Message: 1 Corinthians 11 contains some of the most
misunderstood passages written about men and women and their behavior for
corporate gatherings. It begins with instructions about head coverings and is
compared with proper cultural understanding about men and women during their
time. There is so much to know about their back story and their culture in
order to understand why these two things were relevant to each other. I read
the footnotes in my bible to gain some understanding of the background because I’m
definitely not a bible scholar or a historian. The church of Corinth was
located in Greece so the believers there came from of background of pagan
religion where they worshipped tons of different gods. It was common to learn
of new gods and add them to their list of deities without ever turning from one
to serve another because they were polytheists. The gospel of Jesus Christ was
new to them and unlike anything they had ever heard because it was exclusive and
the only one to demand that they forsake the other gods and acknowledge that
there is only one God. Many had probably accepted the gospel, but had not yet
let go of the other gods or pagan practices of worship. The head covering for
the men was in reference to a pagan practice where men wore a toga and covered
their heads in worship, and the women shaved their heads as a pagan sacrifice.
It seems they were using these pagan rituals to worship God and this is why
Paul was addressing this. He seems to be using their cultural understanding of men
and women to relate to this point. Women wore long hair and it was culturally shameful
for her to shave her head. Her long hair, beauty and behavior was seen as a
direct reflection on her husband and he held complete authority over her. This
cultural reference was not so much a directive point. It was an understood
cultural way that Paul used as a comparison to the way a man should be with
Christ. From there Paul moves right into communion and he is calling them out
once again for pagan and cultural practices. Instead of coming to together in
unity and as equals for the Lord’s Supper, they were selfishly observing the cultural
classes where the rich ate first and the poor ate last so there was probably
nothing left for them. Paul was calling them out on this selfish behavior where
he said they weren’t really observing the Lord’s Supper at all because “each
one eats his supper ahead of others so one person is hungry while another gets
drunk”. He asked them “don’t you have homes to eat or drink in or do you look
down on the church of God and embarrass those who have nothing”. From here Paul talks about taking the Lord’s Supper
unworthily. I had always been taught that this passage was about unforgiveness.
Communion is addressed with unforgiveness in another passage, but the context
of this passage suggests that the selfishness and failure to “recognize the
body” is what caused them to take communion unworthily. His “therefore”
statement in verse 33 was that they wait for each other when they come together
for communion. In other words, no more demanding their cultural rights to be
honored above each other based on financial or any other privileged class. They
were instructed to eat at home and come together as equals which meant they were
to lay down their cultural rights of demanding honor and privilege ahead of each
other.
Command: There is no place for selfishness or
status in the body of Christ.
Promise: We are all co-laborers and Jesus even
shares
Warning: In any culture we have to fight the
tendency of seeing ourselves above or beneath each other because we are
culturally trained by what we experience.
Application: I don’t think it was any coincidence that the previous two
chapters we read were about laying aside our rights. Out of context it appears
that Paul was randomly addressing multiple different topics but reading this
with some of the cultural and historical things in mind I can see how this was
all one smooth fluid thought that despite cultural views and beliefs when we come
together as the body of Christ we lay aside our cultural rights and privileges
and treat each other as equals. Jesus set this example for us when he layed
aside his rightful place of honor to live among us and be crucified. After he
was raised he made us joint-heirs with him in the inheritance of heaven. We
live in a very different culture in this day and age, but also in this country.
We live in a country that recognizes “all men are created equal” in our constitution
because the forefathers of our country were Christians. This is not the
cultural way in many other countries and even with this constitutional belief
in America, we have a history marked with so much failure in this very belief.
I believe this applies to us just as much today as it did then. In the body of
Christ we are all equals and need to treat each other with honor and
unselfishness. We are not to carry an expectation of receiving anything ahead
of anyone else. There are no celebrities, leaders, rich people, talented people
or educated people who carry any higher status than anyone else. We are all
co-laborers in the body and there is no such thing as “my ministry” when we are
all co-laborers of one ministry.
