1 Corinthians 11:22

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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(22) What? have ye not houses . . .?—Better, Surely it is not that you have no houses to eat and drink in? This cannot be the explanation of their conduct, for they have houses in which they can enjoy their proper meals. Hunger and thirst, which can be satisfied at home, therefore, cannot be the explanation of their conduct at the charity-feasts. The only other alternative explanation, therefore, is that they despise an assembly which is the Church of God; and they put to shame those poor members, who, no doubt, were the majority, who have not houses in which to eat and drink, and have come together in this common assembly of Christians to share in the food which the wealthier members ought to contribute.

The shame which a poor man will feel when the rich come to these feasts bringing supplies for their own private use, and not for general distribution, will arise both from the striking contrast which will come out all the more vividly from his poverty being brought into such direct contact with the wealth of the rich, and from the evident dislike of the rich to partake of a common meal with the poor. Thus those assemblies will, through the misconduct of the wealthier Christians, have precisely the opposite result from that which they were intended to accomplish. It will be an assembly in one place, but not to partake of one supper—even that which is dedicated to the Lord. The Apostle asks indignantly whether such conduct can be included in the catalogue (see 1Corinthians 11:17) of those things for which he can praise them, and then in the following verses shows how such conduct cannot be worthy of praise, inasmuch as it is entirely at variance with the solemn and sacred circumstances in which the Lord’s Supper originated.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

11:17-22 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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

What! - This whole verse is designed to convey the language of severe rebuke for their having so grossly perverted the design of the Lord's Supper.

Have ye not houses ... - Do you not know that the church of God is not designed to be a place of feasting and revelry; nor even a place where to partake of your ordinary meals? Can it be, that you will come to the places of public worship, and make them the scenes of feasting and riot? Even on the supposition that there had been no disorder; no revelry; no intemperance; yet on every account it was grossly irregular and disorderly to make the place of public worship a place for a festival entertainment.

Or despise ye the church of God - The phrase "church of God" Grotius understands of the place. But the word church (ἐκκλησία ekklēsia) is believed not to be used in that sense in the New Testament; and it is not necessary to suppose it here. The sense is, that their conduct was such as if they had held in contempt the whole church of God, in all places, with all their views of the sacredness and purity of the Lord's supper.

And shame them that have not - Margin, "Are poor." Something must here be understood in order to make out the sense. Probably it meant something like "possessions, property, conveniences, accomodations." The connection would make it most natural to understand "houses to eat and drink in;" and the sense then would be, "Do you thus expose to public shame those who have no accommodations at home; who are destitute and poor? You thus reflect publicly upon their poverty and want, while you bring your own provisions and fare sumptuously, and while those who are thus unable to provide for themselves are thus seen to be poor and needy." It is hard enough, the idea is, to be poor, and to be destitute of a home. But it greatly aggravates the matter to be "publicly treated" in that manner; to be exposed publicly to the contempt which such a situation implies. Their treatment of the poor in this manner would be a public exposing them to shame; and the apostle regarded this as particularly dishonorable, and especially in a Christian church, where all were professedly on an equality.

What shall I say to you? ... - How shall I sufficiently express my surprise at this, and my disapprobation at this course? It cannot be possible that this is right. It is not possible to conceal surprise and amazement that this custom exists, and is tolerated in a Christian church.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

22. What!—Greek, "For."

houses—(compare 1Co 11:34)—"at home." That is the place to satiate the appetite, not the assembly of the brethren [Alford].

despise ye the church of God—the congregation mostly composed of the poor, whom "God hath chosen," however ye show contempt for them (Jas 2:5); compare "of God" here, marking the true honor of the Church.

shame them that have not—namely, houses to eat and drink in, and who, therefore, ought to have received their portion at the love-feasts from their wealthier brethren.

I praise you not—resuming the words (1Co 11:17).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? Hence evidently appears, that these love feasts were kept in the place where the assembly met for the public worship of God; for the apostle would have them (if they would continue them) kept in their private houses: and he doth not only blame the abuses of these feasts, but the feasts themselves as kept in the place where the church met, or as having in them any pretence to any thing of religion: meet they might, friendly to eat and to drink, but their private houses were the fittest places for that.

Or despise ye the church of God? Or do you despise the place (as some think) where the church of God meeteth, or the people met in that place, by carrying yourselves so disorderly in such a grave assembly; or the poorer part of the church, who, though poorer, are a part of the church, redeemed by the blood of Christ? The next words would incline us to think that the sense; for it followeth,

and shame them that have not, that is, that have not estates to contribute to such feasts, and so are forced to go away without any due refreshment.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

What? have ye not houses to eat and drink in?.... This shows that one taking his supper before another, was not in their own houses, before they came to the place of divine worship, but in the house of God; and the apostle suggests, that if they must have their ante-suppers, and were disposed to eat and drink freely, before they partook of the Lord's supper, it was more decent and orderly, and less reflected upon the honour of religion and the ordinances of Christ, to eat and drink in their own houses; in which they were not only more private and retired, but which they had for such purposes; whereas the house of God was not for any such use, nor should they meet together there on such an account; at least, such disorderly, unequal, and intemperate feasts there, were very scandalous and reproachful: and it was contrary to a Jewish canon to eat and drink in the synagogues, which runs thus (o),

"in the synagogues they do not use a light behaviour, nor do they eat and drink in them;''

though they sometimes speak of travellers eating and drinking and lodging in the synagogues (p), yet they interpret these of places adjoining to them:

or despise ye the church of God; that is, expose it to contempt and scorn; meaning either the community, the people of God gathered together in a Gospel church state; or the place where they met for public worship, which the Ethiopic version calls, "the house of God"; which was rendered very contemptible by such disorderly practices;

and shame them that have not; no houses to eat in, or supper to eat, or any of this world's goods, or money to purchase food for themselves; who must be confounded and put to shame, when, coming in expectation of being fed, the provisions were eaten up by the rich before they came, or, however, were not allowed to partake when they did come; this was such a respecting of persons, as was justly culpable in them by the apostle.

(o) T. Hieros. Megilia, fol. 74. 1. & T. Bab. Megilla, fol. 28. 1.((p) Gloss. in T. Bab. Bava Bathra, & Pesachim, fol. 101. 1. & Gloss. in ib. Maimon. Hilch. Sabbat, c. 29. sect. 8. & Maggid Misna in ib.

Geneva Study Bible

{17} 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.

(17) The apostle thinks it good to take away the love feasts because of their abuse, although they had been practised a long time, and with commendation used in churches, and were appointed and instituted by the apostles.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

1 Corinthians 11:22. In a lively succession of questions the apostle shows how unsuitable and unworthy this procedure of theirs was.

μὴ γὰρ οἰκίας κ.τ.λ[1840]] γάρ has inferential force; see on Matthew 27:23; John 9:30; Acts 19:35; and Winer, p. 416 [E. T. 559]; Kühner, a[1841] Xen. Mem. i. 3. 10 : you surely are not without houses? The sense of astonishment (Hartung, Partikell. I. p. 478) is conveyed by the question, not by the γάρ.

ἢ τῆς ἐκκλησίας … ἔχοντας] a second counter question, which divides itself into two parts:[1842] or, again, is it the case with you that you are persons whose business it is (1) generally to despise the church of God (which you show by your not counting its members worthy to eat and drink on a common footing with you), and (2) to cause the poor to be put to shame? The latter could not but feel themselves slighted, if they were not thought worthy of having a share in what the wealthier had provided. The main emphasis in the first clause is upon τῆς ἐκκλ. τ. Θεοῦ (Θεοῦ, “dignitas ecclesiae,” Bengel, comp 1 Corinthians 11:16); in the second, upon καταισχύνετε.

Respecting οὐκ ἔχειν, not to have, to be poor, see Wetstein on 2 Corinthians 8:13; comp οἱ ἔχοντες, divites, in Ast, a[1845] Plat. Legg. v. p. 172; Bornemann, a[1846] Anab. vi. 6. 38. Here, however, we have μή with the participle and article, because the class is referred to (Baeumlein, Partik. p. 296).

τί ὑμῖν εἴπω κ.τ.λ[1847]] what shall I say to you? Shall I give you praise? On this point I praise not. If we keep 1 Corinthians 11:17 in view, to connect ἐν τούτῳ with ἘΠΑΙΝῶ gives a more suitable emphasis for the words than to link them with the preceding clause (Lachmann, Hofmann, with various codices and versions). On other points he has already praised them, 1 Corinthians 11:2. The apostle’s deliberative and ceremonious mode of expressing himself, and the result that he arrives at, could not but make the readers themselves feel how much they deserved the reverse of praise in this matter.

[1840] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

[1841] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

[1842] The underlying dilemmatic conclusion is: Persons who act as you do have either no houses, etc., or they despise the church of God, etc.; you have houses, therefore you despise, etc.

[1845] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

[1846] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.

[1847] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.

Expositor's Greek Testament

1 Corinthians 11:22. μὴ γὰρ οἰκίας οὐκ ἔχετε κ.τ.λ.; “For is it that you have not houses to eat and drink in?” See 1 Corinthians 11:34, and note. The γὰρ brings in an ironical excuse: “For I suppose you act thus because you are houseless, and must satisfy your appetite at church!” cf. πῶς γάρ; Acts 8:31.—If this voracity cannot be excused by a physical need which the offenders had no other means of supplying—if, that is to say, their action is deliberate—they must intend to pour scorn on the Church and to insult their humbler brethren: “Or do you despise the church of God, and cast shame on those that are without means?” For ἡ ἐκκλησία τοῦ Θεοῦ, an expression of awful dignity, see 1 Corinthians 1:2, 1 Corinthians 10:32. τοὺς μὴ ἔχοντας, “the have-nots” (cf. 2 Corinthians 8:12)—οἱ ἔχοντες in cl[1728] Gr[1729] signifies “the men of property”; μή (of the point of view) rather than οὐ (of the fact), for the poor with their beggarly rations are shamed by the full-fed on this very account. What could show coarser contempt for the Church assembly?—P. shows a fine self-restraint in the litotes of the last sentence: τί εἴπω ὑμῖν; κ.τ.λ.: “What am I to say to you? Should I praise (you)? In this matter I praise you not”. ἐπαινέσω, deliberative aor[1730] sbj[1731], like εἴπω, for the question refers not to the future, but to the situation depicted (see Wr[1732], p. 356). ἐν τούτῳ has great point and emphasis when attached to the following οὐκ ἐπαινῶ (so R.V. marg., after early Verss., Bz[1733], Est., Mr[1734], Hn[1735], Gd[1736], Bt[1737], El[1738], Ed[1739]); thus also ἐπαινέσω better matches εἴπω, and the last clause prepares for the important ἐγὼ δὲ παρέλαβον of the ensuing ver.

[1728] classical.

[1729] Greek, or Grotius’ Annotationes in N.T.

[1730] aorist tense.

[1731] subjunctive mood.

[1732] Winer-Moulton’s Grammar of N.T. Greek (8th ed., 1877).

[1733] Beza’s Nov. Testamentum: Interpretatio et Annotationes (Cantab., 1642).

[1734] Meyer’s Critical and Exegetical Commentary (Eng. Trans.).

[1735] C. F. G. Heinrici’s Erklärung der Korintherbriefe (1880), or 1 Korinther in Meyer’s krit.-exegetisches Kommentar (1896).

[1736] F. Godet’s Commentaire sur la prem. Ép. aux Corinthiens (Eng. Trans.).

[1737] J. A. Beet’s St. Paul’s Epp. to the Corinthians (1882).

[1738] C. J. Ellicott’s St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians.

[1739] T. C. Edwards’ Commentary on the First Ep. to the Corinthians.2

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. have ye not houses to eat and to drink in?] i.e. If all you came together for were to satisfy your own hunger, you might just as well eat and drink at home. But the Lord’s Supper was instituted for a threefold purpose. It was (1) a practice intended to bind Christian people together in mutual love (see Acts 2:42-47; Acts 4:32-35), (2) it was designed as the solemn commemoration of the great Act of Love whereby Jesus Christ offered Himself upon the Cross for the sins of men (see 1 Corinthians 11:26), and (3) it was the means whereby He fed His people with the “spiritual food of His most blessed Body and Blood.” See ch. 1 Corinthians 10:15-16.

or despise ye the church of God] Not the material building (see above, 1 Corinthians 11:18), but the Church gathered together in it, called out of the world, or called together (the Greek favours the first, the analogy of the Hebrew the latter explanation) to be the habitation of God through the Spirit. To introduce into this the petty jealousies and antipathies of human society was to despise the great and glorious Body, in which God was pleased to dwell.

and shame them that have not] Not “those who have no houses,” “han noone” Wiclif, but as the margin, them that are poor; qui sont pauvres, De Sacy. The word in the original is rather stronger than shame; it is equivalent to disgrace.

Bengel's Gnomen

1 Corinthians 11:22. Γὰρ, for) He presses upon them with questionings.—οἰκαίας, houses) 1 Corinthians 11:34.—τῆς ἐκκλησίας, the Church) of which the better part was the poor, Jam 2:5.—τοῦ Θεοῦ, of God) This constitutes the honour of the Church.—καταφρονεῖτε, do you despise) when you do that apart in the church, which you might do at home.—μὴ ἔχοντας, not having) Those, who have, viz. the wealthy; those, who have not, viz. the needy.—οὐκ ἐπαινῶ, I praise you not) Μείωσις [saying less than is intended], implying: You are very much to be blamed.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 22. - To eat and to drink in. The object of the agape was something higher than the mere gratification of appetite. Though not a sacrament, it was an accompaniment of the Lord's Supper, and was itself intended to be a symbolical and sacred meal. Despise ye the Church of God! The congregation of your fellow Christians. Shame; rather, disgrace, or put to shame. Them that have not. It would be natural to supply "houses." But the commentators found it difficult to suppose that any of the Corinthians had not "houses to eat and to drink in." Hence most commentators give to the phrase its classic sense, in which "those who have" means the rich, and "those who have not," the poor. They seem, however, to have forgotten that slaves at any rate could hardly be said to have "houses of their own," and it is certain that not a few of the Corinthian Christians were slaves. I praise you not. As in ver. 17, this is an instance of what is called litotes, a mild expression, suggesting a meaning much stronger than the words themselves. For. He is about to give his reason for thus strongly blaming their irregularities. 1 Corinthians 11:22

Vincent's Word Studies

Them that have not

Not, that have not houses, but absolutely, the poor. In thus shaming their poorer comrades they imitated the heathen. Xenophon relates of Socrates that, at feasts of contribution, where some brought much and others little, Socrates bade his attendant either to place each small contribution on the table for the common use, or else to distribute his share of the same to each. And so those who had brought much were ashamed not to partake of that which was placed for general use, and not, in return, to place their own stock on the table ("Memorabilia," iii., 14, 1).