BibleTools.info

Bible Verse Explanations and Resources


Loading...

1 Corinthians 11:18

Adam Clarke
Bible Commentary

There be divisions among you - They had σχισματα, schisms, among them: the old parties were kept up, even in the place where they assembled to eat the Lord's Supper. The Paulians, the Kephites, and the Apollonians, continued to be distinct parties; and ate their meals separately, even in the same house.

Albert Barnes
Notes on the Whole Bible

For first of all - That is, I mention as the first thing to be reproved.

When ye come together in the church - When you come together in a religious assembly; when you convene for public worship. The word “church” here does not mean, as it frequently does with us, a “building.” No instance of such a use of the word occurs in the New Testament; but it means when they came together as a Christian assembly; when they convened for the worship of God. These divisions took place then; and from some cause which it seems then operated to produce alienations and strifes.

I hear - I have learned through some members of the family of Chloe; 1 Corinthians 1:11.

That there be divisions among you - Greek, as in the margin, Schisms. The word properly means a rent, such as is made in cloth Matthew 9:16; Mark 2:21, and then a division, a split, a faction among people; John 7:43; John 9:10; John 10:19. It does not mean here that they had proceeded so far as to form separate churches, but that there was discord and division in the church itself; see the notes on 1 Corinthians 1:10-11.

And I partly believe it - I credit a part of the reports; I have reason to think, that, though the evil may have been exaggerated, yet that it is true at least in part. I believe that there are dissensions in the church that should be reproved.

Matthew Henry
Concise Bible Commentary
The apostle rebukes the disorders in their partaking of the Lord's supper. The ordinances of Christ, if they do not make us better, will be apt to make us worse. If the use of them does not mend, it will harden. Upon coming together, they fell into divisions, schisms. Christians may separate from each other's communion, yet be charitable one towards another; they may continue in the same communion, yet be uncharitable. This last is schism, rather than the former. There is a careless and irregular eating of the Lord's supper, which adds to guilt. Many rich Corinthians seem to have acted very wrong at the Lord's table, or at the love-feasts, which took place at the same time as the supper. The rich despised the poor, and ate and drank up the provisions they brought, before the poor were allowed to partake; thus some wanted, while others had more than enough. What should have been a bond of mutual love and affection, was made an instrument of discord and disunion. We should be careful that nothing in our behaviour at the Lord's table, appears to make light of that sacred institution. The Lord's supper is not now made an occasion for gluttony or revelling, but is it not often made the support of self-righteous pride, or a cloak for hypocrisy? Let us never rest in the outward forms of worship; but look to our hearts.
Ellen G. White
SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 6 (EGW), 1090