(Old Facebook Post – Revised)

Ouch! Craig Blomberg on 1 Corinthians 11:17-34:

“Those who should refrain from the bread and the wine lest they profane the eucharist are not those with a profound sense of their own inadequacy, but those who are actually eating and drinking in an unworthy fashion… ‘One remains hungry, another gets drunk.’ …Once one understands that the gluttony and drunkenness described take place… at the expense of the needy Christians in their midst, then ‘eating and drinking unworthily’ applies in our modern culture to any who continue glibly to partake of the Lord’s Supper, yet who have no track-record in their own lives of giving from their surplus possessions to the poor. The question of who should and should not take the Lord’s Supper in any given church could be revolutionized if we began to obey Paul’s words and apply them as they were intended in their original context.”

— From pages 187-88 of Neither Poverty Nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions, by Craig Blomberg. This is one of the very best books on its topic. Very highly recommended.