The Lord's Supper In Corinth

In this blog I have wrote about the passages I have used in the past to support or defend the way I practice what is commonly called the Lord’s Supper. These are passages I used to point to and say, “See, this is why I do what I do.” In previous posts I have taken brief looks at Luke 22:7-22, Acts 2:42, 2:46-47, 20:7, and now 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.

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 So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, ²¹ for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. ²² Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!  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.  ²⁷ So then, 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 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. ²⁹ For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. ³⁰ That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. ³¹ But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. ³² Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.  ³³ So then, my brothers and sisters, when you gather to eat, you should all eat together. ³⁴ Anyone who is hungry should eat something at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment.  And when I come I will give further directions.

I will present an argument I have used in the past to show that the way “we” take the Lord’s Supper is right and those who don’t do this are wrong. Then I will answer that argument. The reason for this is an effort to make this post as easy to understand as possible, as well as be as clear as I can in explaining what I’m getting at. Before I do this, here is some very basic background information on the banquet in the Greco-Roman world:

Background on Greco-Roman banquets.

The banquet was a key part of life in the Greco-Roman world. The word deipnon is the Greek word for their evening meal, the main meal of the day. The symposium immediately followed the deipnon. The symposium was the part of the banquet where the entertainment took place. This should help us to understand part of the setting for the meals in Corinth.

Argument #1

The Lord’s Supper and a full meal are mutually exclusive (The Lord’s Supper is not to be taken with a meal, or turned into a meal). After all, Paul asked them, “Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in?” He also wrote, “Anyone who is hungry should eat something at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment.”

Answer:

I believe this conclusion is based on 2 things: 1) A lack of understanding of the nature and practices of the early communities that formed around Jesus. 2) Forcing our current practices onto the text. It’s almost as if my eyes focused on these two phrases alone, and I saw Paul saying to the Corinthians, “Stop eating meals”, and neglected to see the entire passage as a whole, and not the rest of this letter to the church at Corinth, let alone first-century Christianity within the Greco-Roman world.

Those who argue this overlook the fact that early Christian communities did not have specially designated religious buildings where they could worship God. Instead they put the belief, that the church is a community of people and not a building, into practice. And they met in houses, the places where these people lived. They didn’t have “worship services” with a holy time and a holy place.

The fact is that early Christians ate, what is here referred to by Paul as the Lord’s Supper, within the context of a meal. Contrary to popular belief, Paul says nothing to discourage them from continuing this practice! One would think that if Paul were writing this passage, mainly to command them to stop eating meals, he would say, “Stop eating meals!” In fact it is the exact opposite. As Scott Perry mentioned in his comment, Paul rehearses the story of Jesus breaking bread with his disciples on the night he was betrayed, and he makes it clear that a full meal was involved, placing the phrase “after supper” in between the bread and cup. Also, look at Paul’s directions on how to solve the problem (v.33). Does he write, “When you get together, stop eating meals with the Lord’s Supper”? NO! Instead, “You should all eat together.”

Argument #2

During the Lord’s Supper, in order to be pleasing to God, we must examine ourselves, meaning, we must think about the sins we have committed, weigh them against the good we have done and make sure we are worthy to take the Supper.

Answer:

In order to come to this conclusion, one must separate the words “examine yourselves” from their context and assume Paul was wanting the people at Corinth to do what we do. The phrase “examine yourselves”, within its context, clearly is referring to the way they are divided, and their practices which were turning the community meal into individual meals, “humiliating those who have nothing.” Paul is certainly not commanding them to make sure they are meeting imaginary standards of some moral code, to determine whether or not they are worthy to partake of certain ritualistic acts. Nor is he requiring them to meditate upon some personal sins that they may have committed during the week before. He is pleading with them to consider how their behavior is damaging the community of Christians at Corinth, and their brothers and sisters individually.

Argument #3

Also, during the Lord’s Supper we are to meditate on a visual image of Jesus hanging on the cross (Note: Other thoughts other than these two themes are inappropriate during this time).

Answer:

I believe this conclusion is mainly based on a misunderstanding of what Paul writes in v.29: “For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.” The body, many in Corinth were not discerning, is the church. They were tearing down the community instead of building it up. Their suppers were meals of individuals or cliques, while the Lord’s Supper is a community enhancing event. There is certainly nothing wrong with visualizing Jesus on the cross, but the fact is that Paul is simply not writing to chew these people out for not focusing their constant attention on a mental image of Jesus suffering.

The more you learn about the Greco-Roman world, especially banquets in that world, the more you realize that the problem in Corinth has to do with them turning the Lord’s Supper into their own. Their community banquets were nothing more than events that upheld the values of the surrounding society. Their social boundaries and levels of status were set by the world.

The community at Corinth was divided. Paul writes, pleading with them to consider their practices and strive to unite rather than divide, to build up instead of tearing down. Promote the values of Jesus your King, instead of the values of the society in which you are living. His goal for them is simply “to eat together.”

Sources

The Holy Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2011.

The Zondervan Greek and English Interlinear New Testament edited by Mounce and Mounce. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2008.

The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament by Craig Keener. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1993.

From Symposium To Eucharist by Dennis E. Smith. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2003.

Come To The Table by John Mark Hicks. Abilene, Texas: Leafwood, 2002.

Making a Meal of It by Ben Witherington III. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2007.