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Reading 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 where the Apostle tells the church exactly how the Lord's supper is to be practiced in remembrance of Christ. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
There is a way that the Lord's Table is supposed to be practiced and it's not according to what we want it to be or how we define it. Jesus gave these elements and he defined them for us and how we use them when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.
Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. We come to our study of 1 Corinthians 11. We're in the section where Paul is confronting the church in Corinth over their misuse of the Lord's Table. I'm going to begin reading in verse 17 and we'll go through verse 26.
This is out of the Legacy Standard Bible, the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. But in giving this instruction, I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better, but for the worse.
For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you, and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you.
Therefore when you meet together in the same place, 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. For 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. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was being betrayed, took bread.
And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way he took the cup, also after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes. So first of all, Paul describes exactly what it is that the church in Corinth is doing, which is not the Lord's supper.
They're eating their own food. It is not that which the Lord has prescribed for his church to partake in, in remembrance of the body that was broken for us and the blood that was spilled for the forgiveness of sins.
For Paul says, in verse 21, In your eating, each one takes his own supper first. So you're not eating the Lord's supper. Verse 20,. Therefore when you meet together in the same place, it is not to eat the Lord's supper.
Each one is eating his own supper, and one is hungry and another is drunk. Now in verse 21, it says, In your eating, each one takes his own supper first. So it could be that there was some kind of communion that was taking place.
There was, you know, like we would see a traditional communion. There was a breaking of a bread and a drinking of a cup, but the church was already divided by the time you got to that point. They're already separated.
You saw differences in class. The rich over here eating a whole bunch of food and even getting drunk. And then the poor over here, they don't have as much if they even eat anything at all. So the body has already been separated from one another.
And then they come to the actual Lord's supper communion portion, and they're not eating the Lord's table. They've eaten their own supper first. They don't come together as one body in Christ to eat and partake of the body that was broken for us.
Instead, it's a church that is divided. And Paul says in verse 22, when it comes to this agape feast, this love feast, which wasn't really love. So it's interesting that, you know, Paul is confronting this here in chapter 11.
And then what does he get to in chapter 13? He tells them what love really is, and they are not practicing it. So they have these feasts that they indulge in these agape feasts. It's called a love feast, but it's not really loving.
They're not sharing with others. They're not considering others needs ahead of their own. They're divided from one another. So if this is the way you're going to act with all this food, with all this wine, why not do it in your own house to eat and drink?
Why do this in the house of God? You are breaking up the house of God. In 1 Peter 2, it says that we're all living stones being built into a spiritual house unto the Lord. So this is the church. Every single one of us, we are a piece of that house.
And no piece is greater than the other piece. Every brick, every stone is significant, for it builds the house up. And it holds the walls up. The foundation, Peter says there in 1 Peter 2, is Christ is the cornerstone, and then you have the apostles to whom the gospel was first given and told to go out and preach the gospel to the nations.
So they make up the foundation of this building. But every single one of us, every person who becomes a Christian from that point on becomes another stone in this house, a spiritual house that is being built up as a house of worship unto the Lord.
This is the church. We are the house of God. And here in this house, in Corinth, they are behaving in a way that is not appropriate for how one should behave in the house of God. They are eating food that God has not prescribed for His church when it comes to the Lord's table, that communion meal that He has given for us, that all are the same when we come to this table.
We're all sinners in need of a Savior. We eat of the same bread. We drink of the same cup. But the Corinthians are eating different food. Do this in your own house. Eat all the food you want in your house.
Drink the drink you want to drink. But you despise the church of God, shaming those who have nothing, the way they're conducting themselves. They're in the church in Corinth. What shall I say to you, Paul says, shall I praise you in this?
I will not praise you. So first of all, he describes what they're doing and why it's wrong. They're divided from one another. They're not unified in Christ. What is the Lord's Supper? What the Corinthians were doing was not the Lord's Supper.
So what is it? Paul says in verse 23, I received from the Lord. Okay, this thing that I am going to give to you, that I'm explaining to you is the Lord's table. This came from the Lord. Now, surely the Corinthians knew this.
Paul had given it to them before, but he's explaining to them once again, this is not something that I came up with. You're not following the tradition of any man. You are following a tradition that has been handed to us by Christ.
So what Paul is telling them to do is in Paul's version of the Lord's Supper, this actually comes from the Lord himself, though Paul was not present with the disciples in the upper room for that communion meal, right?
He wasn't among them. He was still a Pharisee at that time and a little bit later on would be persecuting the church and putting Christians to death because of his zealousness for what he thought was the law of God.
Do I need to protect the law? These Christians are saying you can be saved by faith in Jesus Christ. They're heretics. We must put them to death. And then it turns out Paul is actually the heretic. Jesus appears to him on the road to Damascus and he has his conversion experience, becomes an apostle of Christ, no longer an enemy of Christ, but one who's been appointed to take the gospel to the nations.
So Paul was not among the disciples, the 12 disciples, Judas would betray Jesus there at the Lord's table, but he was not among the 12 there in the upper room in that last meal that they had Thursday night before the Lord was to be arrested and taken away and crucified.
So Paul is given this later, but he still receives it from the Lord just as the other apostles received it from the Lord. So Paul did as well. I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was being betrayed.
It's interesting that that's the way that we appoint that particular night. What night was it that Jesus had this meal with his disciples, which would become taking from Passover to becoming the Lord's supper, to becoming communion, the Lord's table that we practice in church even today.
So what night was it that Jesus had this meal with his disciples that he commissioned or gave to them these ordinances? It was Thursday night. It was the night he was betrayed because it was right there with a cup in his hand that he dipped a bread into the cup and Judas dipped his bread into the same cup.
And that was the sign that he was the one who was going to betray the son of man. So on the night that he was betrayed, he took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me. Now let me hold here for just a moment. So we have the account of the Lord's supper in three gospels, three of the four gospels. John's gospel doesn't record it, but we find it in Matthew, Mark and Luke.
John's gospel has a longer narrative with Jesus and his disciples in the upper room. But he doesn't mention the Lord's supper there. The reason for that is likely because John's gospel was written later.
And by that point, the Lord's supper was already thing already a thing that was being practiced in all the churches. It wasn't necessary for John to have to reiterate that again. His intention was different in the gospel account that he wrote.
So he's writing about the things that Jesus said to his disciples, which Matthew, Mark and Luke don't record. There's not a lot of conversation in the upper room in what we call the synoptic gospels, synoptic meaning same.
So Matthew, Mark and Luke don't recall a lot of the discourse that happens that John writes down, which goes from John 13 to chapter 17. It's a pretty lengthy section. But when it comes to the narrative of Jesus having that last meal with his disciples, we read about that only in Matthew, Mark and Luke.
And the three accounts are different. Let me go ahead and read them to you. They're not very long. So we'll see the differences between these three accounts and then we'll see how Paul prescribes that this is supposed to be practiced in the instruction that he gives in First Corinthians chapter 11.
So Matthew 26, starting in verse 26. Now, while they were eating, Jesus took some bread and after a blessing, he broke it and giving it to the disciples. He said, take, eat. This is my body. And when he had taken a cup and given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.
But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until the day when I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. And after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
There's Matthew's account. Next one is Mark's. This is Mark 14, beginning in verse 22. And while they were eating, he took some bread and after a blessing, he broke it and gave it to them and said, take it.
This is my body. And when he had taken a cup and given thanks, he gave it to them and they all drank from it. And he said to them, this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.
And after singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. That one sounds pretty close to exactly what Matthew wrote. You have Matthew 26. You have Mark 14. And notice there in Mark 14, 22, it says, and while they were eating, he took some bread.
So the the meal that they are eating is is the Passover meal. And then he gives it to them as something different. Now, remember, part of the Passover meal was a lamb. They've already eaten the lamb and everything else about the Passover meal.
But Jesus is the lamb who is now breaking bread and saying, this is my body. So he's the lamb who's going to be sacrificed. The eating of the bread represents the body that is broken for them. The drinking of the cup represents the blood that is spilled for the forgiveness of sins.
Now, contrary to the Catholic prescription of this, where you have the whole thing of transubstantiation, they believe that at the behest of the priest, the the bread becomes the literal body of Jesus and the cup becomes his literal blood.
Well, Jesus is giving this to his disciples before he's died. So in his partaking in it with the disciples, it's not literally his body and not literally his blood. So that's not the way that we should consider it either.
It's the Passover meal, but it is being given as representing something else now that Christ is our Passover lamb. He has fulfilled everything. All the types and shadows of the Old Testament are being fulfilled in Christ.
So he's taking of that same meal and prescribing it to the disciples in a different way. Even the lamb is still present in the supper again because the lamb is Christ. And then the bread and the cup represent his body and his blood.
So, again, this is after they had finished this meal, as Matthew, Matthew 26, 26 says, while they were eating, Jesus took some bread. Mark 14, 22 says, while they were eating, he took some bread. Now in Luke 22, verse 14, and when the hour had come, he reclined at the table and the apostles with him.
And he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. Now we see something a little bit different because in Matthew and in Mark, Jesus said that at the end and he said it about the cup.
I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until I drink it with you new in my father's kingdom. Here at the beginning, Jesus is saying, I'm eating this supper with you and I won't eat it again until it's fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
Verse 17. And when he had taken a cup and given thanks, he said, take this and share it among yourselves. For I say to you, I will not drink the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.
Now that comes in. But again, it's still at the beginning rather than at the end of the meal. Verse 19. And when he had taken some bread and given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, this is my body, which is given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me. And in the same way, he took the cup after they had eaten, saying, this cup, which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. But behold, the hand of the one betraying me is with me on the table.
For indeed, the son of man is going as it has been determined. But woe to that man by whom he is. He is betrayed. And they began to argue among themselves which one of them it might be who was going to do this thing.
So you see how the order of things is slightly different in the gospel of Luke. There's two cups. There's a cup at the beginning. There's the breaking of bread. Then there's another cup. The second cup is the one that says this is poured out for you.
It's the new covenant in my blood. So how do we do this? Then we have three accounts, Matthew 26, 14. I'm sorry, Matthew 26, Mark 14 and Luke 22. It's not that they're different. There are just some minor discrepancies.
So how is it then do we partake of the Lord's table in the way that is pleasing unto the Lord? And that's what Paul gives us in first Corinthians 11. So when you see the the table in your church, you attend a Protestant church.
You might have a Lord's table there, right? A communion table. And it has etched onto the side of the table. You may not have this in your church, but most traditional Protestant churches will probably have a table there.
And what does it have etched into the side? It says, do this in remembrance of me, right? What's the reference? It's not Matthew, Mark or Luke. Have you ever noticed that before? Have you ever paid attention to the reference that's etched into the side of that table?
It's not from the gospel accounts. The reference is from first Corinthians 11, and it's probably verse 24. This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. That's where that phrasing comes from.
It's first Corinthians 11, 24 in verse 25. In the same way, he took the cup also after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
So we have the narrative accounts of the Lord's supper in Matthew, Mark and Luke. But the the actual instruction that we follow for how this is to be conducted in our churches is right here in first Corinthians 11.
So you have the narration or the narrative in Matthew, Mark and Luke. You have the instruction, the imperative in first Corinthians 11, 23 through 26. That's what Paul gives to the church in Corinth. They had not been practicing the Lord's supper in a right way.
Here's what it's actually supposed to look like. And this is the way that we should regard this in its proper practice in our present context, in the church today, in your respective church. We are individual congregations meeting in different places and at different times.
But as we gather in the name of Christ, when we partake of that body, which is broken for us and the cup that represents the blood that was spilled for the forgiveness of sins, this is how we are to do it.
This is the instruction that is for all the churches. It's been this way for 2000 years. Anything else you start adding to it, you start expanding it or even taking away from it. Then you fall under the condemnation of the apostle who says, for when you meet together in the same place, it is not to eat the Lord's supper.
You have made it into something else, something in your image, something that you wanted to be, not something that Christ had actually shared with his disciples. We are not at liberty to redefine these things.
It must be according to what God has set forth for us. What Jesus gave to his disciples and then how the disciples instructed the church to partake in these things in a proper manner. And that's what we have in first Corinthians chapter 11.
But we're not quite done. There's still more of this that Paul has for the church and will continue to glean from this as well and give application in our present day. As we come back to this study of first Corinthians 11 concerning the Lord's Supper, we'll be back in this God willing next week.
Let's conclude with prayer. Heavenly Father, we are grateful to you for the gift of your son who put on flesh and dwelt among us, who lived perfectly in his ministry here on earth that he would fulfill all that had been foretold in the law and the prophets.
Even in the Passover, we were shown glimpses of Christ, who is our Passover lamb, who has been broken for us, whose blood was spilled for the forgiveness of sins. And so now when we come to the Lord's table and we partake of these elements, may we remember this body, which is broken for us, this cup, which represents the new covenant in the blood of Jesus.
And as often as we eat of this bread and drink of this cup, we remember what Christ has done and we proclaim his death until he comes daily. We die to ourselves that we may live for Christ, becoming living sacrifices.
Jesus was a sacrifice unto death. May we live in our lives unto Christ that the world may witness this message, this testament of the gospel of Jesus Christ that was given in the son of God, who was crucified for us, who rose again from the dead so that all who believe in him will not perish under the judgment of God.
But we receive everlasting life and then we will drink of this vine anew with Christ in your heavenly kingdom. Come quickly, Lord Jesus, we pray in his name. Amen.
You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.
On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.