The congregation moved forward to receive the bread and wine, but I stayed in my seat. While other church members received the elements, I felt paralyzed, replaying my sins from the previous week.
Moments earlier, the pastor had told the congregation that if we had any unresolved sin, we should abstain from the Lord’s Supper. Taking my pastor’s warning seriously, I sat and examined my heart, trying to decide if I should take and eat, or if I was so unworthy that doing so would bring God’s judgment (1 Cor. 11:29). In that moment, the table felt less like a feast of grace and more like a test I wasn’t sure I could pass.
In Reformed churches, fencing the table is a common practice. Communion is for believers, so we rightly warn those who haven’t confessed the faith against taking the bread and cup. In some churches, the fencing goes further, and the table is turned into a place of anxious introspection for believers. When communion is announced, heads drop in solemnity, and a quiet internal interrogation begins: How have I sinned in any way this week? Am I worthy of the table? Should I partake? Many Christians examine themselves in this way because they’ve been taught to do so by well-meaning pastors with sincere concerns over congregants eating “in an unworthy manner” (v. 27).
But is calling Christians to a private self-audit before the supper, or encouraging them to abstain if their consciences are unsettled, a valid application of Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34? Is this kind of self-examination what Paul had in mind?
Paul Calls Us to Church-Wide Unity
It’s not. When Paul rebuked the church for not “discerning the body” (v. 29), he wasn’t calling for a solitary inventory of personal sins but for the Corinthian church as a whole to examine its life together.
The preceding verses make this plain. When celebrating the supper, some believers ate privately (v. 21), others went hungry (v. 21), and the wealthy humiliated the poor (v. 22). The supper had become a public display of a divided church that undermined the unity it was meant to proclaim.
Is calling Christians to a private self-audit before the Lord’s Supper, or encouraging them to abstain if their consciences are unsettled, a valid application of Paul’s teaching?
In 1 Corinthians 10:16–17, Paul writes that because there is “one bread,” we who are many “are one body.” Communion proclaims that through Christ’s broken body and shed blood, God has united a diverse people into a single redeemed community. When the church comes to the table, we aren’t just remembering Christ individually; we participate together in a shared identity as his reconciled body. The act itself testifies that the gospel creates a family, not a collection of isolated spiritual consumers.
So when Paul says, “Let a person examine himself” (11:28), the examination he has is mind isn’t, as Mark Taylor observes, “mere self-introspection as this verse is often understood.” Taylor continues, “Paul’s perspective is communal. To examine oneself is to examine one’s . . . ways of relating to other members of the community.”
Paul tells the Corinthians to examine their relationships within the body. Are you despising your brother? Are you dividing what Christ has united? Are you celebrating the supper in such a way as to undermine the unified communion the Lord has won?
“[His] warning,” I. Howard Marshall writes, “was not to those who were leading unworthy lives and longed for forgiveness but to those who were making a mockery of that which should have been most sacred and solemn by their behaviour at the meal.” The problem in Corinth wasn’t unconfessed private sins but corporate behavior that contradicted the gospel.
Avoid Functional Excommunication
Many Christians have been taught to stay away from the table when they’re struggling to put to death sins like lust, greed, and jealousy. But in the New Testament, abstaining isn’t an act of personal piety; it’s a consequence of either an unrestored relationship or formal church discipline.
In 1 Corinthians 5:11–13, Paul tells the church not to eat with someone who bears the name of brother yet refuses to repent. Eating here naturally includes the supper. Similarly, Jesus teaches that the unrepentant are to be treated as outsiders by the church, no longer embraced as members in good standing (Matt. 18:17).
Then, in 2 Thessalonians 3:14–15, Paul again calls the church to withhold fellowship from those who persist in disobedience. As the word “excommunicate” itself implies, when a church formally recognizes that an individual is walking contrary to his profession of faith, he should be excluded from communion.
But what if a Christian recognizes he’s participating in the kind of corporate sins Paul condemns in Corinth—showing partiality, harboring contempt toward a brother or sister, or contributing to division in the body? In that case, the text calls for repentance that restores fellowship.
Pastors should call members to examine their relationships with others in the body, and as far as it depends on them, to seek peace with their brothers and sisters (Rom. 12:18). But when they’ve done so, we should call them to come to the table.
A Christians who has a broken relationship with a brother or sister may willingly abstain from communion until he’s had an opportunity to seek reconciliation (cf. Matt. 5:23–24). But this abstention shouldn’t be prolonged. Ideally, God’s people are examining themselves and meditating on the cross throughout the week—in the days rather than minutes before coming to the table. By God’s grace, this gives a Christian time to seek reconciliation and extend forgiveness before the Sunday gathering begins.
For these reasons, only unbelievers and those who are under formal church discipline should be barred from the table. Willing abstention due to a relational break should be rare. Abstaining due to a negative self-assessment of one’s personal piety should be avoided altogether. That’s functional self-excommunication, and it isn’t what Paul commends. He doesn’t tell the Corinthians to stay away from the supper until they feel clean. He tells them to stop despising one another and then to eat together in a way that proclaims the gospel truthfully (1 Cor. 11:33).
Come to the Table of Grace
Paul’s goal in 1 Corinthians 11 was never to create a room full of navel-gazers practicing isolated introspection. On the contrary, the table is precisely where believers should go when they’re battling private sin.
We should tell our people that if they’re burdened with sinful desires, they should come hungry to feast on Christ and remember his tender mercy. If they feel unworthy, they should come remembering that no one is worthy of communing with God apart from Christ’s work on the cross.
The problem in Corinth wasn’t unconfessed private sins but corporate behavior that contradicted the gospel.
The supper is Christ’s gift to sinners who need grace, not a painful punishment for those who haven’t had a perfect week. The primary qualification for the table is union with Christ and a willingness to walk in unity with his people.
Pastors, when we frame the supper primarily as a moment for private soul-searching, we unintentionally train the flock to disqualify themselves from one of God’s primary means of grace. But our people need to know that Jesus welcomes the weak to his table. It’s not for unbelievers, but it is for those who are fighting sin. At the table, Christ strengthens the weary by the memory of his blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins (Matt. 26:28). He restores the struggling as they feast on the bread of his body.
So let’s stop telling believers to abstain from communion and instead show them that the way of repentance is turning from disunity and taking communion. Pastor, let the table be what Scripture says it is: grace for sinners in need.
The Gospel Coalition