Albert Barnes Commentary 1 Corinthians 11:21

"for in your eating each one taketh before [other] his own supper; and one is hungry, and another is drunken." — 1 Corinthians 11:21 (ASV)

For in eating. This refers to when you eat, having professedly come together to observe this ordinance. To understand this, it seems necessary to suppose that they had somehow made the Lord's Supper either connected with a common feast, or that they regarded it as a mere common festival to be observed similarly to the festivals among the Greeks.

Many have supposed that this was done by making the observance of the Supper follow a festival, or what were afterwards called love-feasts (agapai—Agapae). Many have also supposed that this custom was derived from the fact that the Saviour instituted the Supper after a festival—a feast in which he had been engaged with his disciples—and that from this, the early Christians derived the custom of observing such a festival, or common meal, before they celebrated the Lord's Supper.

But it may be observed that the Passover was not a mere preliminary festival or feast. It had no resemblance to the so-called love-feasts. It was itself a religious ordinance, a direct appointment of God, and was never regarded as designed to be preliminary to the observance of the Lord's Supper, but was always understood as designed to be superseded by it.

Besides, I do not know that there is the slightest evidence, as has often been supposed, that the observance of the Lord's Supper was preceded in the times of the apostles by such a festival as a love-feast. There is no evidence in the passage before us, nor is any presented from any other part of the New Testament.

To my mind, it seems altogether improbable that the disorders in Corinth would assume this form—that they would first observe a common feast, and then the Lord's Supper in the regular manner.

The statement before us leads to the belief that all was irregular and improper. It suggests that they had entirely mistaken the nature of the ordinance and had converted it into an occasion of ordinary festivity, and even intemperance. They had come to regard it as a feast in honour of the Saviour on principles similar to how they observed feasts in honour of idols, and they observed it in a similar manner. Furthermore, all that was supposed to make it unlike those festivals was that it was in honour of Jesus rather than an idol, and was to be observed with some reference to his authority and name.

Every one taketh before other his own supper. This means that each one is regardless of the needs of the others. Instead of making even a meal in common, where all could partake together, each one ate by himself and ate what he had himself brought. They had not only erred, therefore, by completely misunderstanding the nature of the Lord's Supper and by supposing that it was a common festival like those they had been accustomed to celebrate, but they had also entirely departed from the idea that it was a festival to be partaken of in common and at a common table.

It had become a scene where every man ate by himself, and where the very idea that there was anything like a common celebration, or a celebration together, was abandoned. This doubtless alludes to a custom among the Greeks that when a festival was celebrated, or a feast made, it was common for each person to provide and carry a part of the things necessary for the entertainment.

These were usually placed in common and equally shared by all the company. Thus Xenophon (Mem lib. iii. cap. xiv.) says of Socrates that he was much offended with the Athenians for their conduct at their common suppers, where some prepared for themselves in a delicate and sumptuous manner, while others were poorly provided for. Socrates endeavoured, he adds, to shame them out of this indecent custom by offering his provisions to all the company.

And one is hungry. One is deprived of food; it is all monopolized by others.

And another is drunken. The word used here (methyei) properly means to become inebriated or intoxicated, and there is no reason to understand it here in any other sense. There can be no doubt that the apostle meant to say that they ate and drank to excess, and that their professed celebration of the Lord's Supper became a mere revel. It may seem remarkable that such scenes could have ever occurred in a Christian church, or that there could have been such a complete perversion of the nature and design of the Lord's Supper. But we are to remember the following things:

1. These persons had recently been heathens and were grossly ignorant of the nature of true religion when the gospel was first preached among them.

2. They had been accustomed to such revels in honour of idols under their former modes of worship, and it is less surprising that they transferred their views to Christianity.

3. When they had once so far misunderstood the nature of Christianity as to suppose the Lord's Supper to be like the feasts they had formerly celebrated, all the rest followed as a matter of course. The festival would be observed in the same manner as the festivals in honour of idolaters, and similar scenes of gluttony and intemperance would naturally follow.

4. We are to bear in mind, also, that they do not seem to have been favoured with pious, wise, and prudent teachers. There were false teachers, and there were those who prided themselves on their wisdom, who were self-confident, and who doubtless endeavoured to model the Christian institutions according to their own views. They thus brought them, as far as they could, to a conformity with pagan customs and idolatrous rites. We may remark here:

   1. We are not to expect perfection at once among a people recently converted from paganism.

   2. We see how prone men are to abuse even the most holy rites of religion, and hence how corrupt is human nature.

   3. We see that even Christians, recently converted, need constant guidance and superintendence; and that if left to themselves, they soon, like others, fall into gross and scandalous offences.