One Bread, One Body: Rediscovering the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34

Psalm 133                           Acts 2:42-47                 1 Corinthians 11:17–34 (ESV)

One Bread, One Body: Rediscovering the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34

There are few passages in the New Testament that have generated as much discussion as Paul’s teaching about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11. Through the centuries, Christians have raised important questions about Christ’s presence in the elements, the nature of the self-examination demanded, as well as the nature of the judgement mentioned. 

But before addressing these questions, we must ask what was happening when the Corinthians gathered. Paul’s assessment in 1 Corinthians 11:17 is devastating: their meetings were doing more harm than good. A meal proclaiming reconciliation had become an occasion for division. The community that confessed that they all belonged to the one body of Jesus were treating each other according to the divisions of their surrounding society. How on earth did this happen? We must assume that a) Paul had taught them the fundamental principles of what it means to be a church and that b) something had radically changed since he had left. 

But to understand Corinth we need to begin with Jerusalem. In Acts 2:42–47, Luke gives us a remarkable portrait of the earliest Christian community following Pentecost. He tells us that the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. These practices express one shared life, shaped by Jesus’ death and resurrection and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Their worship and eating together belonged to the same pattern of Christian fellowship…in other words, their fellowship was not merely a feeling of affection but rather an active participation in a community.

That shared life had material consequences. Believers sold possessions and distributed the proceeds according to need. Acts 4:32–35 develops the picture: their unity meant that the needs of some became the concern of all. Now, it is important to note that this was voluntary, Spirit-generated generosity, not a compulsory surrender of property; Acts 5:4 makes that distinction clear. Nevertheless, their possessions remained resources through which they could serve one another, rather than an abundance to hoard and enjoy without regard for others.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, because I believe Acts 2:42-47 can serve as a paradigm for understanding Paul’s concern in Corinth as it offers a programmatic picture of what the early Christian Community in Jerusalem looked like. Of course, Jerusalem was not flawless. Acts 6 records the neglect of Hellenistic widows. Nevertheless, Luke gives us a pattern against which failures of fellowship can be recognised: teaching, worship, shared meals and generosity all belong together. That pattern helps us see what went wrong in Corinth.

Now, as I’m sure you all know, Early Christians commonly gathered in homes, as numerous verses in the Book of Acts as well as Romans 16:5 and 1 Corinthians 16:19 indicate. Houses and hosts differed in their space and resources, making differences in wealth and status readily visible. In the surrounding society, meals could reinforce those distinctions through the food provided and the treatment of guests. And yet, while Christian fellowship should have challenged that logic, the Corinthian house churches were reproducing it.

In 1 Corinthians 11:18–21, Paul describes divisions within their gathering. Each goes ahead with a personal meal: some remain hungry while others drink to excess. They assemble in one place without acting as one community. Paul’s conclusion is startling: what they are eating cannot truly be called the Lord’s Supper because their conduct contradicts the meaning of the meal.

Verse 22 identifies the offence: they despise God’s church and humiliate those who have nothing. This is more than poor manners or an imperfect ceremony. People lacking basic necessities find their deprivation exposed in the community where they should receive dignity and care. Correct words and familiar ceremonies cannot make worship faithful when participants disregard one another.

Now, to appreciate the possible consequences of this behaviour, we must consider the economic circumstances of Corinth at the time. Archaeological and epigraphic evidence concerning drought, food sources, and economic hardship, including the evidence associated with the grain supplier, Claudius Dinippus, who served several times during the period in which Paul was writing, provides us with a possible historical context for understanding the vulnerability of urban food supplies. 

This background may help explain the seriousness of the hunger of the less fortunate in Corinth. Ancient urban households depended on agricultural supply and trade, and disruptions affected those with few resources most severely. Of course, this context does not prove that a particular shortage lay behind Paul’s rebuke or establish the cause of the illnesses he later mentions, but it does remind us that food insecurity was a real vulnerability, not simply an inconvenience.

For example, consider a day labourer, dependent on finding and maintaining a position to receive wages on a day-to-day basis. If there was a drought, there would be no work. If there was no work, there would be no income. And if there was no income, obtaining food could become impossible. So, while a wealthy household might have reserves, the labourer would have none. 

Translate all this into what was possibly happening in the church, and you are faced with a situation where some members ate abundantly while others remained hungry. As such, the church exposed rather than relieved that vulnerability. In Jerusalem, resources answered need. In Corinth, abundance was enjoyed while need was ignored.

This is why Paul recalls the institution of the Lord’s Supper in verses 23–26. On the night of his betrayal, Jesus gave thanks, broke bread and identified it with his body given for them. The cup signified the new covenant in his blood. Whenever the church shares this bread and cup, it proclaims the Lord’s death until he comes. In other words, the meal receives its meaning from his self-giving.

Now, I do think the language of remembrance also deserves attention. In this sense, remembrance is more than private recollection of a past event. The gathered community remembers the saving act on which its identity rests. As Passover recalled Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, so this meal centres the church on Jesus’ death. Remembering him means recognising both what he has done for us as well as the shared life his sacrifice has created. It gives successive generations a shared identity rooted in God’s saving action through the death of Jesus.

But Jesus’ death means more than the simple termination of his life on the cross. It means that he did not preserve his own privileges at our expense. He gave himself for us…he gave us everything…he withheld nothing. 

The institution narrative therefore grounds Paul’s rebuke. Jesus gave himself for others, yet the Corinthians refused to share their food. They celebrated his immeasurable generosity while practising neglect. But Paul’s point is that those who receive his grace cannot treat fellow recipients as unworthy of dignity. The conduct of the gathered church must be consistent with the self-giving love its meal proclaims.

We now reach the interpretative centre of the passage. In verses 27–29, Paul warns that eating and drinking in an unworthy manner brings guilt concerning the Lord’s body and blood. So, he calls for self-examination and warns against eating without discerning the body. But what does “discerning the body” mean? Our answer must take seriously both the bread and cup, as well as the behaviour Paul has condemned.

Obviously, Christian traditions differ over this warning. Some emphasise recognising Christ’s presence in the bread and wine while others emphasise recognising the church as his body. My own personal reading is that the immediate context strongly supports a communal dimension: the Corinthians must recognise the gathered church as Christ’s body and treat its members accordingly. Paul’s use of “body” elsewhere in this letter supports that interpretation.

For instance, in 1 Corinthians 10:16–17, Paul links participation in Christ’s body and blood with the unity of those sharing the bread in a double metaphor. The many are one body because they partake of one bread, because participation is not an isolated individual experience: belonging to Christ binds the participants to one another. The meaning of the meal and the identity of the community cannot be separated.

The chapter 12:12–27 develops this further. The church is one body with many members, and those who appear weaker are indispensable. Verses 25–26 call for mutual care rather than division: when one member suffers, all suffer together. But in chapter 11, the Corinthians do the exact opposite. They humiliate vulnerable members and ignore their hunger. The shared bread expresses a unity that their conduct denies. They eat the one bread, yet they fail to behave as one body. They proclaim the death of Jesus, yet they disregard the needs of those for whom he died. They receive the signs of fellowship while denying the reality of fellowship.

I therefore understand discerning the body to include recognising the community created through Jesus’ death. The vulnerable believer beside us is not an outsider, a social inferior or an inconvenient reminder of hardship. That person belongs to Christ’s body and deserves dignity and care. The question is not only whether we understand what the bread signifies, but whether we recognise the people with whom we share it. To fail to discern the body as a unity created by every members inclusion through the death of Jesus is to fail to recognise the church for what it is.

This also explains why an offence against fellow believers concerns the Lord’s body and blood. Our relationship with Jesus cannot be detached from our treatment of those who belong to him. Sacramental and communal meanings need not compete: the significance of the bread and the cup makes the participants’ conduct so important. Self-examination must reckon with the division and the neglect Paul actually describes.

But Paul’s warning becomes more serious in verses 30–32. Here he connects their conduct with weakness, illness and deaths among them. Now, one possible historical reconstruction that is consistent with what we know about the situation in Corinth at the time,  is that the poorer members were suffering from inadequate nourishment and the consequences of food insecurity, while those with greater resources enjoyed abundance. In an ancient city, malnutrition, or eating contaminated or rotting food picked up off the streets or from garbage heaps, and preventable illnesses could have devastating consequences, particularly for people without the resources to protect themselves. This reconstruction fits the divisions Paul described. It also helps explain why his instructions focus on sharing the meal and waiting for one another. 

Now there is an illuminating parallel in an early Christian document called the Shepherd of Hermes. In Similitude 3:9 the author warns against enjoying God’s gifts selfishly while others lack what they need. He describes those who overindulge as harming themselves through gluttony, while those with insufficient food waste away from inadequate nourishment. Now, while this doesn’t prove that this is what Paul meant in his letter to the Corinthians, it does demonstrate that early Christian moral reflection could connect the selfish consumption of abundance with bodily harm and neglect of those in need. 

Now, verse 32 adds a crucial distinction: the Lord’s judgement disciplines them so that they will not be condemned with the world. This discipline is corrective, calling the church to repentance rather than leaving it in despair. The community must not dismiss its divisions as trivial and so Paul’s warning leads directly to instructions for changing its shared life.

In verses 33–34, Paul tells them to wait for one another when they gather to eat so that they might learn to eat as a community. Now, the meaning of “eat at home” and the precise arrangements remain disputed. It has often been interpreted as a command for wealthier members to eat their private meals in their private homes before attending the communion meal. But that reading sits uneasily with Paul’s repeated condemnation of the existing divisions and his insistence that the Corinthians should wait for one another.

So, I favour understanding this command in relation to the sharing of meals equally at the house-church gathering, rather than as permission to preserve private, unequal meals. Behind Paul’s instructions to the Corinthians lies the foundational image of the communal spirit of the first church in Jerusalem. Indeed, “…if (Paul) so vehemently objects to the community’s divisive eating habits…and so boldly pronounced judgement upon them…why would he temper his rebuke by sanctioning the church’s wealthier members’ eating (and drinking) at home?” (Henderson, If Anyone Hungers…’: An Integrated Reading of 1 Cor 11:17–34). It doesn’t make sense, does it?

But whatever view we take, disputed details must not obscure Paul’s demand that the church must change how it eats the Lord’s Supper together. There is little point in celebrating a meal that proclaims unity while maintaining practices that destroy unity, so the remedy is the restoration of the integrity of the community. The church must learn to see one another differently and arrange their common life accordingly. 

The contrast with Jerusalem now comes into focus. There, shared worship expressed itself in care for those in need. In Corinth, a meal not shared exposed neglect. The Corinthians had not merely forgotten how to conduct a ceremony; they had forgotten what it meant to belong to one another in Jesus. Social distinctions had displaced the fellowship their Lord’s death had created.

Paul’s words therefore ask us several searching questions. Do we recognise the person beside us as a member of the same body? Do our resources serve those who lack them? Do differences in wealth, education, social influence or background determine how we treat fellow believers? Or do we allow our own personal values to shape our common life as the body of Jesus?

Our participation at the Lord’s table cannot be separated from our answers. We cannot proclaim the self-giving love of Jesus while remaining indifferent to the needs of those for whom he gave himself. We cannot celebrate the one bread while refusing to acknowledge that we are one body. And we certainly cannot claim to discern the body of Christ if we fail to recognise the dignity and needs of its members. 

This does not require everyone to possess the same amount of money or imply that every material difference is inherently unjust, but Paul refuses to let those differences and distinctions excuse humiliation or neglect. The practical test is whether abundance becomes a means of service or a reason to ignore others. We cannot proclaim Jesus’ self-giving love while remaining indifferent to fellow members of his body.

The Lord’s Supper brings us back to the cross: his body given, his blood shed, his death proclaimed until he comes. It also reminds us of all whom he has gathered around his table. We are not unrelated individuals sharing a ceremony, but a people reconciled to God through Jesus and called to live as members of one another.

Let us therefore come with gratitude for his grace, humility about our own needs, and a willingness to recognise and serve one another. Let Jerusalem’s generosity instruct us and Paul’s warning to Corinth search us. May our celebration express, rather than contradict, the love of the Lord who gave himself for us all.

For there is one bread, and we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

Shall we pray?

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2006