1 Corinthians: Not in VainSample

'Oh, is it Holy Communion this week?’ 

Eating bread and wine together as a church family is something Christians have done ever since Jesus’ ‘last supper’, when he took the annual Jewish Passover meal and identified himself as the one whom that first Passover lamb anticipated (vv. 23–25).

And yet this act of remembering Christ’s death has also sadly become an area of controversy for Christians throughout history, not to mention something we can become overly familiar with. 

The particular problem in Corinth was that communion had become the arena where disunity and division were running wild. It was meant to be a Godgiven means by which a church would demonstrate its unity in Christ, and yet instead Christians were fracturing off into holier-than-thou subgroups, based around cultural divides. The wealthy were not waiting for the poor, leaving the poor hungry and humiliated (vv. 20–22). This was bring-and-share gone horribly wrong! 

Worse still, it seems the church was rationalising their behaviour as if such division pleased God (which Paul responds to in verse 19 with biting sarcasm). His verdict is that these gatherings were causing ‘more harm than good’ (v. 17). As critiques of church meetings go, that’s pretty damning! 

The point of Paul’s powerful warning in verses 27–32 isn’t to say we have to be perfect to partake in this meal. After all, as we take bread and wine we are effectively declaring together, ‘we are all sinners; we all need Jesus’! So that means we shouldn’t approach this meal lightly, or as if it were merely an individual act. Instead we should discern the ‘body’, probably a doublereference to acknowledging both that Jesus’ physical body was broken for us, and that his death forms us into a united ‘body’. That’s why some churches have the tradition of ‘sharing the peace’ beforehand, as this gives an opportunity for Christians to be reconciled where there are conflicts or tensions. 

Reflection

Do you ever find yourself relating to people in your church differently because of their background? 

Give thanks for Jesus’ death and the precious gift of the Lord’s supper, through which we feast afresh on the benefits of Christ’s death in our hearts.