📖WEB · 1 Corinthians 11:23
What does 1 Corinthians 11:23 mean?
"For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread."
— 1 Corinthians 11:23 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
When therefore you assemble yourselves together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat.
For in your eating each one takes his own supper first. One is hungry, and another is drunken.
What, don’t you have houses to eat and to drink in? Or do you despise God’s assembly, and put them to shame who don’t have enough? What shall I tell you? Shall I praise you? In this I don’t praise you.
For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread.
When he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in memory of me.”
In the same way he also took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink, in memory of me.”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Explanation
In this verse, Paul begins to recount the origin of what we now call the Lord's Supper or Communion. He tells the Corinthian believers that the information he is about to share did not originate with him as a human tradition or invention—he "received" it, and in turn "delivered" it to them, meaning he passed it on faithfully, like a trusted courier passing along a message exactly as it was given to him. The specific event he then introduces is the night of Jesus's betrayal, when Jesus took bread, setting the stage for the institution of the Lord's Supper.
To understand this properly, we need to know who Paul was writing to and why. Paul wrote this letter to the church in Corinth, a congregation he had founded but which was now struggling with various problems, including chaos and inequality in how they observed the Lord's Supper together (see the surrounding verses, 1 Corinthians 11:17-22, where Paul rebukes them for turning a sacred meal into an occasion for gluttony and division between rich and poor). To correct their practice, Paul goes back to the source—the original words and actions of Jesus on the night He was betrayed (the night before His crucifixion, when Judas turned Him over to the authorities). Paul was not present at the Last Supper himself, so his phrase "received from the Lord" indicates that this teaching came to him through direct rev
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