1 Corinthians 11
Wesley1 Corinthians 11:2
Fornication - The original word implies criminal conversation of any kind whatever. His father’s wife - While his father was alive.
1 Corinthians 11:3
Are ye puffed up? Should ye not rather have mourned - Have solemnly humbled yourselves, and at that time of solemn mourning have expelled that notorious sinner from your communion?
1 Corinthians 11:4
I verily, as present in spirit - Having a full (it seems, a miraculous) view of the whole fact. Have already, as if I were actually present, judged him who hath so scandalously done this.
1 Corinthians 11:5
And my spirit - Present with you. With the power of the Lord Jesus Christ - To confirm my sentence.
1 Corinthians 11:6
To deliver such an one - This was the highest degree of punishment in the Christian church; and we may observe, the passing this sentence was the act of the apostle, not of the Corinthians. To Satan - Who was usually permitted, in such cases, to inflict pain or sickness on the offender. For the destruction - Though slowly and gradually. Of the flesh - Unless prevented by speedy repentance.
1 Corinthians 11:7
Your glorying - Either in your gifts or prosperity, at such a time as this, is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven - One sin, or one sinner. Leaveneth the whole lump - Diffuses guilt and infection through the whole congregation.
1 Corinthians 11:8
Purge out therefore the old leaven - Both of sinners and of sin. That ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened - That is, that being unleavened ye may be a new lump, holy unto the Lord. For our passover is slain for us - The Jewish passover, about the time of which this epistle was wrote, 1 Corinthians 5:11, was only a type of this. What exquisite skill both here and everywhere conducts the zeal of the inspired writer! How surprising a transition is here, and yet how perfectly natural! The apostle, speaking of the incestuous criminal, slides into his darling topic, - crucified Saviour. Who would have expected it on such an occasion. Yet, when it is thus brought in, who does not see and admire both the propriety of the subject, and the delicacy of its introduction?
1 Corinthians 11:9
Therefore let us keep the feast - Let us feed on him by faith. Here is a plain allusion to the Lord’s supper, which was instituted in the room of the passover. Not with the old leaven - Of heathenism or Judaism. Malignity is stubbornness in evil. Sincerity and truth seem to be put here for the whole of true, inward religion.
1 Corinthians 11:10
I wrote to you in a former epistle - And, doubtless, both St. Paul and the other apostles wrote many things which are not extant now. Not to converse - Familiarly; not to contract any intimacy or acquaintance with them, more than is absolutely necessary.
1 Corinthians 11:11
But I did not mean that you should altogether refrain from conversing with heathens, though they are guilty in some of these respects. Covetous, rapacious, idolaters - Sinners against themselves, their neighbour, God. For then ye must go out of the world - Then all civil commerce must cease. So that going out of the world, which some account a perfection, St. Paul accounts an utter absurdity.
1 Corinthians 11:12
Who is named a brother - That is, a Christian; especially if a member of the same congregation. Rapacious - Guilty of oppression, extortion, or any open injustice. No, not to eat with him - Which is the lowest degree of familiarity.
1 Corinthians 11:13
I speak of Christians only. For what have I to do to judge heathens? But ye, as well as I, judge those of your own community.
1 Corinthians 11:14
Them that are without God will judge - The passing sentence on these he hath reserved to himself. And ye will take away that wicked person - This properly belongs to you.
1 Corinthians 11:16
The unjust - The heathens. A Christian could expect no justice from these. The saints - Who might easily decide these smaller differences in a private and friendly manner.
1 Corinthians 11:17
Know ye not - This expression occurs six times in this single chapter, and that with a peculiar force; for the Corinthians knew and gloried in it, but they did not practise. That the saints - After having been judged themselves. Shall judge the world - Shall be assessors with Christ in the judgment wherein he shall condemn all the wicked, as well angels as men, Matthew 19:28 Revelation 20:4.
1 Corinthians 11:19
Them who are of no esteem in the church - That is, heathens, who, as such, could be in no esteem with the Christians.
1 Corinthians 11:20
Is there not one among you, who are such admirers of wisdom, that is wise enough to decide such causes?
1 Corinthians 11:22
Indeed there is a fault, that ye quarrel with each other at all, whether ye go to law or no. Why do ye not rather suffer wrong - All men cannot or will not receive this saying. Many aim only at this, “I will neither do wrong, nor suffer it.” These are honest heathens, but no Christians.
1 Corinthians 11:23
Nay, ye do wrong - Openly. And defraud - Privately. O how powerfully did the mystery of iniquity already work!
1 Corinthians 11:24
Idolatry is here placed between fornication and adultery, because they generally accompanied it. Nor the effeminate - Who live in an easy, indolent way; taking up no cross, enduring no hardship. But how is this? These good - natured, harmless people are ranked with idolaters and sodomites! We may learn hence, that we are never secure from the greatest sins, till we guard against those which are thought the least; nor, indeed, till we think no sin is little, since every one is a step toward hell.
1 Corinthians 11:26
And such were some of you: but ye are washed - From those gross abominations; nay, and ye are inwardly sanctified; not before, but in consequence of, your being justified in the name - That is, by the merits, of the Lord Jesus, through which your sins are forgiven. And by the Spirit of our God - By whom ye are thus washed and sanctified.
1 Corinthians 11:27
All things - Which are lawful for you. Are lawful for me, but all things are not always expedient - Particularly when anything would offend my weak brother; or when it would enslave my own soul. For though all things are lawful for me, yet I will not be brought under the power of any - So as to be uneasy when I abstain from it; for, if so, then I am under the power of it.
1 Corinthians 11:28
As if he had said, I speak this chiefly with regard to meats; (and would to God all Christians would consider it!) particularly with regard to those offered to idols, and those forbidden in the Mosaic law. These, I grant, are all indifferent, and have their use, though it is only for a time: then meats, and the organs which receive them, will together moulder into dust. But the case is quite otherwise with fornication. This is not indifferent, but at all times evil. For the body is for the Lord - Designed only for his service. And the Lord, in an important sense, for the body - Being the Saviour of this, as well as of the soul; in proof of which God hath already raised him from the dead.
1 Corinthians 11:31
1 Corinthians 11:32
But he that is joined to the Lord - By faith. Is one spirit with him - And shall he make himself one flesh with an harlot?
1 Corinthians 11:33
Flee fornication - All unlawful commerce with women, with speed, with abhorrence, with all your might. Every sin that a man commits against his neighbour terminates upon an object out of himself, and does not so immediately pollute his body, though it does his soul. But he that committeth fornication, sinneth against his own body - Pollutes, dishonours, and degrades it to a level with brute beasts.
1 Corinthians 11:34
And even your body is not, strictly speaking, your own even this is the temple of the Holy Ghost - Dedicated to him, and inhabited by him. What the apostle calls elsewhere “the temple of God,” 1 Corinthians 3:16,17, and “the temple of the living God,” 2 Corinthians 6:16, he here styles the temple of the Holy Ghost; plainly showing that the Holy Ghost is the living God.