Lesson 34: “Keep the Ordinances, as I Delivered Them”

I Corinthians 11-16

Purpose: To help class members recognize the importance of living according to the doctrines of the gospel and receiving priesthood ordinances.

Lesson Development

1. Husbands’ and wives’ relationships with each other and with the Lord
2. The purpose of the Sacrament
3. The importance of all spiritual gifts
4. The resurrection and the degrees of glory

Scripture Discussion and Application

We continue today with I Corinthians, an epistle that Paul wrote to the Church at Corinth, in Greece in the year 56 or 57 A.D. Paul is the one who first took the gospel to Corinth, and I Corinthians is a letter he wrote to the Church there four or five years later. The Saints at Corinth would have been a mixture of cultures – former Jews and Gentiles who had grown up in the atmosphere of Greek philosophy, and former Jews who had recently been expelled from Rome and had stopped at Corinth on their migration back toward the east.

Like all of the epistles of the New Testament, I Corinthians was not intended to be a full, systematic explanation of the Gospel. It is, instead, a letter written with counsel on certain problems that Paul had heard were plaguing the Corinthians. The things that Paul wrote about to the Corinthians are not necessarily the same things he would have written about to some other branch of the Church, where they were having different problems. The things Paul wrote about are not necessarily even the most important parts of the Gospel, but simply a matter of the squeaky wheel of current problems getting the grease.

This accounts, I think, for much of the puzzlement we have when we read some of what Paul wrote to the Corinthians: He addresses the quarrels among the members there, and their quarrels are not necessarily anything that troubles us in the 21st century. He writes long passages about the role of women in the Church – saying at one point that women should be silent in church, and at another point acknowledging that women should speak, even prophesy, in church, but only with their heads covered and while wearing their hair long, and other such things that don’t make much sense from our point of view. He gives counsel on the Saints’ interactions with local pagan which aren’t necessarily relevant to us – even when Saints are surrounded by unbelievers, the interactions between believer and unbeliever take such a different form today that Paul’s specific instructions aren’t very useful.

And yet, because the Gospel is the Gospel, with truths that transcend cultures and time, we also find in I Corinthians some passages that reinforce basic Gospel teachings that are as relevant to us today as they would have been to the Corinthians in the first century.

Let’s turn to I Corinthians, Chapter 11. The first half of this chapter deals with one of those less relevant issues, commanding men to leave their heads uncovered in church, while commanding women to cover their heads. In the second half of the chapter, though, Paul teaches the Corinthians a lesson about the Sacrament – pretty much the only extended New Testament passage on the Sacrament outside of the four Gospels. Think about that: We don’t have passages on the Sacrament in the epistles to Thessalonika, or Ephesus, or Phillipi, perhaps because they understood the ordinance and were practicing it correctly. But because the Corinthians were going about it all wrong, we have a wonderful passage about the Sacrament.

First, Paul scolds the Corinthians for the way they meet together to eat the Lord’s Supper:

I Corinthians 11:17-22

17 Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse.

18 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it.

19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.

20 When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper.

21 For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.

22 What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.

Now, you may not have understood all that at first glance, but surely you picked up on Paul’s tone: He is very displeased with the reports he has received about the way the Corinthians are meeting together and partaking of the Sacrament. Why might that be so?

Let me remind you of two things you probably know about the early Church. First, the Saints did not meet in chapels or other dedicated buildings, but in the homes of members. That almost certainly meant a large home, and therefore a relatively wealthy one. And second, the Saints met not only for a symbolic eating of bread and drinking of wine in remembrance of the Lord’s sacrifice, but for an actual meal – a re-enactment of the Lord’s Supper where what we know as the Sacrament was the most important element.

But the Corinthians’ meetings are doing more harm than good – “Ye come together not for the better, but for the worse,” he reprimands. “I hear that there be divisions among you,” he says.

What kinds of divisions might there have been in the church at Corinth? [Perhaps: Relative wealth (a house-church implies wealth, while certainly not all members would have been wealth); background (Jew and Greek); social standing (established Corinthians, refugees from Rome)]

Look at verse 21: The Saints are not eating the Lord’s Supper together – some eat before others, some go without while others evidently have too much.

Look at verse 22: Some have houses of their own, some do not. Those with more are apparently shaming those with less.

Then Paul tells them how the ordinance should be practiced, in Corinth as well as everywhere else:

I Corinthians 11:23-26

23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:

24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.

25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.

26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.

Why does Paul feel he needs to remind the Corinthians about how the ordinance began?

Can you think of other times in the modern Church where we frequently remind ourselves of how something began?

Why do we do that?

Paul has other things to tell the Corinthians about the Sacrament. His main point here seems to be to emphasize unity among the Saints:

33 Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another.

Wait for each other – do things together, don’t put your own needs and appetites among the needs of your fellow Saints. As for the rest, he tells them in verse 34, “The rest will I set in order when I come.” Other details can wait – unity is crucial and cannot wait.

The unity of the Saints – healing the divisions among them – is one of Paul’s key messages to the Corinthians. They’re really having problems with unity, but in one sense, they’re only repeating an established pattern.

Let’s look back at Luke 9:46. The people involved are the apostles themselves:

Luke 9:46

46 Then there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be greatest.

Ironically, that happened again on the night of the Last Supper.

Luke 22:24

24 And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest.

We don’t know how these men “scored” their greatness – which one had had more private conversations with Jesus? which one had baptized more? – anything is possible, I suppose.

Does this kind of competition crop up in our day? In what ways do we measure our “greatness” in comparison to someone else’s?

In Corinth, in the first century, the Saints apparently measured their “greatness” according to gifts of the Spirit, and they decided that speaking in tongues was the highest of the gifts of the Spirit. This had caused their meetings to become a competition of sorts, with everyone attempting to speak in tongues. Paul says that isn’t the way of the Lord.

I Corinthians 14:18-19

18 I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all:

19 Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.

Paul reminds the Corinthians that there are many gifts.

I Corinthians 12:7-11

7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.

8 For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;

9 To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;

10 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:

11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.

These are not all the gifts of the Spirit, of course. The Doctrine and Covenants (46:126) lists more, but the lists of gifts in the scriptures are not the only gifts of the Spirit.

What gifts of the Spirit do you recognize in other people – gifts that may or may not be listed in the scriptures – that you especially appreciate?

Sometimes in lessons regarding spiritual gifts, some class members say they aren’t sure they have a gift. What advice an you give to those who need help identifying or appreciating the gifts they have?

Paul finds that spiritual gifts add to the unity of the Church, and that the Church as a body of believers needs all the gifts of its members. Even the most “feeble,” to use his word, are essential to the Church. You’re familiar with the passage in I Corinthians 12:12-23, where Paul says we are all one body, and that no part of the body has the right to say to another part of the body “I have no need of thee.” Paul then warns the saints that whenever there is disunity, whenever one says to another “I have no need of thee,” the entire Church is hurt.

I Corinthians 12:25-26

25 That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.

26 And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.

This probably happens more often in letters to the editor of the newspapers, or in internet conversations, than in face-to-face interactions of the Saints, but it happens often enough: When members have a disagreement about some point of the gospel, or some point of politics or social issues that touch the gospel, someone or other very often says: “You don’t understand the gospel. Why don’t you just leave and start your own church?” This happened to me, just this week.

Why do so many of us jump to this extreme? Why does it happen more often when there is a shield (a newspaper, the internet) between strangers, and less often between people who know each other face to face?

And yet, there are times when the body does have to sever a member, and an excommunication takes place. What should be our attitude toward those who have been excommunicated? What about our attitude toward excommunicants that we don’t know, that we hear about in the news because they have done particular damage to the body?

Paul tells the Saints in Corinth that they should “covet earnestly the best gifts,” and he tells them what the very best gift of all is. In a way, he is challenging them to compete for that gift – to covet it. What gift is that?

To close today, let’s read his description of that gift, the best of all gifts of the Spirit, which he calls “charity,” or the ordinary love that should exist among us.

I Corinthians 13:1-13

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.