1 Corinthians 11:17 - Meaning and Application

In this passage, the apostle sharply rebukes them for worse disorders than before in their sharing of the Lord’s Supper. In the early church, this meal was often joined with a love feast, and that gave rise to the shameful behavior he corrects here.

He begins his charge carefully: “In this I do not praise you” (1 Corinthians 11:17). He had already shown he was glad to commend them where he could, but these abuses in such a holy ceremony called for strong correction. They had turned an institution meant to help them into something that harmed them. They came together, not for their good, but for their harm. If Christ’s ordinances do not make us better, they will likely make us worse. If they do not soften and improve us, they will harden us, and our sins will become more settled.

Paul then names their problems more fully. First, he says that when they came together, they fell into divisions, or schisms, which means deep breaks in fellowship. Instead of joining together with one heart to observe the ordinance, they argued and split from one another. There can be schism even when people still meet in the same church and sit at the same Lord’s table. When love cools, when hearts drift apart, and when disputes and grudges grow, that is schism. Christians may also separate from one another and still remain uncharitable, but the deeper sin is often this lack of love within the same fellowship.

Paul had heard of the Corinthians’ divisions, and he had reason to believe the report. He adds that there must also be heresies, meaning harmful factions and even false teachings that strike at the heart of Christianity. No wonder churches suffer broken love when there are also dangers that can wreck faith and a good conscience. Such dangers are permitted by God so that approved believers, those with sincere hearts, may be revealed as faithful when they hold to God’s truth despite false teaching and pressure. God can even use the sins and mistakes of others to make the faithfulness of his people stand out more clearly.

Second, Paul charges them with shameful disorder. He says that in eating, each person goes ahead with his own supper, so one is hungry and another is drunk (1 Corinthians 11:21). In pagan feasts, people often drank heavily at meals connected with sacrifices. It seems some of the wealthier Corinthians brought that same selfish spirit into the Lord’s table, or into the love feasts attached to it. They would not wait for one another. The rich looked down on the poor and ate their own food before the poor could share, so some had too little while others had too much.

This was a deep insult to a holy ordinance. What was meant to feed the soul was being used to feed greed and selfish desires. What should have strengthened love was being turned into a cause of division. The poor were left without the food prepared for them, and the rich turned a meal of charity into a feast of excess. This was a disgraceful abuse.

Paul then places the blame squarely on them. Their behavior destroyed the whole purpose of the meal: “This is not the Lord’s Supper” (1 Corinthians 11:20). They might as well have stayed home. To eat the outward bread and wine in such a way was not truly to eat the Lord’s Supper at all. There is a careless and disordered way of taking the Supper that counts as nothing and only adds guilt. That is what the Corinthians were doing. Their conduct directly opposed the purpose of the sacred meal.

Their actions also showed contempt for God’s house, that is, for the church itself (1 Corinthians 11:22). If they wanted to hold a private feast, they could do that at home. But to come to the Lord’s table, form little cliques, quarrel, and keep the poor from their share was a serious abuse of the ordinance. It also dishonored the poorer members of the church, whose souls were just as precious to Christ and cost him just as much as the souls of the rich. Ordinary meals can be handled in an ordinary way, but religious meals must be treated with reverence.

This kind of behavior is a serious evil, and Christians deserve strong correction when they treat one another with contempt, especially at the Lord’s table. In doing so, they dishonor God’s ordinances as well. We must watch carefully that nothing in our behavior at the Lord’s table gives even the appearance of treating such a holy institution lightly.