Preparing to take the Lord's Supper - Part Three - Self-Examination

The Bible tells us that before we come to the Lord’s Table we should examine ourselves. What kind of self-examination are we called to do?

1 Cor. 11:27-29 says: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.”

The context of these verses helps us to understand their meaning. (See 1 Cor. 11:17-33) The church that Paul was addressing was evidently making a big mess out of the Lord’s Table. Apparently, at that time, the members of a congregation were responsible for bringing bread and wine for everyone to share. Sadly, however, they were not sharing. Those who had food to bring were gorging themselves on it, leaving nothing for their less fortunate brothers and sisters to eat. “One goes hungry, another gets drunk,” writes Paul.

It seems that there were two things they were doing wrong. First, they were treating the Lord’s Supper like an ordinary meal. “Do you not have houses to eat and drink in?” asks Paul. They were not looking to Christ with faith and receiving the bread and wine with reverent attention to the spiritual presence of the Lord. Instead, they were treating Communion like any other opportunity to get their bellies filled.

Secondly, they were treating God’s people with contempt. They were overlooking the poor. They were ignoring others’ needs. They were dividing into factions and cliques, and leaving people out. The Church is the body of Christ. By treating other Christians this way, they were not “discerning the body.” So Paul asks, “Do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” He advises them, “When you come together to eat, wait for one another.”

It seems, then, that to examine ourselves before taking Communion we need to make sure that we are treating both the Lord’s Table and the Lord’s people as very special things. With regard to the Lord’s Table, we might ask ourselves: “Am I sincerely trusting Christ as my Savior and partaking of this meal with a genuine desire to be strengthened in my faith so that I can walk in the ways of God?” With regard to the Lord’s people, we might ask: “Have I been overlooking other people’s needs? Is there anyone in this church to whom I need to reach out? Is there anyone whose forgiveness I need to seek? Is there anyone I need to forgive?”

We should take this call to self-examination very seriously. Paul records that, because of the way they were treating Communion and because of the way they were treating each other, God had inflicted some of the Corinthian Christians with illness, and some of them had even died.