# 1 Corinthians 11:27-29



## Romans922 (Sep 9, 2006)

I haven't studied this subject much yet. Do you guys think when it talks about discerning the body, that it is referring to yourself or to church body (body of Christ)?


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## Scott Bushey (Sep 9, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Romans922_
> I haven't studied this subject much yet. Do you guys think when it talks about discerning the body, that it is referring to yourself or to church body (body of Christ)?



Andrew, 
I believe verse 27 is helpful here:



> 1 Corinthians 11:27 27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.


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## wsw201 (Sep 9, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Romans922_
> I haven't studied this subject much yet. Do you guys think when it talks about discerning the body, that it is referring to yourself or to church body (body of Christ)?



Paul is referring to the body and blood of Christ that was represented in the Lord's Supper that he had just discussed.


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## nominalist747 (Oct 11, 2006)

In context, what the Corinthians have been guilty of is violating the unity of the people of God: this is Paul's burden throughout the entire epistle (cf. 1:10 & 13). So, if he is referring to the body and blood as represented in the Supper, I don't think it is the mode of the real presence, but rather the sacrificial nature of Christ's action, which was meant to make one unified church (cf. Eph 2:14-22). The Corinthians don't understand this, as is shown by their greed and gluttony in the supper (1 Cor. 11:20-21, cf. 10:17). Therefore, by not recognizing the unity of the church and the concomitant need to sacrifice themselves for one another (e.g., 8:11) as the imitation of Christ (cf. 11:1, which more likely closes the previous section on seeking the good of others, 10:23ff), they dishonor that very sacrifice which united the church. 

I think this explanation ties together both the corporate theme of the epistle and the primary referent of the supper (i.e., Christ's atoning work), without importing the 16th century concerns over the mode of the real presence, which don't appear anywhere in Paul, as far as I can tell.


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## Romans922 (Oct 11, 2006)

So then if it we are called to discern the body/blook of Christ...then how can paedo-communion stand within orthodoxy?


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## MW (Oct 11, 2006)

> _Originally posted by Romans922_
> So then if it we are called to discern the body/blook of Christ...then how can paedo-communion stand within orthodoxy?



It doesn't. It only claims that it does, while at the same time accusing orthodoxy of rationalism.


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## Romans922 (Oct 11, 2006)

What's wrong with rationalism if our reason is in line with Scripture? And if you don't like rationalism then you could just become an experientialist or existentialist or romanticist or dare I say Liberal.


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## MW (Oct 11, 2006)

Interesting you should mention liberals. Even liberal episcopalians still generally insist on confirmation.


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## nominalist747 (Oct 11, 2006)

It is interesting that we're not called to discern the body and blood. Here is a long quote:

"The question that must be addressed is: What does Paul mean by "the Lord's body"?

I believe that Paul is referring to the Church. The common objection to this is that Paul has referred to the "body and blood of the Lord" two verses earlier (11:27), clearly with reference to Christ's own physical body. It is suggested that the apostle would hardly have gone from one usage of "body" to another in such a short space, without warning.

This objection, however, is not at all strong.

First, the phraseology does not match. When Paul is speaking of Christ's physical body, he pairs body and blood, bread and wine (note 11:24-25, 27, 28; compare 10:16). In verse 29, however, Paul only says "body."

Second, Paul does make this same movement in usage just one chapter earlier:

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread. [1 Cor. 10:16-17]

In verse 16, the communion (communal participation) of the body of Christ is paralleled with the communion of the blood of Christ - clearly, "body" in the first instance refers to the crucified body. But in verse 17, Paul infers from this "one body," i.e. the Church.

It is precisely this relationship between the crucified body and the Church body that undergirds Paul's argument in chapter 11. Recall again the context: "there are divisions among you" (11:18). In 10:16-17, Paul has demonstrated that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper builds a body (the Church) for Christ out of His sacrificial death, the self-offering of His body and blood. Consequently, in ch. 11, Paul is parrying against those who are committing sacrilege against that self-offering by mutilating the Church."

http://www.paedocommunion.com/articles/gallant_discerning_the_body.php


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## MW (Oct 11, 2006)

This is reductionist thinking. The apostle leads his readers back to the true meaning of the Supper, and in the process makes an application of it to the divided state of the church. Mr. Gallant merely focusses on the application, and in the meantime loses sight of the principles undergirding that application. But he will never be able to escape the fact so clearly announced by the apostle, that the celebration of the Lord's supper is primarily a proclamation of the death of Christ till he comes. It is on this basis that he urges discernment of the body and blood of Christ, and examination of oneself in relation to it.


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## Contra_Mundum (Oct 11, 2006)

To answer the TG quote:
No. Paul means the physical, fleshly body of Jesus which expired on the cross.

Romans 7:4 "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ;..."

TG affirms PC based on what he thinks is principially correct, and for which he finds support in other passages. But, what to do with this didactic passage dealing directly the LS? Well, it must be explained so as not to jeaprodize his PC doctrine.

[Edited on 10-11-2006 by Contra_Mundum]


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## nominalist747 (Oct 11, 2006)

So, notice the parallel movement of thought in 10:16-17 and 11:27-29--from the partaking of the body and blood (10:16 and 11:27-28) to the implications for the one body, i.e. the church (10:17 and 11:29). 

It's also the case that the diakrino can mean 'to prefer, to regard as more valuable' (Louw & Nida, which gives this meaning in 1 Cor. 4:7) and Paul rebukes the Corinthians in 11:22 for despising the church, which seems to be an antonym of diakrino (cf. L & N 88.192). Perhaps v. 29 is saying that the one who does not prefer the body, i.e., who in fact despises the church by his actions--putting himself first--in the very worship of God is eating and drinking judgment against himself. This makes very good sense in the context. Of course, diakrino is used in v. 31 with "ourselves" as the direct object, and there it cannot mean "preferring," but has to mean "evaluate carefully." But notice that the object here is the members of the church, introduced with a contrary-to-fact conditional: "if we did in fact judge ourselves rightly (but we don't), we would not be judged (but we are)." What is the proof for the protasis? Perhaps it's in the prior verse with diakrino, i.e., v. 29. If those are parallel, then what is being discerned is again primarily the church. 

Hmm...since both "to prefer" and "to judge carefully" make very good sense with respect to different elements of the context, could we legitimately consider a double meaning here? That would also fit with Paul's irony and sarcasm throughout the book and this passage, and diakrino provides as bridge from the issue of preference (cf. v. 22 and throughout) to the issue of discernment (v. 31), with the idea of: "If you looked carefully (diakrino, v. 31) at yourself, you would prefer (diakrino, v. 29) the body, neither of which you are doing."


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## nominalist747 (Oct 11, 2006)

Okay, those two posts were put up while I was writing that last one.

Mr. Winzer, 

I don't see how this is reductionistic, since he does in fact address the principle of Christ's death as the reason for the application (look at the last paragraph in the excerpt), as I did in my first post. Because the Corinthian gluttons and drunkards attack unity--the applied result of the sacrificial death (10:16-17), they are thus attacking the ground of that unity --the sacrificial work itself.

Also, I don't think I see how proclamation in the context is given as a reason for the discernment and examination. Could you please explain a little more fully?

Mr. Buchanan, you simply assert that Paul here means the literal body, and support it with a quote from an entirely different letter, then accuse Gallant of eisegesis. I'm not sure that I am convinced by your argument here.

By the way, I'm not myself convinced by paedocommunion, but I think Gallant's case about many of the elements of 1 Cor. 10-11 makes a great deal more sense of the passage than plopping the mode of the real presence debate from the 16C into it.

[Edited on by nominalist747]


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## MW (Oct 11, 2006)

> _Originally posted by nominalist747_
> I don't see how this is reductionistic, since he does in fact address the principle of Christ's death as the reason for the application (look at the last paragraph in the excerpt), as I did in my first post. Because the Corinthian gluttons and drunkards attack unity--the applied result of the sacrificial death (10:16-17), they are thus attacking the ground of that unity --the sacrificial work itself.
> 
> Also, I don't think I see how proclamation in the context is given as a reason for the discernment and examination. Could you please explain a little more fully?



Mr. Smith,

The Supper existed before the Corinthians. Hence the apostle takes them back to the words of institution. Its significance is unaltered by the Corinthian abuse. It is still to be done in remembrance of Christ. It is always primarily a declaring the Lord's death till He come. The apostle reminds the Corinthians of this primary nature of the Supper in order to heal the divisions and abuses in the church. If they can understand that the ordinance is a corporate proclamation of Christ, they will see they need to wait for each other and together remembrance Christ.

Now Mr. Gallant fails to recognise what the actual remedy is. He would have us believe that the remedy consists in remembering the body of the church. The apostle Paul teaches us that the remedy consists in the body of the church remembering Christ. At the end of the day, paedocommunionists are reducing the interpretation of 1 Cor. 11 to its application to Corinth, and are either blindly missing or deliberately covering its fundamental teaching of the significance of the Lord's supper as a corporate commemoration of Christ.


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## nominalist747 (Oct 12, 2006)

Mr. Winzer (BTW, I'm using the last name to be respectful, not unfriendly--I'm not sure how the etiquette works on PB):

Paul already makes a one-step connection between remembering (indeed, partaking of) Christ and the unity of the body in 10:16-17, with almost exactly the same terminology he uses in 11:27-29: both elements listed, then only body. It is furthermore striking that he uses both verbs ("eat" and "drink") and their respective direct objects ("bread" and "cup") in v. 27 and 28, but in 29 uses the verbs without their objects, then moves on to mention only the body (as the object of a different verb), thus breaking the parallel:

v. 27: ...eats the bread...drinks the cup...body and blood
v. 28: ...eat the bread...drink the cup
v. 29: ...eat and drink...eat and drink...discerning the body...

Then, v. 31: "for if we discern ourselves (but we do not)..." Here we have the same verb (discern) where the object is the people (in reflexive form), beginning a conditional where the protasis is assumed to false: it makes sense to look to a near occurence of the same verb to explain how he knows that the protasis, discern ourselves, is false. 

Certainly the primary referent of the supper is the sacrificial work of Christ--I don't dispute this at all. But I apologize if it seems to me that the problem of reductionism goes the other way--you seem to reduce Paul's message to this primary referent only. But Paul views these as immediately connected (10:16-17, cf. Eph. 2:14-22). This seems to indicate, as both Gallant and I said, that in this context Paul's purpose in pointing them to the primary referent of the supper, i.e. Christ's sacrificial work, is to make them_immediately_ reflect on the application of the work, namely to make the church one.

So, I'm afraid I must respectfully disagree that this line of argument somehow obscures the fundamental significance of the supper as a corporate commemoration of Christ. It appears to me to in fact highlight and underline the corporate nature of that commemoration by arguing that Paul sees a close and immediate connection between Christ's sacrificial work and the one body created by that work. This is strengthened by the context of the excerpt from Gallant, which emphasizes the Biblical context of corporate commemoration throughout the OT, to which the Supper certainly looks back, chiefly in respect to Passover. It was these corporate commemorations of God's redeeming acts that defined and marked His people, so the broader background of the Supper also immediately connects the referent to the application of one people. See also the Passover context in John 13ff, where the institution of the Lord's Supper is not mentioned, but the themes of Jesus' own work and the unity of the church with him and with each other are tightly woven together throughout (e.g., 13:13-14 & 34-35--in which latter it is the unity of the church that in fact proclaims Christ, 15:12-17, 17:11 & 20-26). If we add to this the fact that the purpose of the sacrificial work was precisely to redeem a certain people (e.g., Jn. 10:11 & 15; Heb. 2:10-18), then it becomes very nearly impossible--and therefore questionably wise--to separate the referent from its immediate application.

I don't know that we really disagree: as I said, I'm not in this to specifically defend paedocommunion. Perhaps I shouldn't have brought in Gallant, since that seems to have ruffled some feathers and turned the question from "How shall we explore and explain the full meaning of 1 Cor. 11?" (which is what I am interested in--tracing out the tapestry of Biblical themes) to "How can we hammer the paedocommunionists?" If I leave paedocommunion out of the picture entirely, by agreeing that it is not supported by this passage (for the sake of discussion), do you still consider the interpretation I am proposing problematic or reductionistic? Can we discuss the text itself without making it a polemical issue?

[Edited on by nominalist747]


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## MW (Oct 12, 2006)

Mr. Smith,

It escapes me how you can leave out of view the previous emphasis upon the original institution of the supper as a commemoration when exegeting the latter section on discernment, and still not think you are reducing the scope of the apostle's teaching. Even supposing that "body" is to be restricted to the body of the church, it must still have reference to what the previous verses have spoken concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Hence, your investigation into the true meaning of the apostle irrespective of the paedocommunion question should lead you to be adding more detail to our understanding, not minimising it.

I wil reiterate for the sake of clarity -- I do not doubt that there is a practical application to the body of the church, seeing as the abuse the apostle is addressing is one of division and not waiting for each other. Hence, I do not have any difficulties when you provide exegetical considerations which should induce me to see the apostle as addressing this issue. I accept this. But I do not see that this is ALL that the apostle is addressing. His concern is to bring before their mind the commemorative aspect. Hence the semantic range of words pertaining to judgment and discernment cannot terminate on the body of the church, but must rather have reference to the body of the church discerning the body and blood of Christ in their celebration of the supper.

Blessings!


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## nominalist747 (Oct 12, 2006)

Matthew (now I'm trying to sound friendlier--I hope I'm not being overly familiar!):

Hmm...I think I was right about us agreeing, but I think I've been too verbose, so I've obscured my central agreement with. To summarize:

The unity of the body is _not_ all that Paul is addressing! I said several times that he directs their attention to the primary referent of the meal, i.e., Christ's sacrificial work, then makes an immediate application to the unity of body. I'm not sure how _repeatedly_ saying that Paul directs them to the work of Christ _and_ then the unity of the body implies that Paul is _only_ talking about the unity of the body and leaves out of view the commemorative aspect!

I would say more strongly that Paul, along with the other NT texts I cited in John, in fact views the unity of the body not as a distinct application of the primary referent, but even as part of that primary referent. To use Mike Horton's language of drama, the whole play is about God and His people in the world, and the hero of the piece, far more dominant in this drama than the title character of any of Shakespeare's plays, is Christ Himself. The main love interest (if I'm not being irreverent) is the Church, so she is the secondary character, and all of the Hero's actions are for her sake. So, you can't look at the Hero and what He does and consider them apart from the Bride, since the whole goal of the Hero is His marriage. 

Paul's intent is to bring before their minds the _corporate_ commemorative nature of the Supper, as there is no other kind of commemoration than corporate (this is why the confessions generally forbid private communion). The referent then is necessarily complex, or thick: the unified referent is the drama of redemption, in which the Hero and the Beloved are always interpreted and presented relative to each other. I may be making everyone nervous with this kind of analogy, but I don't see how on earth I can be _reducing_ Paul's discourse when I repeatedly say that the Apostle is talking about _both_ things!



[Edited on by nominalist747]


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## MW (Oct 12, 2006)

Mr. Smith,

Thankyou for clarifying. Perhaps I was just being on guard against Mr. Gallant's view, which seemed to me to present us with an either/or option. If you still come out saying that we need to discern the body and blood of the Lord then there is no reduction of the apostle's meaning, and I can fuilly embrace your exegetical considerations for discerning also the body of the church, which is to commemorate and proclaim the death of Christ till He come.

I apologise if I have misrepresented you in any way.


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## nominalist747 (Oct 12, 2006)

No worries. It's been helpful for me to clarify my views here. I think I see what began it, since I introduced the quote from Gallant by saying that we're "not called to discern the body and the blood." What I meant was merely an observation on the specific wording of v. 29, where Paul does not say to "discern the body and the blood," but only "discern the body." 

In the immediate context, I think "body" in v. 29 refers to the church, as I argued by pointing out the lack of parallel between vv. 27-28 and v. 29 and the presence of a parallel between 29 and 31, together with the range of meanings of diakrino. Nevertheless, given Paul's full recitation of the institution, and his emphasis on being guilty of the body and blood, I do agree that the sacrificial work is in the foreground of Paul's thinking. So, my exegetical considerations lead me to say that in vv. 23-28, he calls the church to understand the nature of the Supper, and on the basis of this understanding, to then discern the nature of the church itself in v. 29 (cf. v. 31). In the _immediate context_, then, I would not use the phrase "discern the body and blood," _since that is not what Paul says _and I have made my case for the referent of "body" in v. 29 being the church. _ More broadly_, if we're not just talking about the wording of these verses, I would be happy to say that we should discern the body and blood.

[Edited on by nominalist747]


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## Contra_Mundum (Oct 12, 2006)

I can't really add anything to the discussion, just "pile in." But now that I've tried to formulate something, now I'm going to drop it in, even though the conversation has moved on. Sorry.

I apparently did not pay attention to the thrust of the original query. I agree that any question of "real presence" is not Paul's concern. And I really didn't desire to argue with the substance of TG's quote, just disagree with it. As one of the PC promoters, I find all their evasions on this passage insubstantial. The question of what Paul is saying in the passage seems painfully obvious to me, and to several generations of Reformed expositors whose judgment I respect.

I latched onto the reference to TG as though the question of PC was in view on the strength of his treatment of the passage--his view that the presence of the single term "body" proves that Paul is primarily interested in turning the attention of _specifically_ the divisive few in Corinthian to unity, not (primarily) correcting the LS abberations of the Corinthians generally. I still think this is a fundamental misreading of the text, and driven by eisegetic concerns. PC proponents like TG have much to gain by removing as much as they can
the judge/exam issue from direct connection to right participation in the LS.

My reference (Rom. 7:3) outside the passage was intended to prove that TG's claim "When Paul is speaking of Christ's physical body, he pairs body and blood," is incorrect generally. Since he does so speak elsewhere, he might well be doing so here also.

Now, the question of whether Paul is doing that consistently in _this_ passage must be demonstrated by showing that every time "body" is used alone in this passage (with the exception of the disputed point) it refers to the church. However, v.24 exactly overturns this point. It makes little difference that he seperately addresses the blood in the very next verse; fact is, the thoughts are separated, period.

The truly weak argument (to flip TG's phrase) is the notion that Paul would have used exact terminology "body and blood" and perfect parallelism to "bread" and "cup" (v.28) if he wanted the Corinthians to discern the meaning of the Lord's Supper rather than the corporate unity. _I can just as easily say:_ "Paul would have used language parallel to 10:17 and 12:12, and stated '...discern the ONE body,' if he meant the church, and wanted the Corinthians to make that connection on the surface, but he didn't."

It seems to me that the specific teaching aspect of the passage (vv.17-34) and the close internal verbal cues militate strongly against any broader contextual observations overriding the immediate thrust. I can accept that there is a subtext to the whole that is the broader context regarding unity. Indeed, the passage is only strengthend by that consideration (I preached on this exact passage some time ago). But a significant error is, I think, not allowing the subtext considerations to lie latent in the text, until Paul himself draws attention to them (something he clearly does in 10:16-17, 12:12ff), or until having established the direct meaning of the text, then to draw out (or preach) the application. That which is latent is built firmly only upon what is patent.

For what it's worth, I think the idea that Paul is inserting irony (maybe not sarcasm) into this section, is interesting. But I do think that apart from other demands a single, basic meaning of Paul's use of diakrino has to be maintained within the passage, or we can start rendering many other passages ambiguously also, on the same principle. But, again, I did find it interesting but a bit convoluted, and not intuitively apparent from a surface reading. It is sometimes worthwhile to consider a fresh perspective/reading to see if there is something previous exegetes have missed. (I want to give more here than take away).


Now, a different question on the issue of PC would be:
Whether a man is to discriminate between that which represents the Lord's fleshly body that was crucifed, and all other things (which I believe the passage teaches); *OR* to discriminate between that which is the spiritual body-of-Christ, the church, and all other persons outside it--isn't it the case that he still needs to demonstrate that he has the capacity so to discriminate, that he not eat and drink judgment on himself? Isn't that why Paul teaches that _examination_ (v.28) is prerequisite to worthy participation?


Other notes:
--dokimazo and diakrino as controlling verbs have to be read in conjunction with one another (as anakrino and diakrino must be read in conjunction in the early vv of chapter 4--I'm not sure "to be preferred" in v7 is preferential to the more common "to differ," "to judge, or set a difference between"; the essential idea, again, has to do with deliberate separating or distingushing, which implies that we understand the essential qualities of something or someone.)

--the protasis of v31 is really v28, the "examine himself" and the "discerned ourselves"; not the lexical connection between vv29&31


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## nominalist747 (Oct 16, 2006)

Bruce,

Thanks for your comments--this is the kind of interaction I was after. With your indulgence, I would like to purse the question, reiterating the fact that _while I agree with some of Gallant's exegesis, I am not yet convinced that it entails the conclusion of paedocommunion._

1. Point taken on Rom. 7: this wasn't clear in the brevity of your first post. My impression, though, was that Gallant was referring to Paul's usage in 1 Cor. (since he didn't actually give any references outside of this epistle).

2. I'm not sure that the use of "body" in v. 24 can be considered Paul's usage, since he is inserting the entire tradition (cf. paredoka in v. 23 and standard commentaries) of the night of Last Supper, so I don't know that it counts against "body" by itself referring to the church in Paul's usage.

3. Good point on the question of "one body" from 10:17 and 12:12, but in both places the reason for the inclusion of "one" seems to be in contrast to the repeated use of "many," which doesn't apply in ch. 11, so I don't think your flipping of the parallelism works.

4. I'm not sure why the question of parallelism is such a weak argument: we have one clear place where Paul moves from the sacrificial work of Christ, indicated by "body and blood" directly to the unity of the church, indicated by "body" only. Then we have the two clear binary phrases in 27 & 28, followed by the singular expression--same progression of thought. Moreover, if Paul means the sacrifice of Christ in v. 29, just as in vv. 27 & 28, why does he change his expression? Wouldn't the Corinthians need to discern the blood as well as the body? I suppose body could simply be a synecdoche, but given the fact that in Paul's own usage in the surrounding context, "body" by itself means the church, and given the verbal connection with v. 31, I don't think the argument is weak.

5. The question seems to be whether the concern for unity is in fact patent in ch. 11, so simply relegating it to a latent concern may beg the question. 11:17-34 is a specific teaching passage, but the reason for the teaching is itself given as the problem of schisms with the boundaries of the passage (v. 18) which expresses itself in problem of selfish eating of the (non) Supper (vv. 20-21). This is then the patent teaching point of the passage, bookended by the references to "coming together" in vv. 17-18 and 33-34. So the same teaching concern apparent in the surrounding contexts of ch. 10 and 12, i.e., unity of the church, is the same teaching concern of 11:17-34 and is no longer a subtext.

Note: for what it's worth, I checked several recent commentaries (although our local Christian college doesn't have a wide selections), and Blomberg (NIV Application), Fee (NICNT), and Witherington agree that the referent here of "body" in v. 29 is the body of believers. And I don't think any of them argues for paedocommunion, so this is not simply eisegesis of the PC perspective.

6. Thank you for your courtesy on the question of irony. I suppose part of the broader question is how to detect legitimately when a word is meant to have a double meaning, which would be a relatively tangential complicated linguistic discussion. It wasn't meant to be a major point, just a passing observation...

7. It's interesting that in Ch. 4, Paul uses anakrino repeatedly in vv. 3-4 when talking about himself and whether the Corinthians are going to accept his authority as an apostle, then uses diakrino in v. 7, when he is talking about how the Corinthians view themselves, and it is introduced by the idea of their being puffed up because of whose party they are with. Verse 7 includes a rhetorical question rebuking them for boasting, and 8 goes on to castigate them for their self-proclaimed superiority: they "rule as kings" he says, presumably sarcastically. So here, even if diakrino means "to distinguish," the clear intent is "to distinguish in order to set one above the other"-- thus agreeing well with L & N's "prefer"--and it doesn't seem to be controlled by anakrino, but rather by the change of subject in v. 6. 

8. The protasis is not in v. 28, since the protasis is just the "if"-clause of a conditional statement; the protasis is the first part of v. 31: "if we discerned ourselves..." and to reiterate, the construction is a counterfactual, giving the idea: "if we discerned ourselves (but we do/did not)." Now, v. 29 says that judgment comes from eating and drinking while not discerning the body, and v. 31 echoes these exact concepts: judgment comes from not discerning...ourselves. Doesn't this place "ourselves" as an explanation of "body"? Why take dokimazo from v. 28 as controlling diakrino in v. 31, jumping over a "diakrino + direct object" phrase and a parallel idea of judgment in v. 29? 

9. A note on dokimazo: its basic meaning is not fundamentally intellectual, although it can be used this way. It is often used for the process of what is done to gold to make it pure (e.g., 1 Peter 1:7, and esp. 1 Cor. 3:13; often in LXX), and it is paired with peirazo, meaning "to test," in 2 Cor. 13:5. In 1 Cor. 16:3, it does not mean examine, but rather to publicly recognize to be worthy or faithful. There is more to this, considering the cognate adjectives of dokios and adokios (e.g., 1 Cor. 11:19, where dokios is specifically related to the division in Corinth), but Gallant has dealt with that extensively in another article-- 

http://www.paedocommunion.com/articles/gallant_examination_and_remembrance.php

Furthermore, the only close parallel gramatically in the NT to v. 28-- imperative verb, kai outos, and a second imperative--is found in Gal. 6:2, where the second imperative explains the first: when they bear one anothers' burdens, what are they doing? Fulfilling the law of Christ. Finally, the word in v. 28 in "unworthily," not unworthy, thus modifying the verb, not the noun. It is not the person being considered unworthy, but rather the manner in which they perform the action (of partaking in the Supper). Thus, what is in view seems to be the way the Corinthians actually act during the Supper itself--the focus is on the quality of the actions, not the qualities of the participants, and the proving or testing oneself is the manner of eating the Supper.

[Edited on by nominalist747]


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