1 Corinthians 11:21

1 Corinthians 11:21. for in your eating, each one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another drinketh freely. To understand how such a state of things could exist, we must bear in mind the way in which the Lord's Supper was then observed. In apostolic times it was never observed by itself, so far as appears, but always in connection with those friendly meals called ‘Agapse' or ‘Love Feasts,' designed partly to exhibit and exemplify the equality of all Christians rich and poor, slaves and masters alike but also as a way of helping the poorer members without creating the feeling of pauperism. Accordingly, the rich brought of their abundance to these tables, and the humbler classes what they could. Moreover, the Lord's Supper was not celebrated before such meals, nor, strictly speaking, after them, but in close juxtaposition with them sitting at the same table at which these meals were spread out. The idea of this was taken from the way in which the Jewish Passover was celebrated a sumptuous meal at which were taken successive cups of wine with bread, after a fixed form, and with eucharistic chantings of portions of the Psalms. In this view, it is easy to see how some, having no very high views of the ordinance, might come to the table, “not to eat the Lord's Supper,” but to get a good meal; and how they might come dropping in, and take their places one after another, as 1 Corinthians 11:22 shows that they actually did. Thus, in place of a simultaneous observance of the Lord's Supper, every one might be seen “taking his own supper before other” “one hungry,” namely, the poor, who were put off with a sorry portion, another “drinking freely.” [1]

[1] The Greek word need not be taken in its extreme sense, “is drunken,” as in the Authorised Version, and as it certainly means in Matthew 24:49, Acts 2:15, 1 Thessalonians 5:7; for the same word in another form is used in John 2:10, and in the LXX. of Song of Solomon 5:1, where the extreme sense is unsuitable.