1 Corinthians
Chapter 11
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
Women’s Veils
I praise you because you remember me in everything and you uphold the traditions I have given you.
However, I want to remind you that every man has Christ as his head, and the wife has her husband as her head; and God is the head of Christ.
If a man prays or prophesies with his head covered, he dishonors his head.
Conversely, the woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered does not respect her head. She might as well cut her hair.
If a woman does not wear a veil, let her cut her hair; and if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved, then she should wear a veil.
Men do not need to cover their heads because they are the image of God and reflect his glory, while a woman reflects the glory of man.
8Man was not formed from woman, but woman from man.
Nor did God create man for woman, but woman for man.
Therefore, a woman must respect the angels and wear the sign of her dependence on her head.
In any case, the Christian attitude does not separate man from woman or woman from man,
and if God created woman from man, then man is born of woman, and both come from God.
Judge for yourselves: Is it appropriate for a woman to pray without a veil?
Common sense shows us that it’s shameful for a man to wear long hair,
while long hair is a woman’s pride and has been given to her as a kind of veil.
If any of you wish to argue, let it be known that it is neither our custom nor the tradition in the churches of God.
Agape and the Eucharist
To continue with my advice, I cannot praise you because your gatherings do more harm than good.
First, as I have heard, when you gather together, there are divisions among you, and I partly believe it.
There may need to be different groups among you so that it becomes clear who among you is genuine.
Your gatherings are no longer the Lord’s Supper,
for each one eats his own food separately, and while one is hungry, another gets drunk.
Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or perhaps you despise God’s church and want to humiliate those who have nothing? What am I to say? Should I praise you? Certainly not for this.
This is the tradition of the Lord that I received and have passed on to you; the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and,
after giving thanks, broke it, saying, ‘This is my body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of me.’
In the same way, after the supper, he took the cup and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do it in remembrance of me.’
So then, whenever you eat this bread and drink from this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Therefore, anyone who eats the bread or drinks from the cup of the Lord unworthily sins against the body and blood of the Lord.
Let each person examine themselves before eating the bread and drinking from the cup.
For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body, eats and drinks judgment upon themselves.
This is why many of you are sick and weak, and some have even died.
But if we examine ourselves, we won’t be judged by God this way.
The Lord’s discipline is meant to correct us so we won’t be condemned with the world.
So then, brothers and sisters, when you gather for a meal, wait for each other.
If someone is hungry, let him eat at home. In this way, you will not be judged when you come together. I will give you other instructions when I arrive there.
Commentaries
Idolatrous Meals and Christian Freedom.
Paul addresses a specific issue: participating in pagan cultic banquets. Confronted with the possible claim that idols are nothing and that these banquets are therefore harmless (8:4), Paul strongly responds: “I do not want you to enter into communion with demons” (20). He was well aware that these banquets were not innocent community or cultural gatherings that a confident and “liberated” Christian could attend without risking their faith. The “demons” worshipped there, represented in the images and idols overseeing the banquets, symbolized injustice and the exploitation of the poor. These “demons” are the ones that compete with and provoke God’s jealousy. Additionally, he suggests that the guiding principle for decision-making in these situations should be respect for the conscience of the weaker brother, with the aim of also bringing glory to God.
Women’s Veils.
This topic feels distant from our culture. In ancient times, both among the Jews and in the Greek world, women wore head coverings as a sign of modesty. Here, Paul shows himself to be a man of his time, influenced by sexist ideas about biblical interpretation that were popular in Jewish circles then and are certainly out of place today. Interestingly, “the Christian Paul” doesn’t seem entirely convinced of his own arguments, which is why he shifts his stance in the middle of his reasoning: “For in the Lord, there is neither woman without man nor man without woman” (11) and that, after all, “if woman comes from man, man also comes from woman, and both come from God” (12). Let us examine the Apostle’s opinions on women as evidence of the tension between traditional culture and the newness of the Gospel, a debate that was being debated in the early Church, including among the Apostles themselves.
Agape and the Eucharist.
Paul now confronts a much more serious issue—the scandal of the Corinthians’ Eucharistic celebrations. The “Lord’s Supper” or Eucharist was typically celebrated at sunset in the private homes—there were no churches yet—of the wealthiest members of the community, the only ones able to accommodate 50 or 60 people. Before the “Lord’s Supper” itself began, there was a fellowship meal where the wealthy brought their provisions to be shared among everyone.
Without waiting for the most needy and disadvantaged, who were often workers and slaves because of their long hours, the wealthy ate and drank to their satisfaction. By the time the poor arrived, they had to settle for whatever leftovers there were, if any.Immediately afterward, the rich, feeling satisfied and even intoxicated, and the poor, half-starved, began to celebrate the Eucharist. Paul, upon hearing this, bursts with indignation. Confronted with this situation, he explains to the Corinthians the story of the Institution of the Eucharist, its meaning, and its significance in a beautiful catechesis that teaches, condemns, and urges. This is the earliest New Testament document on the Institution of the Eucharist, written around 55 or 56, well before the Gospels.