TL;DR
Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 11:27 about taking Communion “unworthily” refers to the manner and motivation of participation—not to whether someone has earned the right to partake. Just as the Jewish Passover meal (Exodus 12) was a celebration of God’s deliverance from Egyptian slavery, the Lord’s Supper is a remembrance of Christ’s deliverance from sin. A celebration of the Lord's Supper is “worthy” when it is celebrated as a personal and communal exodus from bondage to freedom through Jesus, our Passover Lamb. The page also includes questions for personal or group reflection.
1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 "This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, together with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire with the head, legs and internal organs. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord's Passover.
12 "On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.
14 "This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord — a lasting ordinance."
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Are you preparing a sermon on Communion? This devotional offers biblical background and practical insights.
Jesus and His disciples were celebrating this Passover meal on the night before His crucifixion. That evening, He gave the meal new significance, transforming it into what we now call the Lord's Supper, Communion, or the Holy Eucharist. In the ritual of almost every Communion service, the minister will include, as part of the Scripture reading, Paul's warning in 1 Corinthians 11:27 against eating the bread or drinking the Lord's cup "in an unworthy manner."
When I used to hear that passage read in a Communion service, I found myself in great turmoil. The word "unworthily" would ring in my ears like a Chinese gong. Like the magic chant of a Halloween witch calling up ghosts out of a boiling cauldron, "unworthily" would call into my memory all my latest failings and inadequacies as a young Christian. I was indeed unworthy. No doubt about that.
What Paul was trying to say in that letter to Corinth is something altogether different. Satan had blinded me into lifting it out of context and twisting its meaning. What I thought was a reference to meritorious character was really a reference to motivation.
What is the Holy Spirit trying to say to us through this passage? First, remember that earlier in this same letter, Paul proclaimed the crucified Christ as our Passover Lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7). That's an unmistakable reference to the historical events of Exodus 12.
Therefore, to fully understand the spirit of these instructions for celebrating the Lord's Supper, we must go back to Exodus and to the night before God delivered the Israelites from Egyptian slavery.
The first Passover accompanied God's final plague on Egypt and led to the release of the Hebrew people from slavery. It was not the result of any military heroics by the Jews but solely the result of God's power.
Each year thereafter, as God commanded, Jewish households retold and remembered the story of the Exodus. The ceremony included a special meal in which the ritual symbols of bitter herbs and matzo (unleavened bread) were eaten in remembrance of the Jews' divine redemption.
That festival of freedom is the prototype for our celebration of the Lord's Supper. As Paul reminds us, the events of the Passover night are the Old Testament foreshadowing of the salvation bought for us with Christ's blood.
What does all this tell me about my youthful problem regarding unworthiness? To begin with, if I'm thinking in terms of meritorious righteousness, then I'm approaching the Communion service like it's some kind of Independence Day freedom festival where I have delivered myself from sin.
My self-examination prior to participating is not to judge my own worthiness but rather to make certain that I am approaching the Lord's Table in remembrance of His delivering work on Calvary.
If I see in the Communion service the opportunity to relive my own personal deliverance from the tyranny of sin, then my partaking is not in any sense unworthy. In fact, it is only when I see the Lord's Supper as an anniversary celebration of my own personal Exodus from slavery to freedom that it is truly a worthy celebration.
For Jews, the Passover commemorates their pilgrimage as a people from bondage to redemption. In His death on the Cross, Jesus became our Passover Lamb. His sacrificial death gave the Passover profound significance for Christians.
Is that the spirit with which we approach Communion? Each time, let's try to recapture, with an attitude of thanksgiving, the miraculous deliverance Christ has provided for us. We no longer need to be slaves to sin!
I wrote this devotional blog post while Barbara and I were serving as missionaries in Italy. It is one of a series of 52 brief devotionals written for The Standard, a weekly Faith Connections take-home curriculum piece for adult Sunday school classes published by the Church of the Nazarene.
The shades of meaning of "unworthy manner" in 1 Corinthians 11:27 may include the following:
Other English translations of the "unworthily" concept in 1 Corinthians 11:27 include:
