Year 2, Week 44, Day 1 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 44, Day 1

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of 1 Corinthians 10-11.

Today’s reading continues the Book of 1 Corinthians. Paul helped start the church at Corinth while on his second missionary journey. The Book of 1 Corinthians consists of Paul’s response to reports about the church there: “For it has been reported to me” (1Corinthians 1:11); but also in response to a letter that the church had written to him: “Now concerning the matters about which you wrote” (1 Corinthians 7:1a). 1 Corinthians 10 warns against practicing idolatry: “Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry” (1 Corinthians 10:14). 1 Corinthians 10, is a continuation of the second question that the church had requested an answer from Paul: “Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge” (1 Corinthians 8:1). While in 1 Corinthians 8 Paul addressed the matter of food offered to idols, he now turns, in 1 Corinthians 10, to address the actual worship of idols. 1 Corinthians 11 concerns two more issues that the Corinthians sought Paul’s counsel. The Corinthians sought Paul’s counsel about head covering in worship: "Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you…Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head” (1 Corinthians 11:2-5a). While Paul offers commendation concerning their practice of head covering, he does not commend the Corinthians on the matter of the Lord’s Supper: “But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse...When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat” (1 Corinthians 11:17-20).

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading was the significance that Paul gives to the Lord’s Supper: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16). These verses reflect something profoundly vital about the Lord’s Supper that we often fail to fully appreciate; however, before we look at what that is, we will look at some other important things concerning the Lord’s Supper.

Paul explains what the Lord’s Supper is about by repeating what Jesus said at the first Lord’s Supper: "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:23-25). When Jesus pronounced, “This is my body” and “This cup is the new covenant,” he did not mean that the bread and the cup are a repeating sacrifice. The bread and the cup do not become His actual body and blood; they symbolize Jesus’ death. The Lord’s Supper is a precious memorial to remind people about Jesus’ sacrificial death. The Lord’s Supper is not a sacrifice but recalls Jesus’ once-for-all-time sacrificial death as our Passover lamb: “He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself…Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself…And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 7:27, 9:25-26, and 10:10). In observing the Lord’s Supper we remember again and again and again, the once for all completed sacrifice of Jesus. Jesus died on our behalf and in our place. When the we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we remember Jesus’ death inaugurated the new covenant. That act of eating and drinking is a way to regularly proclaim the gospel until Jesus returns: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).

In addition to the Lord’s Supper being a memorial in which we remember the death of Jesus as well as call to mind the blessings that come to us through faith in Christ, we should also consider that the Lord’s Supper is a special time of fellowship with Jesus. The Lord’s Supper is not the only means of fellowshipping with Jesus, but we should see it as a special kind of fellowship with Jesus. Sometimes, especially in other Christian traditions, the Lord’s Supper is often called communion. Communion can be a good and helpful word to use in reference to the Lord’s Supper for it is meant to express that we fellowship or commune with the Lord at His table. In other words, while the elements of the Lord’s Supper are something of visual aids to remind us of Jesus, they are more than visual aids, they are a means by which we receive grace from Christ, who is somehow spiritually present (though not physically present), as we gather around the table. This brings us back to consider that Paul said: "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we participate, or share, in Jesus’ death by fellowshipping with Jesus through a covenant renewal ceremony. We spiritually nourish ourselves by exulting in what Jesus accomplished for us through his death and the blessings that flow from it.

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe