that is simply not true. God promises that there will always be a way of escape, not to free myself from temptation necessarily but to find from Him the ability to endure it. Enduring temptation without giving in is painful; the author of Hebrews calls it suffering. But in this way we identify with and find encouragement from Christ, “for because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18).