“So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other. If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment. And when I come I will give further directions.” (1Cor 11:33-34)

As we conclude this section, we see once again that the corrective for this whole situation is “wait for each other.” Please note that Paul says “when you come together.” I’ve heard many argue from this passage either (1) Paul forbids Christians eating at the church building; or (2) Paul forbids the combining of the Lord’s Supper with a meal. Neither of these is sustainable. The first one doesn’t work because they weren’t using church buildings at that point in history anyway. Paul’s comment about being hungry and eating at home needs to be read in light of the previous verse. He is saying that hunger is no argument for not being able to wait; if you can’t wait, eat something before you come. Don’t spoil the fellowship meal.

The second argument also seems to overlook verse 33. If they weren’t supposed to have a common meal, Paul wouldn’t give them commands as to what to do when they ate together. If they weren’t supposed to have a meal with the Lord’s Supper, Paul would have said that! As they say in Argentina, sometimes we look for the fifth leg on the cat, we look for something that has no reason to be there. Let’s give the New Testament writers some credit; if a problem needed to be addressed, they addressed it. They didn’t encrypt answers in a multitude of passages that have to be tied together by Greek scholars. What needed to be said was said.

What we need to take away from this passage is the horizontal nature of the Lord’s Supper. We do not take it in isolation. We take it as a body, in an act of the body. Let’s not get so caught up in other details that we miss the main point of this passage. It’s pretty simple, actually. When you eat, eat together. Wait for one another. Be aware of one another.