1 Corinthians 11:20-22
When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.
1 Corinthians 11:33
So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another—
Tag: Christianity is about One Another ...
In this letter we have instruction from Paul about conduct unfolding in the church at Corinth. Corinth was a troubled church. Christianity was alive, but so, too, was their previous pagan behaviors, habits and even worship. The Corinthian church had not, yet, made the complete switch to Christianity. But, that is the purpose of the teaching of 1 Corinthians and Paul’s second letter to them. In the above passages we have a particular situation addressed by Paul. During the church service the Corinthian believers were coming and, as was common in the early church, they joined each other for meals. However, this church was full of selfish believers. Unlike Christ who “emptied himself” and became “obedient unto death,” these believers could not even wait for each other to break bread and share a meal. In Philippians 2 we read about Paul instructing the Church at Philippi to be humble and servant oriented. Here, too, Paul closes this chapter by given a simple instruction about meals times: WAIT!!! Paul closest out the chapter telling them that when they come together, they should put others before themselves. Paul, in between verses 22 and 30 gives the picture of the Lord’s Supper. Why? We use chapter 11 to celebrate communion during our Sunday mornings, and we should. But, the point of Paul using the Last Supper as an illustration here, is to remind the members at Corinth that even the Lord Jesus Christ, after the supper, washed the feet of the disciples. After the supper He laid his life down to the sheep in obedience and death. The purpose of this section is to remind the church that we are to humble ourselves and put others before ourselves. It is so easy to be selfish, even in church. But, Christ is the ultimate example of self denial and self sacrifice. Real Christianity is about relenting Christ’s mindset of others first and others before us. In verse 33 Paul uses “one another” to reflect how we should wait for others. The phrase “one another” is used countless times by Paul:
VINE: (1) This translates a number of words and phrases, (a) allelon, a reciprocal pronoun in the genitive plural, signifying “of, or from, one another” (akin to allos, “another”), e.g., Matt. 25:32; John 13:22; Acts 15:39; 19:38; 1 Cor. 7:5; Gal. 5:17; the accusative allelous denotes “one another,” e.g., Acts 7:26, lit., “why do ye wrong one another?”; 2 Thess. 1:3, rv; in Eph. 4:32and Col. 3:13, e.g., rv, “each other”; in 1 Thess. 5:15, “one (toward) another,” rv; the dative allelois denotes “one to another,” e.g., Luke 7:32;
Allelon is the Greek word that tells us others should be before us. It is a way of life for real believer.
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