Do you despise the church of God?

John Farley
Pastor-Teacher
Sunday,
September 29, 2019

 

Do you despise the church of God?

1 Co 11:17-22

He will not be praising the Corinthians in today’s passage.

1 Co 11: 17-22:
Paul calls them out and rebukes them for their abuses at the Lord’s Supper.

1 Co 11: 23-26:
Paul delivers the Lord’s instruction about His Supper.

1 Co 11: 27-34:
Paul warns them about judgment, and exhorts them to correct the abuses.

The way they’re behaving, they’d be better off not even assembling as a church!

Heb 10:24-25

The Lord’s Supper meal is supposed be about unity: loving each other, and helping out those most in need.

You really don’t “come together” at all.
You’re more divided at the end than you were at the beginning!

1Co 11:18-19

He DOES believe it.
But he wants the Corinthians to feel the heat of his shock and disappointment.

There are times when one faction is on the low road (fleshly) while the other faction is taking the high road (spiritual).

Those who wanted to honor the death of the Lord by preserving the unity of the congregation were “tried and true”.

And one faction thought that they were the approved ones. The elite.

By being top of the line according to the ways of the world:
The class distinctions of Roman society.

They are going find themselves on the outside looking in when God makes His judgment.

1Co 1:26-29

1Co 11:20-21

It’s not about the Lord’s Supper.
It’s about YOUR supper.

We need to transport ourselves back to Corinth in the first century AD.

There were a few rich aristocrats.
Just about everyone else was poor.

1Co 16:19

At that time, the churches assembled together in private homes.

 

The Roman practice was to accentuate social and class distinctions at dinner parties.

 

One was called the triclinium. Latin for “three couches”. It held about 9 guests.

 

If you didn’t make the cut,
you were out in the atrium.

 

The honored guests were served much better food and wine than the others.

Unfortunately, they carried this practice over to the community meal of the Lord’s Supper.

1Co 11:20-21

Guests would bring their own food. The aristocrats would bring delicious food and fine wine , and lots of it.

But they didn’t share any of it with the poor.

Meanwhile, the poor people in the atrium may not have been able to afford to bring anything, or very little.
So they were famished.

It must have made them feel ashamed. Inferior. Angry even.

We’re supposed to be bringing into remembrance the death of the Lord. How we are all one in Christ.

They are making a mockery of the death of the Lord. They are acting like enemies of the cross.

Christ died for all, the just for the unjust.

The Lord’s supper is a memorial to Christ’s sacrifice.
He thought of others, not Himself.

2Co 8:9

At the Lord’s Supper, some of the saints understood that the one bread signified the body of the Lord.

They discerned that all who assembled were one body.

So they acted to preserve unity at the table of the Lord.

These were the ones who were approved.

1Co 11:22

They issued a stinging rebuke to the rich social climbers who were making a mockery of the cross.

Paul’s rhetoric
cut them down to size.

They had contempt for the poor and those who held lower status in society.

But when you come together for the Lord’s Supper, you better treat everyone the same.

The rich better share their food with the poor.

2Co 8:13-15

When he gathers together with the saints for the Lord’s Supper meal, he should be welcomed, well-fed, and loved on.

The point of a passage like this one is to cause us to examine ourselves .

If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, it’s time for things to change.

 

 


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