1 Corinthians 11: 17-34
The Rebuke
1 Corinthians 11:17-22
17 In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. 18 In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. 19 No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. 20 When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, 21 for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. 22 Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?
What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly not!
The ancient world was in many ways much more social than ours is. It was the regular custom for groups of people to meet together for meals. There was, in particular, a certain kind of feast called an eranos (Greek) to which each participant brought his own share of the food, and in which all the contributions were pooled to make a common meal. The early Church had such a custom, a feast called the Agape or Love Feast. To it all the Christians came, bringing what they could, the resources were pooled and they sat down to a common meal. It was a lovely custom; and it is to our loss that the custom has vanished. It was a way of producing and nourishing real Christian fellowship.
But in the Church at Corinth things had gone sadly wrong with the Love Feast. In the Church there were rich and poor; there were those who could bring plenty, and there were slaves who could bring hardly anything at all. In fact, for many a poor slave the Love Feast must have been the only decent meal in the whole week. But in Corinth the art of sharing had got lost. The rich did not share their food but ate it in little exclusive groups by themselves, hurrying through it in case they had to share, while the poor had next to nothing. The result was that the meal at which the social differences between members of the Church should have been obliterated only succeeded in aggravating these same differences. Unhesitatingly and unsparingly Paul rebukes this.
The early Church was the one place in all the ancient world where the barriers were down. The Church was the one place where all men could and did come together. They had lifted woman to her rightful place, restored the dignity of laborer, abolished beggary, and drawn the sting of slavery. The secret of the revolution is that the selfishness of race and class was forgotten in the Supper of the Lord, and a new basis for society found in love of the visible image of God in men for whom Christ died.”
A church where social and class distinctions exist is no true church at all. A real church is a body of men and women united to each other because all are united to Christ. Even the word used to describe the sacrament is suggestive. We call it the Lord’s Supper; but supper is to some extent misleading. Usually to us it is not the main meal of the day. For the Greek the breakfast was a meal where all that was eaten was a little bread dipped in wine; the midday meal was eaten anywhere, even on the street or in a city square. The main meal of the day was supper, where people sat down with no sense of hurry and not only satisfied their hunger but lingered long together. The very word shows that the Christian meal ought to be a meal where people linger long in each other’s company.
A church is no true church if the art of sharing is forgotten. When people wish to keep things to themselves and to their own circle, they are not even beginning to be Christian. The true Christian cannot bear to have too much while others have too little; he finds his greatest privilege not in jealously guarding his privileges but in giving them away.
THE LORD’S SUPPER
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
No passage in the whole New Testament is of greater interest than this. For one thing, it gives us our warrant for the most sacred act of worship in the Church, the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper; and, for another since the letter to the Corinthians is earlier than the earliest of the gospels, this is actually the first recorded account we possess of any word of Jesus.
“This is my body,” Jesus said of the bread. One simple fact precludes us from taking this with a crude literalism. When Jesus spoke, he was still in the body; and there was nothing clearer than that his body and the bread were at that moment quite different things. Nor did he simply mean, “This stands for my body.” In a sense that is true. The broken bread of the Sacrament does stand for the body of Christ; but it does more. To him who takes it into his hands and upon his lips with faith and love, it is a means not only of memory but of living contact with Jesus Christ. To an unbeliever it would be nothing; to a lover of Christ it is the way to his presence.
“This cup,” said Jesus, in the usual version, “is the new covenant in my blood.” Now a covenant is a relationship entered into between two people. There was an old covenant between God and man and that old relationship was based on law. In it God chose and approached the people of Israel and became in a special sense their God; but there was a condition, that, if this relationship was going to last, they must keep his law. With Jesus a new relationship is opened to man, dependent not on law but on love, dependent not on man’s ability to keep the law–for no man can do that–but on the free grace of God’s love offered to men.
Under the old covenant a man could do nothing other than fear God for he was ever in default since he could never perfectly keep the law; under the new covenant he comes to God as a child to a father. However you look at things, it cost the life of Jesus to make this new relationship possible. It cost Jesus’ life, his blood, So the scarlet wine of the sacrament stands for the very life-blood of Christ without which the new covenant, the new relationship of man to God, could never have been possible.
1 Corinthians 11:27-32
27 Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 31 But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. 32 When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.
This passage goes on to talk about eating and drinking this bread and wine unworthily. The unworthiness consisted in the fact that the man who did so did “not discern the Lord’s body.” That phrase can equally well mean two things; and each is so real and so important that it is quite likely that both are intended.
First, it may mean that the man who eats and drinks unworthily does not realize what the sacred symbols mean. It may mean that he eats and drinks with no reverence and no sense of the love that these symbols stand for or the obligation that is laid upon him.
Secondly, it may also mean this. The phrase the body of Christ again and again stands for the Church. Paul has just been rebuking those who with their divisions and their class distinctions divide the Church; so this may mean that he eats and drinks unworthily who has never realized that the whole Church is the body of Christ but is at variance with his brother. Every man in whose heart there is hatred, bitterness, contempt against his brother man, as he comes to the Table of our Lord, eats and drinks unworthily. So then to eat and drink unworthily is to do so with no sense of the greatness of the thing we do, and to do so while we are at variance with the brother for whom also Christ died.
Paul goes on to say that the misfortunes which have fallen upon the Church at Corinth may be due to nothing else than the fact that they come to this sacrament while they are divided among themselves; but these misfortunes are sent not to destroy them but to discipline them and to bring them back to the right way.
We must be clear about one thing. The phrase which forbids a man to eat and drink unworthily does not shut out the man who is a sinner and knows it. If the Table of Christ were only for perfect people none might ever approach it. The way is never closed to the penitent sinner. To the man who loves God and his fellow men the way is ever open, and his sins, though they be as scarlet, shall be white as snow.
Barclay’s Daily Study Bible
A word needs to be said about the warning against “eating and drinking UNWORTHILY” (1 Cor. 11:27–29). Many believers who have misunderstood these warnings have abstained from The Lord’s Supper unnecessarily. It should be noted that “unworthy” is an adverb modifying the verbs “eats” and “drinks,” and has to do with the MANNER of partaking, not with the unworthiness of the persons. The warning referred to the greedy and intemperate manner of the Corinthians described in 1 Corinthians 11:20–22. No one is “worthy” in himself to have communion with Jesus, but we have the privilege by virtue of the Atoning Work which the elements symbolize. However, participants need to examine themselves in relation to their manner of taking, and their attitude toward other believers. Participants, furthermore, should be certain to discern the Lord’s body, and not partake in an irreverent or frivolous manner. Partaking in faith can bring great blessing, even spiritual and physical healing (1 Cor. 11:29, 30).
In 1 Corinthians 11:17–34 Paul rebuked the Corinthians for their pride and greed during the meal that accompanied the Eucharist (vv. 17–22). Then (vv. 23–25) he described the institution of the Lord’s Supper and emphasized the need for Christians to partake in a worthy manner. Many of them who had not been doing so were weak and sick, and many had even died as a result of misappropriating or neglecting the purpose of the Table (vv. 27–34).
Why does Paul use such strong language when speaking of the abuse of the Lord’s Supper? The Corinthians were not properly discerning or recognizing the Lord’s body. The wealthy Corinthians who shamed their poorer Christian brothers and sisters by their selfish eating practices (vv. 21–22) were not discerning the true nature of the church as Christ’s body in which all distinctions such as social class and race were blotted out (Gal. 3:28).
On the other hand, Christians who received the bread and the cup after behaving disgracefully were failing to discern that Christ would not automatically bless and empower those who received the sacrament in this manner. Such persons were guilty of sin against the body and blood of Jesus (v. 27).
Meaning for today. When we ask how the Lord’s Supper should be meaningful to the Christian today, three concepts—relating to the past, present, and future—can be helpful.
First, the Lord’s Supper is a time of remembrance and Eucharist. Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:24–25). This is not to be so much our dwelling on the agonies of the Crucifixion as it is to be our remembering the marvelous life and ministry of our Savior. The Eucharist is to be an occasion for expressing our deepest praise and appreciation for all Jesus Christ has done for us.
Second, the Supper is a time of refreshment and communion. As we participate in the benefits of Jesus’ death and resurrection life (Rom. 5:10; 1 Cor. 10:16), we are actually being nourished and empowered from the risen Christ through the Spirit.
John Wesley knew of this strengthening. On the average, he received communion every four or five days throughout his long and fruitful ministerial career. It is not that God cannot empower us without the Lord’s Supper, but that He has instituted the Supper for us, even as He has designated prayer and the hearing of Scripture as means of communicating His grace. While the Bible does not tell us how often to observe the Eucharist, Wesley’s guideline—“as often as you can”—deserves our serious consideration.
Third, the Supper is a time of recommitment and anticipation. We are to examine (literally “prove” or “test”) ourselves and partake in a worthy manner (1 Cor. 11:28–29). In so doing we renew our dedication to Christ and His people, in hopeful anticipation “till He comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). After Christ’s return we shall partake with Him—in His physical presence—in the kingdom (Matt. 26:29).
