1 Corinthians 11:17-22

Scripture: 1 Cor. 11:17 But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.

1 Cor. 11:18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part,

1 Cor. 11:19 for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.

1 Cor. 11:20 When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat.

1 Cor 11:21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk.

1 Cor. 11:22 What! Do you not have houses 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 commend you in this? No, I will not.

Teaching: Paul is in the midst of giving two examples of Christian liberty while still honoring Christ. The first was in regards to head coverings, saying men that wear head coverings reveal themselves to reject Christ’s authority over them while a woman wearing a head covering revealed that she accepted her husband’s authority and thus God’s created order. These were cultural practices of Paul’s day, and while we do not need to follow them specifically, as these practices do not carry the same meaning today as they did then, we should still follow the meaning of the practice — men showing submission to Christ and wives showing submission to their husbands as God designed. 

In these verses, Paul addresses a second tradition that the Corinthians were infusing with too much liberty which was then diminishing the meaning of the ritual — that of the Lord’s Supper. Paul’s tone shifts here, from praising the Corinthians for observing the head covering tradition and preserving its meaning to admonishing the Corinthians for what they do to the Lord’s Supper. In Paul’s times, religious services of various kinds would often include a meal (remember the topic of meat sacrificed to idols in 1 Corinthians 8?), and in the Greek pagan religions - from which most of this church would have come from - that meal could often be raucous and indulgent. It was also a time for the wealthy to show off their wealth as the worshippers would bring the food, like a modern day potluck supper instead of the priests themselves providing it. With this came divisions, the wealthy secluding the good foods for themselves and the poorer families, who contributed less, being given lesser meals. 

Paul’s comments here suggest that the Corinthians brought these same traditions into the church and applied them to the Lord’s Supper. What’s more, rather than remember and honor Christ with the Lord’s Supper, they were using it as an excuse to have a big feast, party, and get drunk. Paul calls them out, incredulous at such lavish and disrespectful behavior. He says, “Don’t you have your own homes to do this in?” The Church is not a dinner party, and the purpose of partaking in the Lord’s Supper — to remember Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross for each of us — is completely obscured when one transforms it into an excuse to indulge oneself. 

Takeaway: How wrong we can be when we take what is good from the Lord and just use it to our own desires. When we allow our own passions and desires to drive our worship of the Lord, this is where we end up. Jesus said that we are to worship in spirit and in truth, which precludes us from two worshipping 1. However we want and 2. In dishonest/irreverent ways. In our world today, there are many who claim to have new ways of having a relationship with God. For some it is outside of Christ, which is obviously not then God they are in relationship with. But some, who claim to have Christ, then call for worship outside the bounds of what Christ established in His Word. They make the same mistake as the Corinthians here, infusing too much liberty into worship and thus completely obscuring the important message of the Gospel. Passages like this from Paul should wake us up to the reality that we cannot worship Christ in any way that seems good to us. We are called to worship Him in the ways He established for us.