1 Corinthians 10:17 - Exposition

We being many are one bread, and one body. It is easy to see how we are "one body," of which Christ is the Head, and we are the members. This is the metaphor used in 1 Corinthians 12:12 , 1 Corinthians 12:13 and Romans 12:5 . The more difficult expression, " we are one bread," is explained in the next clause. The meaning seems to be—We all partake of the loaf, and thereby become qualitatively, as it were, a part of it, as it of us, even as we all become members of Christ's one body, which that loaf sacramentally represents Some commentators, disliking the harshness of the expression, render it, "Because there is one bread, we being many are one body;" or, "For there is one bread. We being many are one body." But the language and context support the rendering of our version; and the supposed "physiology" is not so modern as to be at all surprising.