Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 Corinthians · About this commentary
Divisions at the Supper
1 Corinthians 11:17-22
17 But in giving you this command I don’t praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse. · WEB
The rich were eating ahead of the poor at the common meal, and Paul says that whatever they were holding, it was not the Lord's supper.
But in giving you this command I don't praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse 1 Corinthians 11:17.
The praise of verse 2 is withdrawn. Their assembling was making things worse — a striking verdict on a church's gathering, and the reason follows immediately.
For first of all, when you come together in the assembly, I hear that divisions exist among you, and I partly believe it 1 Corinthians 11:18.
The letter's opening problem reappears 1 Corinthians 1:10, now located at the table. I partly believe it is a careful reservation — he will not accept a report wholesale, which is worth noting in a letter that also names its sources 1 Corinthians 1:11.
For in your eating each one takes his own supper first. One is hungry, and another is drunken 1 Corinthians 11:21.
Here is what was happening. The Lord's supper was held within a shared meal, and the arrangement had reproduced the city's social order inside the church: those who could arrive early and bring plenty ate their own provisions without waiting, while those who came late from work — slaves and day laborers — found little left. One group is drunken and another hungry, at the same gathering, in the same room. Nothing about it required malice; it needed only for people to behave as Corinth normally behaved.
When therefore you assemble yourselves together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat 1 Corinthians 11:20.
The verdict is absolute, and it is the passage's most searching claim. The bread and cup were presumably present and the words presumably said; Paul denies that what occurred was the Lord's supper at all. A rite conducted in a way that contradicts its meaning has stopped being that rite — and the meaning had been established one chapter earlier: one loaf, therefore one body 1 Corinthians 10:17. A meal that displays division cannot be the meal that signifies union.
What, don't you have houses to eat and to drink in? Or do you despise God's assembly and put them to shame who don't have enough? 1 Corinthians 11:22.
Three questions, and the middle one names the offense precisely. Not gluttony, not irreverence toward the elements — despise God's assembly, and put them to shame who don't have enough. The sin is against people, and specifically against the poor members whose humiliation was the by-product of others' comfort. The letter has already called this congregation God's temple and warned what happens to those who damage it 1 Corinthians 3:16–17.
What shall I tell you? Shall I praise you? In this I don't praise you. The refusal closes the paragraph as it opened it, and sets up the remedy: not better manners, but a recollection of what the meal is 1 Corinthians 11:23.
settled What this mark means