What Does the Lord’s Table have to do with this?

Eating and drinking the Lord's Supper in an "unworthy way" in 1 Corinthians 11, in its full context, refers to partaking without a proper appreciation that those partaking with you are also members of the Body. It relates to the lack of a felt connection.

The Lord’s Table, also known by other names in other denominations, actually has a great deal to do with the handling of offenses within the Body. Remember what the last post said about the spiritual analogy to leprosy–the main way in which unresolved offenses damage the Body and its members is by making members unable to “feel” their connections to each other and to the Body. This leads to other problems.

Next, compare this to what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11 about eating and drinking the Lord’s Supper in an “unworthy way.” I’m adding some of the context to bring out exactly what Paul was talking about:

For there also have to be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you. Therefore when you come together it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper, for when you eat, each one takes his own supper first; and one goes hungry while another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What am I to say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I do not praise you…

 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy way, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a person must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For the one who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not properly recognize the body.  For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number are asleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.

So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If anyone is hungry, have him eat at home, so that you do not come together for judgment…

1 Corinthians 11:19-22, 26-34 (NASB).

From this, it appears quite clearly that the problem Paul was addressing as the Corinthian believers’ behavior toward each other when they took the bread and the cup. They came to the Lord’s Table divided into factions. and, once they were there, partook in a way which shamed the poor among them. In this way–by not properly discerning that the poor believers were equal members of the Body with them–they failed to “properly recognize the Body” and ate unworthily. And God took this very seriously–some were sick and some had died as a result of the Lord’s discipline in the matter.

So the problem wasn’t “unconfessed sin” toward God, a failure to recognize that the elements actually became Jesus’ body and blood, or any of the other things commonly taught.

It was very specifically that their behavior revealed division in the body. Some of them obviously didn’t didn’t appreciate their connection to others in the Body. Thus, in taking the elements, they were not “proclaiming the Lod’s death” that made them into one Body. So this ties directly into the discussion of leprosy. Some members could not properly “feel” other members, and they therefore came together for judgment.

Of course, my reading of this passage, as an old fool. disagrees with that of every denomination and every other commentator I know of!

But it seems to make good sense of the verse about eating “unworthily” in its larger context.

Both Debtors in Matthew 18:21-35 Ended Up in Debtors’ Prison