Discerning The Body

Discerning the Body

1 Corinthians 11:17-34

God has called a people from all nations and from all classes of people. He has called them to be united together in the body of Christ. This shows the great ambition of God. People have tried to find world peace and to come together as one. After thousands of years of failure, the task seems an impossible one. But we must remember that nothing is impossible with God.

The church at Corinth was not doing a very good job with unity within the church. Despite the fact that Paul had labored a year and a half with them, the church was full of divisions. The congregation was split between groups that claimed Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and Christ as their leader. Members were taking each other to court over petty lawsuits. But nowhere were the divisions in the church more apparent than when they came together at the church. The center of the service was the Lord’s Supper which is supposed to be the shining example of Christian unity. Yet Paul has to scold them that when they came together for worship, they were coming together for the worse and not the better. Instead of growing together in love for Christ and each other, they were leaving the church more divided than ever.

Paul does admit that some dividing had to be the case in the church. There had to be discipline in the church. A man who was sleeping with his stepmother was to be separated from the congregation. Of course this was to be done in the hope that he would repent and be allowed back in. Others who showed themselves to have a heretical spirit were to be removed also. The goats had to be removed from the sheep. The devil does constantly attack the church. But even in his attempt to destroy the church, he can only in the end do the Lord’s bidding. The genuine would remain.

It is hard to determine whether verse 20 is in the form of a question as the original Greek text did not contain punctuation marks. If it is a question, it would read: “When you come together, is it not to eat the Lord’s Supper?” This would expect a positive answer. If this is the reading, then it shows that the Lord’s Supper was central to the early worship of the church. The “for” in the next verse is a little difficult grammatically as it is usually a development of a statement and not a question. If it is a statement, then it reads: “When you come together as one, it is NOT to observe the Lord’s Supper.” This then says that whatever supper they were observing, it was not the LORD’s Supper. This still implies that they should have been observing the “Lord’s” Supper, but what they were practicing was so contrary to what the Lord’s supper stood for, that it could not be called such as all. This means they were not really worshiping the Lord either. Either way, Paul levelled a very serious charge against the Corinthians. They were not discerning the body of Christ. And God had responded against them in judgment and had taken the lives of some of them.

The church did not have a building to worship in, so they would worship in house churches. There were some wealthy members who were at Corinth who had fairly large dwellings. We know that Erastus was the treasurer of the city, for example. Gaius may also have been wealthy. It is places like these that the church came to worship after they were separated from the synagogue. There is no indication of them renting a facility such as the church did at Ephesus which met in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.

The large estate the church probably met at was more like a plantation than a single family dwelling we are used to living in today. It would have been run by a servant who in literal translation was the chief economist. He would run things for the master of the house. The master would have slaves and servants working for him. There also would have been some skilled craftsman who were free men who would provide for crafted items. Horse shoes, barrels, etc. The house was run by strict rules, in Greek the words oikos and nomos, economy. There were also societal rules on had to observe based upon social rank. The master was fed at table first, then the family next, then the common free men, and lastly the slaves.

Part of the master’s duty was to provide for feasts on occasion for the community. These were often dedicated to one of the gods or goddesses, of which there were many in Corinth. The master of benefactor was obligated to provide food, drink, and such for the feast. But this did not mean that all were equal at this feast. Those of high rank would get the choice food and the best wine, and would eat first. Then the common citizens were provided lesser quality food and wine. The slaves and servants were only entitles to coarse bread and cheap wine. In this the rank of society was closely observed.