Chapter 11 covers two very different problems in the Corinthian church’s public worship, joined by one common thread: the way believers treat each other, and God, when the whole congregation gathers. First comes a question of head coverings, tied to an order of headship reaching back to creation itself. Then comes a far more serious failure — the Lord’s own Supper turned, in practice, into a divided meal where the wealthy feast and the poor go hungry, prompting Paul to record, in this very letter, the earliest written account of the words Christ spoke over the bread and the cup.
A study in 1 Corinthians 11 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 19 min read
The Head Of Every Man Is Christ
“Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.”
1 Corinthians 11:1-2
Verse 1 closes the argument chapter 9 spent building around Paul’s own example, and verse 2 pivots into new territory — genuine praise, for once, before the correction that follows. Paul’s habit throughout this letter is to lead with whatever credit is actually due before addressing what still needs fixing.
“But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.”
1 Corinthians 11:3
“Instead of appointing one to be their head, Christ said to the disciples, ‘Be not ye called Rabbi;’ ‘neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.’ … ‘The head of every man is Christ.’ God, who put all things under the Saviour’s feet, ‘gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.’”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 414
Notice the chain runs three links, not two: Christ under God, man under Christ, woman under man — each relationship modeled on genuine, willing headship rather than raw authority. This study’s own source applies the same verse to church government generally, arguing that Christ’s own refusal to appoint a single human head over the disciples rules out any one man claiming that place over the church today. Headship, in both settings, describes order, not superiority.
“Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.”
1 Corinthians 11:4-5
Worth noticing in passing: this verse assumes women were praying and prophesying aloud in the Corinthian congregation, publicly and without objection from Paul on that count. The entire dispute here concerns head coverings, not whether women could exercise these gifts in worship at all.
“For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.”
1 Corinthians 11:7
“Created to be ‘the image and glory of God’ … Adam and Eve had received endowments not unworthy of their high destiny. Graceful and symmetrical in form, regular and beautiful in feature, their countenances glowing with the tint of health and the light of joy and hope, they bore in outward resemblance the likeness of their Maker.”
Ellen G. White · Education, p. 20
This study’s own source reaches back to Eden itself for the origin of the very phrase Paul is quoting — both Adam and Eve, in the beginning, bore the Creator’s own likeness, “not unworthy of their high destiny.” Paul’s argument in this passage draws on that same creation order without ever suggesting Eve’s own glory reflected anything less than the divine image she too was made to bear.
All Things Of God
“For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.”
1 Corinthians 11:8-10
Paul grounds his argument in Genesis’s own sequence — Eve formed from Adam, not the reverse — rather than in any cultural fashion of his own day. “Because of the angels” is a genuinely difficult phrase scholars have debated for centuries; whatever its precise meaning, it places the head covering within a much larger frame of reference than mere local custom, one that Paul treats as visible even to unseen witnesses.
“Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.”
1 Corinthians 11:11-12
Paul immediately balances the argument he has just made. Whatever order exists between man and woman, neither one exists independently of the other “in the Lord” — man born of woman ever since Eve, woman originally formed from man before her. “But all things of God” is the phrase that actually settles the whole question: the entire created order, on both sides, ultimately answers to God alone.
“Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered? Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.”
1 Corinthians 11:13-15
Paul appeals to something his readers could judge for themselves — the ordinary social sense of “nature,” meaning the accepted custom of the culture around them, rather than a separate divine decree about hair length. Verse 15’s own closing detail is worth pausing on: nature has already given every woman a covering built into her own body, which makes the deliberate covering Paul recommends less an arbitrary imposition than an intentional echo of something creation already established.
“But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.”
1 Corinthians 11:16
Paul’s closing line on this subject is a useful reminder about how to read the whole passage: he explicitly refuses to let it become grounds for a quarrel. Whatever weight the custom carries, contentiousness over it is the one response Paul rules entirely out of bounds.
This Do In Remembrance Of Me
“Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it.”
1 Corinthians 11:17-18
The praise of verse 2 evaporates entirely here — the very gatherings meant to build the church up are, in this specific case, making it worse. The same division that has run through this whole letter since chapter 1 has now reached the one setting where it is least tolerable: the shared table meant to unite the body.
“When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper. For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.”
1 Corinthians 11:20-21
The Corinthian practice, apparently, involved each household bringing and consuming its own food at the shared gathering — which meant wealthier members arrived with abundance and ate their fill, while poorer members, likely arriving later after a full day’s labor, found little or nothing left. Whatever this had become, Paul says plainly, it was no longer the Lord’s Supper in any meaningful sense.
“What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not?”
1 Corinthians 11:22
“Shame them that have not” names exactly what makes this more than a logistics problem. The poorest members of the Corinthian church, already vulnerable in a status-obsessed city, were being publicly humiliated at the very meal meant to declare their equal standing before Christ.
“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: 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.”
1 Corinthians 11:23-24
“As He ate the Passover with His disciples, He instituted in its place the service that was to be the memorial of His great sacrifice. … The ordinance of the Lord’s Supper was given to commemorate the great deliverance wrought out as the result of the death of Christ. Till He shall come the second time in power and glory, this ordinance is to be celebrated.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 652
This letter, written within roughly twenty-five years of the crucifixion, preserves the earliest written record anywhere of the words Christ spoke at that final Passover — older than any of the four Gospel accounts. This study’s own source draws out the deliberate timing: Christ instituted this new memorial at the very moment the old Passover, which had pointed to His death for fifteen centuries, was passing away, one ordinance handed off directly to the other.
“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. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.”
1 Corinthians 11:25-26
“The Communion service points to Christ’s second coming. It was designed to keep this hope vivid in the minds of the disciples. … In their tribulation they found comfort in the hope of their Lord’s return. Unspeakably precious to them was the thought, ‘As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.’”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 659
“Till he come” closes the institution with a forward-looking hope, not only a backward-looking memorial. This study’s own source insists the Communion table was never meant to be a season of mourning over the cross alone; it was designed, from its very institution, to carry the same comfort a persecuted, tribulation-worn church would need most: the certainty that the Lord who died is also the Lord who is coming back.
Let A Man Examine Himself
“Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.”
1 Corinthians 11:27-28
“Christ’s example forbids exclusiveness at the Lord’s Supper. It is true that open sin excludes the guilty. … But beyond this none are to pass judgment. God has not left it with men to say who shall present themselves on these occasions. For who can read the heart? … ‘Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.’”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 656
“Examine himself” places the responsibility exactly where it belongs — on the individual conscience, never on a self-appointed gatekeeper deciding who else may approach the table. This study’s own source draws the boundary carefully: open, unrepented sin genuinely excludes, but beyond that single case, no human being has the standing to read another’s heart and bar them from Christ’s own appointment.
“For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.”
1 Corinthians 11:29-30
“Not discerning the Lord’s body” is the actual failure Paul names — treating the bread and cup as ordinary food and drink, indistinguishable from any other meal, exactly the mistake the Corinthians’ own divided potluck had turned this sacred meal into. Verse 30’s stark toll of sickness and death among them is Paul’s evidence that this was never a small matter of etiquette.
“For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.”
1 Corinthians 11:31-32
“Since you cannot discern motive, you are incapable of judging another. In criticizing him, you are passing sentence upon yourself; for you show that you are a participant with Satan, the accuser of the brethren. The Lord says, ‘Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.’ This is our work. ‘If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.’”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 314
Chastening, in verse 32, is framed as mercy rather than punishment — a corrective from a Father determined that His own children not share the world’s final condemnation. This study’s own source turns the self-examination principle outward one more time: the same discipline that spares a believer from divine judgment is precisely what should keep that believer from presuming to judge anyone else’s heart in the first place.
“Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto condemnation.”
1 Corinthians 11:33-34
Paul’s practical fix, in the end, is disarmingly simple — wait for one another. The entire problem that opened this section, wealthy members eating without regard for the poor arriving later, is resolved not by a new doctrine but by the most basic act of consideration this letter has been asking for since chapter 8: not seeking one’s own, but another’s good, this time at the very table meant to proclaim exactly that.
