Verse 22
This verse contains some of the apostle’s most critical statements in this epistle. If his original readers chose to behave in such a selfish way, they should stay home and eat rather than humiliating their less fortunate brethren. Such conduct showed disrespect for the church as the temple of God (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:17).
"The early Church was the one place in all the ancient world where the barriers which divided the world were down. The ancient world was very rigidly divided; there were the free men and the slaves; there were the Greeks and the barbarians-the people who did not speak Greek; there were the Jews and the Gentiles; there were the Roman citizens and the lesser breeds without the law; there were the cultured and the ignorant. The Church was the one place where all men could and did come together. . . . A Church where social and class distinctions exist is no true Church at all. A real Church is a body of men and women united to each other because all are united to Christ.
"A Church is not true Church where the art of sharing is forgotten." [Note: Barclay, The Letters . . ., pp. 112-13.]
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