3D Devotional 6.21.19

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 NRSV

23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread,24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Earlier in Corinthians, Paul declared that “the body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body” because “our bodies are members of Christ” (1 Cor. 6: 13 and 15). Paul makes a strong point about the body in his first allusion to the Lord’s Supper. “The bread which we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we the many are one body.”  The supper affirms that the distribution of bread to the members of Christ body is for believers. It is as members of Christ’s body that Christians have their fundamental identity. In this case the part stands for the whole. The bread stands for Christ’s body, the church, of which all participates are members.

In verse 29, Paul mentions “discerning the body”. On one hand, Paul thinks of discerning one’s relationship to Christ. In other words, we must check out how we relate to Christ in the present day state of our lives. On the other hand, the believers, though many, all constitute “one body”. So we need not only to check out our relationship to Christ, whose body is at the center of the supper, but we must check out our relationship to all others who compose the body.  We assess our relationship to Christ and our relationship  to all the other members of the body. We cannot separate these two facets because the believers are so directly and fully associated with Christ and with one another in Christ.

We thank you, Lord, that you gave your body- your life for us. Now as members of the Body of Christ, help us to give ourselves to you and one another is service. Amen.

Ken Casey

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