1 Corinthians 11
11
1Follow my example, just like I follow Christ’s.
Appropriate dress in worship
2I praise you because you remember all my instructions, and you hold on to the traditions exactly as I handed them on to you. 3Now I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. 4Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered shames his head. 5Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered disgraces her head. It is the same thing as having her head shaved. 6If a woman doesn’t cover her head, then she should have her hair cut off. If it is disgraceful for a woman to have short hair or to be shaved, then she should keep her head covered. 7A man shouldn’t have his head covered, because he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is man’s glory. 8Man didn’t have his origin from woman, but woman from man; 9and man wasn’t created for the sake of the woman, but the woman for the sake of the man. 10Because of this a woman should have authority over her head, because of the angels. 11However, woman isn’t independent from man, and man isn’t independent from woman in the Lord. 12As woman came from man so also man comes from woman. But everything comes from God. 13Judge for yourselves: Is it appropriate for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? 14Doesn’t nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him; 15but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? This is because her long hair is given to her for a covering. 16But if someone wants to argue about this, we don’t have such a custom, nor do God’s churches.
The community meal
17Now I don’t praise you as I give the following instruction because when you meet together, it does more harm than good. 18First of all, when you meet together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and I partly believe it. 19It’s necessary that there are groups among you, to make it clear who is genuine. 20So when you get together in one place, it isn’t to eat the Lord’s meal. 21Each of you goes ahead and eats a private meal. One person goes hungry while another is drunk. 22Don’t you have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you look down on God’s churches and humiliate those who have nothing? What can I say to you? Will I praise you? No, I don’t praise you in this.
23I received a tradition from the Lord, which I also handed on to you: on the night on which he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread. 24After giving thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this to remember me.” 25He did the same thing with the cup, after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Every time you drink it, do this to remember me.” 26Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you broadcast the death of the Lord until he comes.
27This is why those who eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord inappropriately will be guilty of the Lord’s body and blood. 28Each individual should test himself or herself, and eat from the bread and drink from the cup in that way. 29Those who eat and drink without correctly understanding the body are eating and drinking their own judgment. 30Because of this, many of you are weak and sick, and quite a few have died. 31But if we had judged ourselves, we wouldn’t be judged. 32However, we are disciplined by the Lord when we are judged so that we won’t be judged and condemned along with the whole world. 33For these reasons, my brothers and sisters, when you get together to eat, wait for each other. 34If some of you are hungry, they should eat at home so that getting together doesn’t lead to judgment. I will give directions about the other things when I come.
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2011 Common English Bible. All rights reserved.
1 Corinthians 11
11
1follow me in this attitude, my brethren, as I follow the Christ.
Paul’s views on woman in the church
2You do remember and mark my words, I know, and you do keep the rules and the instructions which I lay down. I commend you as an obedient flock, and therefore listen now to another rule, a tradition I wish to be observed in our churches. 3Let men be bareheaded at our meetings, but let the women still wear the head-covering, as has always been the custom, and not thinking themselves free, as they begin to do, appear bareheaded like to men. 4-9And why? There is a reason. If a woman is to appear bareheaded like a man, then let her cut her hair, and wear it in the way that men wear theirs. That would be ugly, you say, and I agree. There is then a difference between the man and the woman; and what is our interpretation of it? Mine is this. Man stands for God; but woman stands for man. The head of the man is the type of Christ governing the body, and the head of Christ is God. The man then in every way stands as the type of the divine, the image and likeness of God, and with unveiled head he stands in the presence of God. 10But woman represents the glory of man; and in the presence of the angels of God man’s glory should be veiled. A woman’s beauty is her modesty. Her long hair is her glory, because it clothes and covers her. 11The male comes first as the representative of God, and the female next as the representative of man. 12In the second chapter of Genesis the difference made between the creation of man and of woman lies, as I interpret it, in these two different types, the one of God, the other of man; 13-15and so I advise you to keep the old custom whereby men wear their hair short, and bare their heads in prayer or preaching, but women wear their hair long, and in praying or in preaching they keep their heads covered. 16I advise you, I say, to keep this rule, but if you intend to argue the point with me — then I declare I am ignorant of any such custom, and the churches of God know it not!
Divisions and abuses at the Lord’s table
17Now 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. 18It 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; 19because 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. 20-21Similarly 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. 22I 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.
The last supper described
23That is what the Lord Jesus meant by his words at that last supper the night on which they took him, when he handed the cup to his disciples, and broke the bread for them. I taught you his words and his action on that occasion, as they were given me by those who were present. 24After taking the bread, he gave thanks, spoke the usual blessing, and handed it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is surrendered on your behalf. In future, when you break bread thus, and give thanks, remember my body, remember me.” 25-26In handing the cup after dinner, he said, “This is the new covenant, sealed in my blood. In future, whenever you take wine thus together, think of this new covenant, remember my blood.”
Its spiritual meaning explained
27Do you then my brethren, when you come together, eating and drinking, with the intention of carrying out his injunction, and recalling his words, do you really discern beneath this semblance and type of bread and wine the eternal body of Christ to which we belong? Do you really celebrate that wondrous death of his, which differed from all other deaths in that it is to be followed by his second coming and eternal presence in the world? 28Examine 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. 29But if you discerned that infinite eternal body, if you understood the meaning of Christ’s death in the flesh, and what is signified by the shedding of his blood, and the giving up of his mortal life and material body — 30-31then, my brethren, there would not be so much sickness and disease and death in your midst as there still is. 32-33You 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. 34Such 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.
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Translated in 1916, published in 1937.