Message – The Lord’s Supper

We are continuing our series of studies in Pauls 1^st Letter to Corinthians and this morning  we are very appropriately considering the teaching and instruction on The Lords Supper the second of our ‘Ordinances’.

Surprisingly, 1 Corinthians 11 is the only place in the Bible where the Lord’s Supper is explicitly mentioned.

Each of the Gospels does has the narrative of the words Jesus spoke as He broke bread for the first time in that upper room.

For such an important ‘Ordinance’ it might seem strange that there is so few references to something that in the early church would have most likely been a part of  each meeting they had – not just once a month.

The passage we ae looking this morning has more to do with behaviour at the Lord’s Supper, than the Lord’s Supper itself.

In fact, had there not been a gross abuse of the Lord’s Supper, we would know hardly anything at all about the Supper.

God has a way of working all things out for good, and as a result, the Apostle Paul offers us a blueprint of the Lord’s Supper and clear instruction on how we should conduct ourselves.

The context is important for us in the 21^st Century – in those days in Corinth as we see in this letter from Paul the church was having some terrible issues and many things going on that were completely against Gods will and purpose. 

In fairness to the Corinthians they were new to this ‘church’ thing and learning all the time and the city they lived in was very used to excesses in almost everything – daily life was for many complex and the pull of the excesses all around would have made it very hard to work out what was right and what was not right.

In the early church they would come together for a meal – there were no Christian ‘church’ buildings – plenty of temples to all and every God under the sun but for the early Christian Church it was ‘meet in a home’  – whoever had enough space and room would welcome the others in – some gathering would be slaves with no home – it’s likely the more affluent would be the ones opening their home.

The main purpose of the meeting was a fellowship meal with some teaching but the norm was also to include the Breaking of Bread in the manner Jesus handed down all incorporated into the meal.

But that’s where things began to get out of hand.

In the spirit of ‘excess’ many would ‘jump the queue’ and arrive early and just get started – no polite waiting for everyone to gather first.

As we had read to us in the passage they were gorging themselves on the best of the fayre and not considering the others who would arrive later – most likely the slaves who would have had to wait till their master was finished with then before heading to the meeting – by the time they arrived the best was long gone and they who had least (leftovers would have been their routine meals) were left with basically what nobody else wanted.

None of this sounds very ‘Christian’ and is far from what the church and Jesus teaching was all about. 

The Corinthians somehow were oblivious as to how bad things had become – perhaps because against the benchmark of the world around them it began to look OK to them.

This has to be a warning for us in 21^st century UK – time for a sense check about what we class as acceptable and what would be right in Gods eyes.

We have a whole range of ‘situations’ that a generation ago would have been taboo but are now in the spirit of equality and diversity accepted as ‘the new norm’.

I’m not negating any or every shift in policy in recent years – I truly believe it is not our position, nor our role, to judge anyone and any practice – we do need to seek Gods guidance  and were His Spirit convicts ‘speak out a word’ but that has to be where it stops – God alone is the judge of all things.

God sees and knows each one of us and is very much a part of the turmoil and the stresses we experience and God is tolerant of our weaknesses but cannot be He tolerant of our Sin – that’s for us to confess and declare to Him alone and receive the forgiveness He freely offers.

Let’s look very briefly at how Paul deals with this difficult situation – from a distance.

Paul confronts the abuses taking place during the Lord’s Supper. (11:17-22)

Paul hammers in on their practices at the Lord’s Supper. There are divisions, factions, and impatience. There is insensitivity. There is drunkenness. 

In verse 17 and following Paul doesn’t skirt around the issues he has been made aware of – no trying to gently persuade – it’s full on honest views and this would leave the church in absolutely no doubt.,

Maybe he is pushing that a Christian who acts like this, yet claims Christ, is not genuinely saved. They are not actually born again.

Belief and behaviour go together.

A Christian who claims Christ, but refuses to obey Christ, is not actually a Christian in the New Testament sense of the word.

They are a Christian by name only, which is not only meaningless but dangerous and very, very, confusing to the world.

The actions and divisions were so bad, that what they were doing could not be called the Lord’s Supper.

The Corinthians have hijacked the Supper – they have turned it into something else.

Paul reminds them of the Last Supper and warns the believers of the importance of the Lord’s Supper. (11:27-34)

Some of the Corinthians in the Church thought it was OK to bring the current Roman culture into the Church, and so their church service began to look a lot like the culture.

At parties there was a social pecking order as to where you sat. There seems to be a little of that creeping into this church too. Some people are ‘in’, and some people are left out. Not good. Not gospel.