1 Corinthians 11:17-22

As I've mentioned before, 1 Corinthians doesn't have any sort of central theme and not much of a structure or organization beyond the list of problems around which the book is built. However, Barclay points out that all the sections of chapters 11-14 deal with church worship in one way or another. And here we deal with the heart of church worship: this is the problem of communion. In these first few verses, Paul lays out the problem.

Before we get to the subject of this passage, we need to stop and talk about the word 'church.' The word translated 'church' in this passage (and throughout the NT) is the Greek word ekklesia. It refers to a group or meeting; it can be translated 'assembly' or 'congregation'. In Christianity, it refers either to a particular gathering of Christians in a particular place for religious service or, more generally, to the organic whole of redeemed humanity. 

We can also note another word here. In verse 20, when speaking of communion, Paul calls it the Lord's supper. In Greek that is Kuriakon deipnon. Deipnon means supper, and kuriakon means belonging to the Lord. This word is also used in Revelation to refer to the Lord's day—the day that belongs to or is dedicated to the Lord. And the reason why we are talking about this word here is that this word is the source of our English word church. A church is the Kuriakon doma—the Lord's house.

And there is a point to this history lesson. In English, we use the word church primarily to refer to a building that is dedicated to the use of God and God's people. But the word used in this passage—ekklesia—does not refer primarily to a building.

In fact, there probably weren't church buildings at all in the first century. Look at Paul's ministry in Corinth: he initially preached in the synagogue until Jewish opposition forced him to leave. “And he departed thence, and entered into a certain man's house, named Justus, one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue.” (Acts 18:7) Something very similar happened in Ephesus: “But when divers were hardened, and believed not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus.” (Acts 19:9) Or consider what Paul says in his salutation to Philemon: “Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlabourer, and to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellowsoldier, and to the church in thy house.” (Philemon 1-2) Seemingly, most, if not all, churches in the first century were meeting in private homes or other buildings, not in churches in the modern sense.

In another article, I used the analogy of a school. A school is an organization that exists to teach students. A school might be meeting in a school building or a church or an open field, but so long as it is still an organization that teaches students, it is still a school And if it is not that—if that organization ceases to exist or function—then even a dedicated school building is not truly a school anymore.

Similarly, a church is a group of believers who meet regularly for worship and edification. A church might be meeting in a church building or a school or an open field, but so long as it is still a group of believers meeting for worship and edification, then it is still a church. And if it is not that—if that organization ceases to exist or function—then even a dedicated church building is not truly a church anymore.

Neil Postman wrote this: “It is an essential condition of any traditional religious service that the space in which it is conducted must be invested with some measure of sacrality... Almost any place will do, provided it is first decontaminated; that is, divested of its profane uses. This can be done by placing a cross on a wall, or candles on a table, or a sacred document in public view. Through such acts, a gymnasium or dining hall or hotel room can be transformed into a place of worship; a slice of space-time can be removed from the world of profane events, and be recreated into a reality that does not belong to our world.” (Amusing Ourselves to Death, 118-119)

When Paul speaks in verse 18 of the people coming “Together in the church”, he doesn't necessarily mean they were coming together in a particular building. They were coming together at a special time and place to be the church, to enact the actions of the church. They were removing a slice of space-time from the world of profane events. That is the only way anything—whether a house or a church building—truly becomes a church.

And it is something the Corinthians were failing to do. In verse 22, Paul says that they were despising the church of God—they were not treating it the way they ought. They did not recognize and respect God's church.

When Christians meet together as the church, it should be a time to build up and help each other. Look at how Paul describes church worship in 1 Corinthians 14:26: “How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.” The thing particular to notice here is that last phrase—all of these, all the parts of worship which are done when the church comes together—it is to be for edifying, for building up the church. 

But in many ways, when the Corinthians came together, they were tearing each other down. Earlier in chapter 11, Paul had praised the Corinthians for the fact that they had remembered and kept the ordinances he had given them. They were generally doing the right things when it came to the church. But there were some points on which they were not doing the right thing. There were ways in which the church was tearing itself down instead of building itself up. Their practices were causing them, spiritually speaking, to shrink, shrink, shrink instead of making them grow, grow, grow.  Paul says that their gathering together was actually hurting rather than helping. 

In verse 18, Paul begins his address with the phrase “first of all.” There is no second of all. It could be because of all their problems, this was the most important, and the only one Paul was going to bother dealing with directly. It could also be that this is the first problem, and the second problem is the issue Paul will address in chapters 12-14, which also deals with church worship. 

Here, Paul specifically speaks of divisions within the church. This was something Paul had heard a report of. Robertson says this could be translated “I keep hearing...” as if this were a report so common that Paul was continually hearing new rumors. Paul says that he believed these reports “partly.” This is a qualification Paul doesn't give for any of his comments. Does that mean this report came from a less dependable source? Or was the report so bad that Paul couldn't believe it was true in its entirety?

The problem of divisions within the church is something we've already talked about. This was the burden of the first several chapters of the book. The Corinthian church was divided into separate sects or parties based around different leaders or ministers. We don't know if the divisions Paul is addressing here were the same or whether this was a separate issue. The point is that the church, even its worship, even in the most central act of worship, was not acting in unity, was not acting as one.

In verse 19, Paul speaks of heresies. We think of the word 'heresy' as a false doctrine, an idea contrary to orthodoxy. But here, it has a different meaning. Heresy is a transliteration of the Greek word used here, and at its base, the word means to choose. But by extension, it means a party or sect, a group of people who have chosen to stand together and separate from others. (It's easy to see how it would go from there to a cult or sect that broke off from orthodoxy and so gain its modern meaning.) 

These kinds of divisions are detrimental to the church and to true Christianity. Paul seems to say that they do have one good purpose—that they reveal who is truly approved by God because they are the ones who are not getting involved in this madness.

So, we have this general point: divisions within the church. In verse 20, Paul narrows down to a more specific point—the particular area in which these divisions were occurring. These divisions were not happening in church board meetings or in theological arguments between members during the week. They were happening during Communion. At least during the time that was supposed to be Communion, because the reality is they were not genuinely eating the Lord's supper.

In the next section, we will discuss what communion is (or is supposed to be). For now, we need to see what the Corinthians were doing instead. And the picture we get is of something very different from Communion and far more like an ordinary meal.

We know that, at least later in church history, there was a practice referred to as the “love feast.” This was a time when the church would come together and eat a meal, a sort of church supper or social, and this would then finish up with the celebration of communion. Most commentators think that is what Paul is addressing.

Albert Barnes goes further and suggests that the Corinthians had misunderstood the nature of communion itself: “The statement before us leads to the belief that all was irregular and improper; that they had entirely mistaken the nature of the ordinance, and had converted it into an occasion of ordinary festivity, and even intemperance; that they had come to regard it as a feast in honour of the Saviour on some such principles as they observed feasts in honour of idols, and that they observed it in some such manner...”

But if this was a love feast, they missed the love. And if this was an attempt to turn Communion into a festival, they had failed at both communion and at festival. It was like a church social, only without the 'social' part.

In verse 21, Paul highlights the problem: “In eating every one taketh before other his own supper.” Rather than being any sort of communal feast, or even a potluck, this was just a public lunch break. People were just bringing their own food and eating it. What the people were doing here was simply eating food. There was nothing about the act that made it any way religious. Not only was it not spiritual, it wasn't even social. It did not bring people closer to one another, let alone closer to God. They were just eating a meal and they happened to be doing it in a religious context. That's why, in verse 22, Paul asks whether they have their own houses to eat in—what they were doing could have been done at home just as easily as at church, and it wouldn't have been any different.

That would be bad enough, but it was actually worse than that. Not only was this not building up the church at all, it was actively tearing down the church. The problem with this public-private supper was that it highlighted the discrepancies within the church. Because each was bringing and eating their own food, some people could bring a large cooler full of food, while others were bringing a yogurt cup in their pocket. Paul says that “one is hungry, and another is drunken.” If we take that literally, then that introduces even more problems to this situation. However, a couple commentators suggest that the word drunken can mean overindulgence in food as well as drink. Even at that, the picture is bad enough—the picture of some people stuffing themselves to overflowing while others had next to nothing. Paul says that they were shaming those that have not; people who were too poor to bring very much food were publicly shamed by having to show off their meager rations in front of their wealthy friends.

And that brings us back to Paul's statement that we talked about at the beginning of the article: the Corinthians were despising the church of God. They were not treating it properly; they were not treating it as what it truly is. They were treating something serious and sacred as if it were something casual and secular.

And this is why it's so important that we understand this distinction between the two words for church. The issue here is not about eating in a church building since, most likely, the Corinthians were not meeting in a church building. It was not improbable that they were meeting in someone's house; therefore, it was a place, at other times, where ordinary eating was happening.

But when the church came together, as the church—at the point when a group of people set apart a slice of space-time for worship and edification, and especially for enacting communion—it was at that time and place that people were choosing to act in a way that was not appropriate for the church, in a way that actively brought division rather than community. They were coming together, not for edification, but for de-edification. And that was the thing which made Paul condemn them so sharply.