21 for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk.

Other Translations of 1 Corinthians 11:21

King James Version

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

English Standard Version

21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk.

The Message

21 you bring in a lot of food from the outside and make pigs of yourselves. Some are left out, and go home hungry. Others have to be carried out, too drunk to walk. I can't believe it!

New King James Version

21 For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk.

New Living Translation

21 For some of you hurry to eat your own meal without sharing with others. As a result, some go hungry while others get drunk.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on 1 Corinthians 11:21

Commentary on 1 Corinthians 11:17-22

(Read 1 Corinthians 11:17-22)

The apostle rebukes the disorders in their partaking of the Lord's supper. The ordinances of Christ, if they do not make us better, will be apt to make us worse. If the use of them does not mend, it will harden. Upon coming together, they fell into divisions, schisms. Christians may separate from each other's communion, yet be charitable one towards another; they may continue in the same communion, yet be uncharitable. This last is schism, rather than the former. There is a careless and irregular eating of the Lord's supper, which adds to guilt. Many rich Corinthians seem to have acted very wrong at the Lord's table, or at the love-feasts, which took place at the same time as the supper. The rich despised the poor, and ate and drank up the provisions they brought, before the poor were allowed to partake; thus some wanted, while others had more than enough. What should have been a bond of mutual love and affection, was made an instrument of discord and disunion. We should be careful that nothing in our behaviour at the Lord's table, appears to make light of that sacred institution. The Lord's supper is not now made an occasion for gluttony or revelling, but is it not often made the support of self-righteous pride, or a cloak for hypocrisy? Let us never rest in the outward forms of worship; but look to our hearts.