Verse 16
The apostle employed rhetorical questions again to make his point. He was setting the Corinthians up for what he would say in 1 Corinthians 10:19-21.
Most New Testament references to the bread and the cup in the Lord’s Supper occur in that order. Here Paul reversed the normal order. He probably turned them around because he wanted to give more attention to the bread in the verses that follow. The cup may focus on the vertical dimension of fellowship between the believer and the Lord whereas the bread focuses on the horizontal dimension (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:17). [Note: Fee, The First . . ., p. 467.] The pagan feasts also emphasized both dimensions of fellowship, with the god and with the fellow-worshippers.
The "cup of blessing" was a technical term for the third of four cups of wine that the Jews drank in the Passover celebration. At the Last Supper the drinking of this cup preceded the giving of thanks for the bread (cf. Luke 22:17-20). However the Lord’s Supper only involved eating bread and drinking one cup (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:23-29).
Paul described the cup as a cup of blessing, a common Jewish expression for the last cup of wine drunk at many meals. The Jews used it as a kind of toast to God for His goodness. [Note: Bruce, 1 and 2 Corinthians, p. 94.] However, Paul turned this around by saying we bless the cup. That is, we give thanks to God for the cup because of what it symbolizes, namely, our sharing in the benefits of Christ’s shed blood (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:25).
Likewise the bread used at the Christian feast, the Lord’s Supper, is a symbol of our participation in the effects of Christ’s slain body (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:24). The Greek word here translated "sharing" (NASB) or "participation" (NIV; koinonia) in other places reads "fellowship" or "communion." This is why another name for the Lord’s Supper is the communion service.
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