In giving you these injunctions I must mention a practice which I cannot commend: your meetings tend to do more harm than good. To begin with, I am told that when you meet as a congregation you fall into sharply divided groups; and I believe there is some truth in it (for dissensions are necessary if only to show which of your members are sound). The result is that when you meet as a congregation, it is impossible for you to eat the Lord's Supper, because each of you is in such a hurry to eat his own, and while one goes hungry another has too much to drink. Have you no homes of your own to eat and drink in? Or are you so contemptuous of the church of God that you shame its poorer members? What am I to say? Can I commend you? On this point, certainly not!

   "We are free to do anything," you say. Yes, but is everything good for us? "We are free to do anything," but does everything help the building of the community? Each of you must regard, not his own interests, but the other man's.

   The teaching that I gave you is the same teaching that I received from the Lord: On the night when Jesus was handed over to be killed, He took bread and gave thanks for it. Then He broke the bread and said, "This is My body; it is for you. Do this to remember Me." In the same way, after they ate, Jesus took the cup. He said, "This cup shows the new agreement from God to His people. This new agreement begins with the blood of My death. When you drink this, do it to remember Me." Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show others about the Lord's death until He comes. So a person should not eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in a way that is not worthy of it. If he does he is sinning against the body and the blood of the Lord. Everyone should look into his own heart before he eats the bread and drinks the cup.

   For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment on himself if he does not discern the Body. That is why many of you are feeble and sick, and a number have died. But if we examined ourselves, we should not thus fall under judgment. When, however, we do fall under the Lord's judgment, He is disciplining us, to save us from being condemned with the rest of the world.

Taken from I Cor. 11, 10, The New English Bible and The Everyday Bible. For free
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