1 Corinthians 11:17-22, 28, 32-34

Now in this next point I cannot add any commendation to the advice I am going to give you, for the reason that things are far from well, and that you are receiving harm where you ought to get only good. It is an excellent thing that you assemble yourselves together that you may get mutual profit thereby, but not if thereby differences and divisions arise amongst you. This I have heard to be the case, and so in a measure I believe it to be; because these divisions, it would seem, have a part to play in our faith, whereby the false are separated from the true, and true faith is tried and tested. Similarly taking food and drink in common, arriving at this meal hungry and thirsty, is no part of our faith. To dine all together is not to eat the supper of the Lord, especially when some are far better provided than others, and there are great differences in the way you fare at this common feast, and excess even and want are found seated at the same table. I like not such customs as that. Why not take your meals in the ordinary way at home? To eat and drink in such a way is to hasten the doom that is coming on all flesh — that doom and judgment of the flesh which is seen in the sickness, the ill-health and the death that still is found amongst your numbers. Now through the eternal body and blood of the Christ we are released from that fate and judgment that come upon the flesh. We look forward to the appearance and coming of the eternal Christ, and we show forth that peculiar death of his which overcame death and releases us from it.

Examine yourselves on these points, and assemble together in that spirit only. Otherwise you will only eat and drink the doom of all flesh, as it comes upon the whole world.

You would not be bound up with the world in the common doom of perishing mortality, but by first judging yourselves, you would then escape the general ruin. Such feasts as you observe, where the eating and drinking predominate over the teaching, have little in keeping with the Lord’s supper and this can be avoided by eating first at home, and then when you come together, giving place to one another, and taking the bread and wine as it comes to you. There are other details in connection with this matter which I will arrange when I see you.