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1 Corinthians 11: What the Passage Says

81 claims across 34 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What 1 Corinthians 11 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul praises the Corinthians for holding to what he passed on to them, then gives instructions about head coverings when men and women pray or prophesy, grounding them in an order of headship, in creation, in nature and custom, and in the mutual dependence of man and woman in the Lord. He then rebukes their gatherings, where the rich eat their own meals ahead of others and the poor go hungry, so that what they eat is not the Lord's Supper. He repeats the words of Jesus at the last meal over the bread and the cup, tells them to examine themselves before eating, links their careless eating to sickness and death among them, and tells them to wait for one another.

Claim by Claim

  1. 11:1
    • Paul tells the readers to be imitators of him
    • Paul says he himself imitates Christ
  2. 11:2
    • Paul praises the readers
    • Paul says they remember him in all things
    • Paul addresses them as brethren
    • Paul says they keep the traditions he delivered to them
  3. 11:3
    • Paul says he wants them to know something
    • The head of every man is Christ
    • The head of the woman is the man
    • The head of Christ is God
  4. 11:4
    • Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head
  5. 11:5
    • Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head
    • A woman praying or prophesying uncovered is the same as if she were shaven
  6. 11:6
    • If a woman is not covered, she should also be shorn
    • If it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaven, she should be covered
  7. 11:7
    • A man ought not to cover his head
    • A man is the image and glory of God
    • The woman is the glory of the man
  8. 11:8
    • The man is not from the woman
    • The woman is from the man
  9. 11:9
    • The man was not created for the sake of the woman
    • The woman was created for the sake of the man
  10. 11:10
    • For this reason the woman ought to have authority on her head
    • The reason given is because of the angels
  11. 11:11
    • In the Lord the man is not apart from the woman
    • In the Lord the woman is not apart from the man
  12. 11:12
    • The woman is from the man
    • The man is through the woman
    • All things are from God
  13. 11:13
    • Paul tells them to judge among themselves
    • Paul asks whether it is fitting for a woman to pray to God uncovered
  14. 11:14
    • Paul asks whether nature itself teaches them that if a man has long hair it is a dishonor to him
  15. 11:15
    • If a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her
    • Her hair is given to her for a covering
  16. 11:16
    • If anyone seems to be contentious, Paul says we have no such custom
    • The churches of God have no such custom
  17. 11:17
    • In declaring this Paul does not praise them
    • They come together not for the better but for the worse
  18. 11:18
    • Paul says first of all that when they come together in the church he hears there are divisions among them
    • Paul partly believes it
  19. 11:19
    • There must also be factions among them
    • The purpose of the factions is that those who are approved may be made manifest among them
  20. 11:20
    • When they come together into one place, what they eat is not the Lord's supper
  21. 11:21
    • In eating, each one takes his own supper before the others
    • One is hungry
    • Another is drunken
  22. 11:22
    • Paul asks whether they do not have houses to eat and drink in
    • Paul asks whether they despise the church of God
    • Paul asks whether they shame those who have nothing
    • Paul asks what he should say to them
    • Paul asks whether he should praise them in this
    • Paul says he does not praise them in this
  23. 11:23
    • Paul received from the Lord what he also delivered to them
    • The Lord Jesus was betrayed on a certain night
    • On that night the Lord Jesus took bread
  24. 11:24
    • He gave thanks
    • He broke the bread
    • He said to take and eat
    • He said this is his body
    • He said his body is broken for them
    • He said to do this in remembrance of him
  25. 11:25
    • In the same manner he took the cup after supper
    • He said this cup is the new covenant in his blood
    • He said to do this, as often as they drink it, in remembrance of him
  26. 11:26
    • As often as they eat this bread and drink this cup, they show the Lord's death
    • They do so until he comes
  27. 11:27
    • Whoever eats this bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord
  28. 11:28
    • A person should examine himself
    • Then he should eat of the bread and drink of the cup
  29. 11:29
    • He who eats and drinks unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself
    • He does so by not discerning the Lord's body
  30. 11:30
    • For this cause many among them are weak and sickly
    • Many among them sleep
  31. 11:31
    • If we judged ourselves, we would not be judged
  32. 11:32
    • When we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord
    • The purpose is that we should not be condemned with the world
  33. 11:33
    • Paul addresses them as his brethren
    • When they come together to eat, they should wait for one another
  34. 11:34
    • If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home
    • The purpose is that they not come together unto condemnation
    • Paul will set the rest in order when he comes

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

11:1
"Followers" in 1611 English meant imitators, people who copy someone's way of living, not simply people who go along behind a leader.
11:2
The KJV's "ordinances" sounds like rules or decrees, but the Greek word means traditions: a fixed body of teaching received from someone and passed on intact. The same idea returns in verse 23.
11:3
"Head" translates the Greek word kephale. Besides the body part, it could carry the sense of one set over another (authority) and also the sense of source or origin, the way a river has a head. Ancient readers could hear either, the argument that follows uses both ideas, and translators still divide over which Paul intends here.
11:4
"Prophesying" in Paul's letters means speaking a message from God aloud in the gathering. It need not have anything to do with predicting the future. Note that Paul assumes both men and women do this in the meeting.
11:5
In Roman Corinth a respectable woman appearing in public commonly veiled her head or drew a fold of her garment over it, while a man of standing might pull his toga over his head when presiding at a sacrifice. The Greek in verse 4 is literally "having something down over the head." Scholars dispute whether Paul means a cloth covering or hair worn bound up rather than hanging loose.
11:6
"Shorn" means cropped close with shears; "shaven" means razored bare. A woman with a shaved or cropped head in the Greek and Roman world was marked out by mourning, disgrace, or in some places judicial punishment for adultery.
11:7
"Glory" here translates doxa, which in this sentence means honor or credit: the one whose existence reflects well on another, as an achievement reflects on the person who made it.
11:8
Verses 8 and 9 refer to the second creation account in Genesis 2, where the woman is formed from the man's side and made as a companion suited to him.
11:10
"Power" is the Greek word exousia, meaning authority. The clause is literally "ought to have authority over her head," and it is genuinely unclear whether this is authority she holds or authority she is under; translations that read "a sign of authority" are supplying the words "a sign of." "Because of the angels" is left unexplained by Paul and has been understood in many ways since; the Greek word angelos can mean either a heavenly being or a human messenger.
11:13
"Comely" in 1611 meant fitting or proper, a question of decorum, not of good looks.
11:14
"Nature" translates physis, which can mean the way things are constituted and can also shade into long-settled custom. In the Roman cities of Paul's day short hair was the male convention, and long hair on a man was associated with effeminacy or with the appearance of certain cults.
11:16
"Contentious" means fond of arguing, quick to pick a fight over a point. "We have no such custom" is ambiguous in the Greek: it may mean no custom of quarreling about this, or no practice other than the one just described.
11:18
"In the church" does not mean in a building. The Greek word ekklesia means an assembly of people, so the phrase means when you gather as a congregation. These meetings were held in private houses.
11:19
"Heresies" translates haireseis, which at this date meant parties or factions: groups lining up behind rival leaders or preferences. The later sense of false doctrine is not yet in view.
11:20
The Lord's Supper at Corinth was a full communal meal eaten together in a member's home, with the bread and the cup belonging to it. It was not yet a short rite separate from eating.
11:21
At Roman dinners it was normal for the host and guests of higher standing to arrive first and to be served better food and wine, while those who worked for a living, including slaves, came late and got what was left. "Drunken" here simply means drunk.
11:22
"Them that have not" means those who have nothing: the poorer members who arrive with no food of their own to contribute.
11:23
"Received" and "delivered" are the standard Greek pair for taking over a fixed tradition and handing it on unaltered, word for word. The verb rendered "betrayed" is the same verb as "delivered": Jesus was handed over on the night this handed-down account describes.
11:24
The oldest surviving Greek manuscripts read "this is my body, which is for you." The word "broken" appears in later copies, which are the ones the KJV translators worked from. "Given thanks" translates eucharisteo, the verb behind the later name Eucharist.
11:25
"When he had supped" means after the meal was finished; the cup came at the end of dinner, which matches the order of a Passover meal. "Testament" in 1611 English meant covenant, a binding agreement between two parties, which is what the Greek word diatheke means here.
11:26
"Shew" in 1611 meant to proclaim or announce publicly, not to display something silently.
11:27
"Unworthily" is an adverb in Greek describing the manner of the eating, not a verdict on whether the eater is a worthy person. "Guilty of the body and blood" is courtroom language: liable with respect to them.
11:29
"Damnation" in 1611 English meant a judicial sentence or verdict, not necessarily eternal punishment; the Greek word is krima, judgment. "The Lord's body" is simply "the body" in the oldest manuscripts, and the phrase is ambiguous: it may mean failing to recognize the bread for what it is, or failing to recognize the assembled congregation as Christ's body, an image Paul develops in the next chapter.
11:30
"Sleep" is the ordinary early Christian way of saying died.
11:32
"Chastened" translates paideuo, the verb for training or disciplining a child or pupil. It means corrective instruction rather than punishment for its own sake.
11:33
"Tarry one for another" means wait for each other before starting to eat. The Greek verb can also carry the sense of receiving or welcoming one another.
11:34
"The rest will I set in order" means the remaining questions they have raised will get his instructions in person, when he next visits.

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