1 Corinthians 11:18-19

“For first of all, when ye come together in the Church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. 19. For there must even be sects among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.”

The apostle now gives the reason for the severe words: “I do not praise you.” The: for first of all, announces a first rebuke in regard to the divisions in their assemblies (1 Corinthians 11:18-19), and leads us to expect a second to be indicated by a: then again; but this formula, corresponding to the first of all, is found nowhere in the sequel. Where does this second rebuke begin? Meyer, Osiander, heinrici think that it points to the abuses in the exercise of spiritual gifts treated in chaps. 12-14; that if there is not found at the beginning of chap. 12 the ἔπειτα δέ, then again, which should correspond to our πρῶτον μέν of 1 Corinthians 11:18, this may arise from the fact that the long development of chap. 11 had made the apostle forget the form used at the beginning of the passage (1 Corinthians 11:18). Edwards prefers to place the expected secondly in 1 Corinthians 11:34, where, according to him, it is logically implied in the τὰ δὲ λοιπά, the rest. Hofmann thinks that there is no secondly to be sought in the sequel, since πρῶτον signifies here, as often, not firstly, but principally; comp. Romans 3:2. This last assertion might be established if πρῶτον stood alone; with the μέν it is less easily admissible. And how should the divisions be represented as the essential point in what follows? The meaning of Edwards can as little be admitted. The words: “The rest will I set in order when I come,” do not contain any threatening, any announcement of rebukes to be addressed to them. Meyer's meaning falls to the ground for this reason: that the divisions, σχίσματα, mentioned 1 Corinthians 11:18-19, are not put by the apostle in any connection with the disorders in the Holy Supper, which are explained by a wholly different cause. Consequently the two subjects cannot have been combined in one by Paul, and both embraced in the πρῶτον μέν of 1 Corinthians 11:18. We have therefore simply, with Olshausen, de Wette, Rückert, to place the understood then again at 1 Corinthians 11:20, where the rebukes begin relating to the celebration of the Supper. And such is the meaning to which we are led by the close study of the relation between the three terms συνέρχεσθε, ye come together (1 Corinthians 11:17), συνερχομένων ὑμῶν, when ye come together (1 Corinthians 11:18), and συνερχομένων οὖν ὑμῶν, when therefore ye come together (1 Corinthians 11:20). Meyer thinks that the second συνερχομένων (1 Corinthians 11:20) is the repetition of the συνερχομένων (1 Corinthians 11:18). Hence it is he combines in one and the same rebuke the blame bearing on the divisions and that which applies to the profanation of the Supper. This is his error. The second συνερχομένων is not the repetition of the first, but of the συνέρχεσθε, ye come together, of 1 Corinthians 11:17: “You come together for the worse, and that chiefly because of your divisions (1 Corinthians 11:18-19), then again because of the way you celebrate the Supper.” Here is the second rebuke, developed from 1 Corinthians 11:20 to 1 Corinthians 11:34. Meyer asks why, if it is so, the first rebuke is found so briefly treated? Quite simply, because this matter of divisions had already formed the subject of the whole first part, chaps. 1-4, and Paul needs only here to refer to it, while applying to their meetings for worship what he had said of the malign influence exercised by such divisions over the life of the Church in general.

The two συνερχομένων are therefore parallel to one another, and both rest on the συνέρχεσθε of 1 Corinthians 11:17. Only the first of these participles points to their assemblies merely in a passing way, while the second, referring as it does to the subject about which the apostle is now most seriously concerned, the profanation of the holy table, is emphasized by the οὖν, therefore; this particle shows that he is returning to the thought which had mainly suggested to him the εἰς τὸ ἧττον συνέρχεσθε, ye come together for the worse (1 Corinthians 11:17).

The first thing which Paul has to blame in their assemblies for worship, is the divisions which break out among them.

The τῇ before ἐκκλησίᾳ in the T. R. should be rejected. The meaning is not: in the church, but: in church: “when you come together in a general assembly of the Church.” The point in question is the manner, not the place; comp. 1 Corinthians 14:23. The form of the phrase seems incorrect; for it is not at the time when their divisions break out that the apostle hears of them. This finds its explanation the instant we refer the present participle συνερχομένων, not to the time, but to the manner of meeting.

The news might have reached him either by the house of Chloe (1 Corinthians 1:11), or by the deputies of the Church (1 Corinthians 16:15).

The: and I partly believe it, is very delicate. Paul would admit that the state of things has been described to him in certain respects worse than it is. But when a Church is in the moral state in which that of Corinth is, it must inevitably become a theatre of discord. This necessity is of the same kind as that indicated by Jesus when He said: “It must needs be that offences come” (Matthew 18:7), that is to say: given such a world as ours.

In the following verse the moral reason is explained which renders these discussions providentially necessary.