1 Corinthians 11:22 - Exposition

To eat and to drink in. The object of the agapē was something higher than the mere gratification of appetite. Though not a sacrament, it was an accompaniment of the Lord's Supper, and was itself intended to be a symbolical and sacred meal. Despise ye the Church of God! The congregation of your fellow Christians. Shame; rather, disgrace, or put to shame. Them that have not. It would be natural to supply "houses." But the commentators found it difficult to suppose that any of the Corinthians had not "houses to eat and to drink in." Hence most commentators give to the phrase its classic sense, in which "those who have" means the rich, and "those who have not," the poor. They seem, however, to have forgotten that slaves at any rate could hardly be said to have "houses of their own," and it is certain that not a few of the Corinthian Christians were slaves. I praise you not. As in 1 Corinthians 11:17 , this is an instance of what is called litotēs, a mild expression, suggesting a meaning much stronger than the words themselves. For . He is about to give his reason for thus strongly blaming their irregularities.