Tension at the table: 1 Corinthians 11:23–32

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-363
Author(s):  
Joanna Harader
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Lord's Supper ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Violent Event

Paul’s presentation of the communion meal in 1 Cor 11:23–32 highlights tensions we experience as we participate in the Lord’s Supper today: situational tension in re-enacting a conflicted meal and remembering a violent event, a tension between memory and hope, a painful tension for survivors of sexual abuse with the use of “body” and “blood” language in both Scripture and liturgy, and a tension between an insistence on the egalitarian nature of the meal alongside warnings of exclusionary judgment for any who eat while “unworthy.” The first two tensions are biblical and are to be explored and embraced in sharing the Lord’s Supper. The second two tensions result from unintended consequences and misinterpretation, and should be discerned and alleviated to maintain a spiritually healthy and faithful communion liturgy.

The Practice of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34 as a Socio-Religious Ritual Failure

2018 ◽  
Vol 130 (5) ◽  
pp. 202-214
Author(s):  
Chelcent Fuad
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Lord's Supper ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Ritual Performance ◽  
Religious Ritual ◽  
Ritual Theory

This paper attempts to understand the abuses of the Lord’s Supper in the Corinthian church (1 Cor 11:17–34) from the perspective of ritual theory. Analyzing the abuses of the Lord’s Supper by using the types of ritual infelicity as described by Ronald L. Grimes, I argue that the practice of the Lord’s Supper by the Corinthians was a socio-religious ritual failure caused by its participants’ inappropriate manners. These inappropriate manners in the ritual performance were both social and religious, namely the stratification of social status and the defilement of the sacred meal, both of which are the results of the imitation of pagan meal practices.

John Eliot’s pastoral theology of poverty and an “obscure low condition”—including that of being “a worm”—in his Harmony of the Gospels (1678) published two years after Metacom’s War

2020 ◽  
pp. 009182962090881
Author(s):  
Travis L. Myers
Keyword(s):  
Pastoral Theology ◽  
Corinthians 1 ◽  
Lord's Supper ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Biblical Commentary ◽  
The Poor ◽  
God's People ◽  
John Eliot ◽  
History Of

Roughly two years after Metacom’s War, John Eliot published a Lord’s Supper preparativo titled, The Harmony of the Gospels, in the Holy History of the Humiliation and Sufferings of Jesus Christ from his Incarnation to his Death and Burial (1678). The book’s 130 pages provide a copious survey of various sufferings undergone by Jesus which Eliot parsed out of his reading of Scripture. Eliot posed several parallels between the experiences of Jesus, on one hand, and those of genuine Christians on the other. One of these parallels is the experience of poverty and what Eliot repeatedly called an “obscure low condition” that obtains from poverty. Considering Eliot’s long experience in cross-cultural ministry in a tenuous colonial context, this is one of the most striking features of the book. I believe it resonates with the Native Christian experience more than the white colonial Christian experience. Time and again Eliot makes an authorial movement from Gospel narrative and biblical commentary to contemporary application for Christian readers. I suggest that Eliot intended to voice comfort at times in The Harmony specifically to Native Christians by assuring them their experience of marginalization and suffering did not negate their status as a part of God’s people. What Eliot wrote about the low condition of being “a worm” reflects convictions likely forged in the fires of cross-cultural ministry in colonial context. Eliot’s multifaceted and expectant vision for the praying towns was a casualty of Metcom’s War. He seems to have changed his interpretation of 1 Corinthians 1:26–29. The theological motif of Zechariah’s temple rebuilding mission was replaced by the suffering Messiah’s rejection as the prominent biblical type informing Eliot’s expectations for the development of Native Christianity. In this carefully nuanced pastoral theology of poverty is also a prophetic critique of injustice toward the poor and marginalized.

Neither Jew nor Greek

2020 ◽  
pp. 187-251
Author(s):  
John A. Jillions
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Lord's Supper ◽  
Community Leaders ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Rational Thought ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Divine Guidance

This chapter shows how issues of decisions, divine guidance, discernment, and delusion are woven throughout 1 Corinthians. Paul’s community was shaped by Greco-Roman and Jewish views, but he presents a distinctive new way based on the Cross. As he himself told them, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). Identification with the crucified and risen Christ gave access to the Spirit and a life of communion with God in various ways: through the scriptures (reinterpreted in the light of Christ), the liturgical life of the community (especially baptism and the Lord’s Supper), tradition, preaching, apostles and community leaders, service, co-suffering, and, above all, love. But this does not eclipse individual divine communion, calling, and discernment. Nor does it exclude rational thought, which in Paul’s approach is equally illumined by divine guidance to integrate rational and mystical.

scholarly journals (Confessional) Lutheran perspectives on the unity of the church

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieter H. Reinstorf
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
Lord's Supper ◽  
Church Of Christ ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
University Of Pretoria ◽  
Political Intervention ◽  
Table Fellowship ◽  
The University ◽  
The Church

From personal experience, this article shares to what degree the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria was and continues to be a gateway to the future, challenging among others the divisions that characterise the Church of Christ worldwide. The article argues that for the 16th-century Reformers the unity of the church was a given and that the  (Lutheran) confessions were written to establish such a unity through agreement in confession and joint rejection of false doctrines. However, such statements of faith did not overcome the divisions, but institutionalised them, leading to a divided Church of Christ. Political intervention to work unity between Lutherans and Reformers deepened divisions more than ever, leading among others to a break of fellowship at the Lord’s Supper. Applying Luther’s hermeneutical principle of was Christum treibet (what drives Christ), the author seeks to rediscover a way of interpreting Scripture by focusing not on literal differences, but on that which is foundational to Scripture, namely the Christ event. This is applied in particular to the topic of table fellowship and divisions in Corinth with regard to the Lord’s Supper, addressed in 1 Corinthians 11, culminating in a critical deconstruction of past practices in confessional Lutheran churches. In view of doctrinal differences, a hermeneutics of conversation is proposed that can vigorously debate differences of understanding, without threatening the unity that is worked by Christ himself.

The Lord’s Supper? When eating and dining become determinative in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 560-565
Author(s):  
David A. Steinbrenner
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Lord's Supper ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Death Of Jesus ◽  
Physical Consequences ◽  
The Church

In 1 Cor 11:17–34, Paul admonishes the church in Corinth for celebrating the Lord’s Supper in a way that maintains and perpetuates inequitable treatment based on socioeconomic status. His concern is that such practices harm the church’s witness and create a disunity that tears the body of Christ apart and connects the church to liability for the death of Jesus himself. In Paul’s argument, food and dining do not function merely symbolically or metaphorically, but serve to actualize either unity in the body of Christ or division that leads to physical consequences of judgment from God. Paul grounds his argument in the logic of the tradition of the Lord’s Supper as it was handed down to him.

Living as Christ Crucified: The Cross as a Foundation for Christian Ethics in 1 Corinthians

2003 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-131
Author(s):  
H. H. Drake Williams
Keyword(s):  
Lord's Supper ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Specific Role ◽  
Civil Litigation ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Cross Of Christ ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Christian Unity ◽  
Christian Beliefs

The cross of Christ has been well recognized as providing a foundation for Christian beliefs throughout the ages. The cross is also becoming increasingly recognized as providing a general foundation for Christian ethics. This study explores the specific role that the cross plays for some of Paul’s ethical instructions within 1 Corinthians. It notes that the cross plays a recognizable role in Paul’s instruction for unity, Christian stewardship, community exclusion, civil litigation, weak and strong brothers, and the Lord’s Supper. In these exhortations, the cross is also regularly associated with ideas concerning Christian unity, self-sacrifice, and the Christian’s future hope.

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