“Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you.”

Hard to imagine, but the Corinthians had so strayed from the idea of worship that they turned it into a pig-out, with each jockeying to be first in line at the smorgasbord table. A number of things come into play for us to understand what was going on. First, what many today call communion was originally a supper designed to remember the Lord. The very first one, which the Lord Jesus Himself inaugurated, we call the Last Supper. The book of Acts suggests that the early church carried this on as a meal:

They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer … Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart. (Acts 2:42-46)

Apparently one of the traditions “passed down” that Paul (as the original church planter in Corinth) had delivered to them was the idea and practice of the Lord’s Supper. However, the believers there, because of selfishness, distorted this wonderful remembrance meal into a food fest and nothing more. They had denuded the Lord’s Supper of its meaning.

In keeping with the fellowship of sharing worldly possessions, the Lord’s Supper was, besides a time of worship, to be a time of sharing in the food. One can see the hints of the temple worship of Judaism, when worshipers would bring an offering of food to God, which was often given back in part to the worshiper to enjoy in fellowship with others.

The Corinthians were neither worshiping God nor sharing. Paul’s stinging chastisement was this: if eating is what it is all about, you can do that in your home. What’s the point of coming together to do that? He repeats in similar words what he said earlier in vs. 17, “In this I will not praise you” (vs. 22). What they were doing was not sharing resources of food, but essentially shaming those who had very little. Imagine a church potluck (or as some might say, “pot-blessing”), having the wealthy going first and taking the best, choicest food, while those of meager means go last when there are only slim pickings left over. May it never be said of us, “In this I will not praise you.”

Lord, help me to graciously let others go first, whether at meals or worship.