I Corinthians 11:17 Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse.
18 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it.
19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
20 When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper.
21 For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.
22 What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.
Today is marked on calendars as a day that honours the devil. Born again Christians are those who are saved through repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. They do not honour the devil. Jesus stated:
Luke 11:17 But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.
The context of that verse was in relation to the Pharisees’ rejection of Jesus Christ. They accused Him of serving the devil. Of course, they were wrong. Jesus exposed them again for their heretical thinking. There is a principle that we can draw from Jesus’ teaching in this entire passage. A born again Christian cannot survive by living a double life. That was what Paul was directed to address in I Corinthians. The saints there were carnal and they had many areas where they were confused and needed to be exposed for their carnality.
Paul was addressing saints for the most part in this letter. They had accepted many things that were contrary to true saints. God could not allow that to continue. There were many lost people around them and they needed to know how to be saved. When true saints look like the world, they cannot reach the world. The Bible teaches that true saints cannot love the world.
We have already been commanded in verse 1 of chapter 11, that we are to follow Paul as he followed Christ. Christ is the standard. He is the Head. We know that Christ is not divided. The church in Corinth was a divided church. Paul needed to expose the divisions and the solution was to get rid of the sin and be united in Christ.
In today’s “Christian” worldview, two groups we have often mentioned, dominate the scene. Those two groups are New Evangelicals and the Emergent church movement. The Emergent church movement is just an expansion of the New Evangelical movement. There are those who would oppose New Evangelicalism, but they cannot seem to see they have adopted the Emergent church philosophy. The devil is subtle. He is very good at his craft. He is very good at identifying a weakness in a true Christian’s life. He sticks his wedge of a lie into that weak place and then drives it further in. Thus we see emergent churches going from slightly off to blatantly off. The fall begins with a rejection of the absolute authority of God’s Word. When we do not have a sure foundation, we have nothing.
God directed Paul to address this early on in this letter. The devil deceived Eve by attacking God’s character through the twisting of His Word. When a person accepts the devil’s lies regarding the Word of God, the rest is quite easy for the devil. Then modesty will fall off as well as the love for godly music. Everything depends on the right foundation.
A person can insist on still being a godly person, but the fruit will be the determining factor. That is what Jesus declares. The devil has a multitude of spin doctors who have made it their goal to ply their craft. They go to Bible School/college and then on to some seminary and they get well versed in how to twist the Scriptures. Or they listen to preachers that know how to give catchy illustrations and buzz words that resonate with the hearers. The true child of God is commanded to be awake. He needs to be in the Word of God constantly. Whether that be in the actual sitting down and reading the Word or meditating on the Word that he has read earlier in the day.
In our verses, the apostle Paul addressed the “fellowship” that the saints were having. They were coming together. They were active. However, they were not coming together for the better. They were not sharpening one another as the Scriptures teach us.
Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.
It is important to note that the sharpening agent is the Word of God, not man’s opinions. I listened to an interview of a professing Christian who came from a very conservative Mennonite background. The interviewer was well versed in the art of deception. The interviewee was also a rebel who lacked the needed understanding of what a Christian is. They talked about living by grace and not the law. Their idea of grace is very common today. It is the idea that God knows we are not perfect and all that matters is that we follow “Jesus”. They reject the Words of Jesus, where He would tell the person to “go and sin no more”. That is thrown out the window. I do not know how wide an audience those two have, but their message is poison. It is a message that is embraced by the vast majority of “Christianity” today. Most “Christians” are into the numbers game. The larger crowd must be right. Again, this is contrary to what the Bible teaches, but they say we should not be too concerned about what the Bible says.
The apostle Paul was commanded to tell the saints that their “fellowship” was not praiseworthy. Paul would not be well received in today’s brand of Christianity. The brand of Christianity that is popular today is also very critical. It is critical of the truth, but loves compromise.
In verse 18, Paul pointed to the divisions that were in the church. He had no problem believing that. In verse 19 he stated that there must be heresies. A church is made up of people. People come from different backgrounds. People have different interests and they read different things and they listen to different things. A true church is not to be a melting pot of ideas. That is what most are, but that is not God’s design for a true church. As we have already noted, a true church has Jesus Christ as Its Head. People can come with their various opinions. The goal and the design of a true church is to look at those different opinions and examine them in the light of the TRUTH. The TRUTH must be accepted as the TRUTH and the opinions need to be changed so that the truth is accepted. That is what Paul stated very clearly in II Corinthians 10:3-6.
In verse 19 Paul stated that “they which are approved may be made manifest among you.” In a true church, the pastor leads the body. That is God’s design. There is room for questions, but the answers must always be from God’s Word. God’s Word is not divided. As we have already seen, if a person wants to hold a contrary view to what God says, that person is wrong and must be silenced. Working behind the scenes to cause division is not acceptable. Lost people will see that as offensive. Even lost people have standards. They just have wrong standards. Oftentimes their lostness blinds them so they cannot see their hypocrisy. The Pharisees were famous for that.
In verse 20 the apostle Paul drew attention to the Lord’s supper. The saints had a corrupted view of this as well. They focused on eating a meal, rather than on remembering Christ’s death til He comes again. The people came together and they saw all the food and they only thought about themselves. They would heap their plate with what they liked without any concern for the next person.
There is nothing wrong with a church organizing a meal where people bring food and then share it with others. This is commonly called a “potluck” meal. A better name for that among true Christians would be a “pot blessing”. Christians do not believe in luck. We do not take a “chance” that there will be enough variety at the table. We might discuss with others what they are bringing or someone might suggest what the theme is for that particular meal, etc.
It seems the saints in Corinth had these types of meals, and they called them the Lord’s supper. It is true that Jesus gathered His disciples together and they had a meal. However, that main meal was not the Lord’s supper. He instituted the Lord’s supper during that meal. It was not a gluttonous affair.
In verse 21 we see that there were major problems at their common meals. It was not a matter of eating to live. It was a matter of living to eat. The church was so compromised that some people were even bringing alcoholic beverages and getting drunk. What an utter disgrace!
In verse 22, Paul rebuked them for this sham. The church of God is not there to promote gluttony. It is not there to promote drunkenness either. Any stranger that would come into that mess, would be given a completely wrong understanding of how a true church functions. There was nothing praiseworthy in what they were doing. They needed to be ashamed of themselves. In today’s “Christianity” talk like this would not be accepted. How dare he expose them as sinners!!
We see again that God does not condone any sin among His children. All Christians will sin, but they cannot live in sin. We also see that true saints do not abandon a true church. There can be false teaching in a true church. That false teaching cannot come from the pastor. The pastor needs to have his ear to the “ground”. He needs to be aware of what is taking place and he needs to address any false teaching that is taking place. He is not a “killjoy”. He is the shepherd of the flock and he lovingly helps them to see the importance of truth. A good church serves the true God.
The good news we see in I Corinthians is that the saints were true saints. They were willing to receive the truth. A true church is a place where saints can come to grow in the Lord. It is also a place where lost people can learn the truth and be saved. Lost people need to observe how true Christians live. They need to see the blessings of truth. They cannot learn that when a church is worldly. True Christians have the joy of the Lord in their hearts. They rejoice in the fact that they can learn the truth and they can improve on their walk with the Lord.
Pastor Bartel
