The Lord’s Supper

2006-12-11

How One Eats and Drinks Unworthily (1 Corinthians 11:23-34)

One that eats and drinks unworthily is one who takes a part in the Lord’s Supper and does not do what the Lord commanded: “this do in remembrance of me.” Much of Paul’s first epistle to the church in Corinth confronts issues of sectarianism, disunity, and disharmony. The Corinthians had forgotten that the Lord’s Supper was a communion of the saints remembering the Lord’s death together and how He had ended their hopeless condition before God. They were eating and drinking together for the sake of self-indulgence, and not for the sake of the remembering the Lord together.

Other references to the Lord’s Supper

Matthew 26:26-30; Mark 14:22-26; Luke 22:17-21; 1 Corinthians 10:14-17.

The only other implication of the eating and drinking unworthily is in Luke 22:21-22 where Jesus predicts the one who would betray Him who was also eating with Him at the table. Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, allegedly communed with Jesus, but then left to betray Jesus. The shame of turning his back on Jesus left him with so much shame that he committed suicide.

The Main Purpose of the Lord’s Supper

The Lord’s Supper is for a body of believers that remember the Lord’s death as a covering for their sins (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:19-20). The believers are to be abiding in Jesus. This means obeying His commands according to John 15:10, and according to the context this is the command to love one another (John 13:34-35). One of the most important things I have discovered in all of this is not to look in ourselves as much as we should be looking to Jesus. If sin is in our lives, we should confess it, and then take a part in the Lord’s Supper so that we do remember Him and what He did for us, for Jesus gives the purpose of the Lord’s Supper in a short phrase: “this do in remembrance of me.”

Related

A longer study can be found here.