Communion Bible Study: Remembering Jesus and Caring for His Body

Begin with the words, actions, and people at the table

Read the assigned passage in each session before reading the commentary. Keep three columns of notes: what Jesus or Paul says about the bread and cup, what the people are doing, and what response is called for. This simple distinction helps prevent a study of communion from becoming either a collection of isolated phrases or a discussion of community behavior with the sacred meal left out.

The three readings build on one another. Luke 22:14–23 records Jesus giving the bread and cup before his suffering, speaking of his body, blood, remembrance, and the kingdom. First Corinthians 10:14–22 describes communion in Christ’s blood and body and warns against participation in incompatible worship. First Corinthians 11:17–34 places the received account of the meal within a correction of division, humiliation, and careless eating.

This study supports attention, prayer, and preparation within the worship of your congregation. It does not prescribe a separate ceremony or invent a procedure for administering communion. The practical exercises concern reading, self-examination, allegiance, and care. Bring questions about participation and congregational practice to those responsible for guiding that worship, using the passages themselves as the basis for the conversation.

Session 1: Jesus gives bread and cup before his suffering

Luke places the meal within the Passover setting. Peter and John prepare as Jesus directs (22:7–13), and at the appointed hour Jesus sits with the apostles. He expresses his desire to eat this Passover with them before he suffers. His words hold the present meal and the coming kingdom together: he speaks of fulfillment and of the kingdom’s coming in verses 16–18.

The actions are worth observing slowly. Jesus takes, gives thanks, breaks, and gives the bread. He identifies it with his body given for them and commands remembrance. He also speaks of the cup after supper as the new testament in his blood, shed for them (verses 19–20). In this context, “testament” expresses covenant language. The study should keep that language and the physical actions together rather than treating the bread and cup as incidental props.

The words “for you” give the meal a personal and communal direction. Jesus is speaking to those gathered with him, offering the bread and cup in relation to the giving of himself. The account centers on his gift before it asks the reader to consider a response. Remembering him begins by attending to what he says and does.

Read the suffering and kingdom references together. The meal is given before the events that follow, and it also looks toward God’s kingdom. It is not simply a recollection of a pleasant gathering. Jesus interprets the meal in relation to his body, blood, approaching suffering, and promised future.

Remembrance is commanded within a shared act

“This do in remembrance of me” comes after Jesus gives the bread and speaks of his body (Luke 22:19). The command includes an action the gathered disciples receive from him. Remembering should therefore not be reduced to a private thought that could leave the meal and the other participants entirely out of view.

At the same time, the act calls for attention to Jesus himself. A person can be physically present while inattentive to the words being spoken. The invitation to remember directs attention back to his self-giving. A useful preparation is to reread the account and notice one detail that familiarity has made easy to overlook: thanksgiving, the giving of the bread, “for you,” covenant, or the expectation of the kingdom.

The account does not explain every question a reader might ask about the manner of Christ’s presence in the meal. It does explicitly speak of his body and blood, and those words should retain their weight. Calling communion merely a memory aid would say less than the combined readings say. Luke records remembrance; Paul will also speak of communion and participation.

Keep the focus on receiving Christ’s words with reverence. A careful study need not replace them with a technical explanation that the passage itself does not supply. It can ask what attention, gratitude, and conduct are fitting in response to the gift he names.

Betrayal and rivalry are present in the surrounding scene

Immediately after speaking over the cup, Jesus identifies betrayal at the table (Luke 22:21–23). The narrative places the gift beside a grave failure within the circle of disciples. It does not allow the reader to imagine that physical proximity to Jesus automatically guarantees faithful allegiance.

The following verses record a dispute about who should be considered greatest. Jesus answers by teaching a different use of authority: the greatest is to be as the younger, and the leader as one who serves. He says that he is among them as the one who serves (verses 24–27). These words give the surrounding meal a searching practical setting. Receiving his gift and competing for superiority cannot be treated as unrelated concerns.

Later in the chapter, Peter’s confident declaration is followed by his denial, and Jesus’ prayer in the garden precedes arrest and suffering. These events should not be collapsed into the assigned verses, but they help readers follow where the meal leads. The account contains warning, weakness, service, and costly faithfulness.

For this session, ask whether preparation for communion includes attention to the ways status or resentment shape your behavior toward others. The question is an application of the scene, not an invitation to identify a hidden Judas in every congregation. Begin with your own conduct and the concrete call to serve.

Session 2: Communion means participation and allegiance

First Corinthians 10:14 opens the assigned passage with a command to flee idolatry. Paul’s discussion of the cup and bread belongs to that warning. He is not offering an isolated definition of a religious meal; he is explaining why participation in the Lord’s table cannot be combined with participation in idolatrous worship.

Verse 16 asks about the cup of blessing and the bread broken: are they not the communion of Christ’s blood and body? The questions expect the readers to recognize the significance of their shared act. Verse 17 then draws a consequence for the many participants: they are one bread and one body because they partake of the one bread.

The language is stronger than simply saying that people who happen to think alike meet in the same place. Paul describes a shared participation centered on Christ. The meal’s sacred meaning and the community’s shared belonging are connected in his argument. We should retain both, allowing neither to crowd out the other.

Paul also appeals to Israel’s sacrifices and participation in the altar in verse 18. That comparison treats sacred eating as meaningful participation. It should not be used to dismiss those earlier rites as empty actions. Paul’s reasoning depends on taking the significance of participation seriously.

One bread challenges a merely private approach

The word “many” in 1 Corinthians 10:17 matters. The gathered people do not cease to be distinct persons, yet their participation in one bread expresses a shared body. Communion cannot be understood only by asking what a solitary participant experiences. The relationship to Christ also bears on the relationship among those who partake.

This has implications for attention and conduct. A person preparing for the meal can ask whether other members are being treated as inconvenient, invisible, or inferior. The next chapter will make that concern explicit through its account of hunger and humiliation. Here the positive basis is already present: many partake of one bread.

The text does not say that unity eliminates every disagreement or makes difficult conversations unnecessary. Nor does it require pretending that harmful conduct has not occurred. Shared belonging gives a reason to seek truth, care, and responsible correction. It should not become a demand that someone conceal mistreatment to preserve the appearance of harmony.

A practical response is to learn who is easily overlooked in the gathering and what would enable fuller care. That inquiry should be respectful rather than intrusive. Ask instead of assuming, preserve privacy, and follow through on a manageable commitment. Such care is an application of shared belonging; it does not replace the sacred participation Paul describes.

Paul distinguishes participation in worship from ordinary food

Verses 19–22 explain the danger of incompatible tables. Paul does not concede divine reality to an idol. He warns about the fellowship involved in the sacrifices he describes and says that one cannot partake of the Lord’s table and the table of devils. The issue is allegiance expressed through participation, and he closes with a question about provoking the Lord to jealousy.

The later part of the chapter makes an important distinction. Paul permits eating what is sold in the marketplace without an investigation for conscience’s sake, and he allows eating what an unbelieving host sets before a guest (verses 25–27). If someone identifies the food as offered in sacrifice, he instructs restraint for the other person’s conscience (verses 28–29). Those situations should not be treated as though Paul has forbidden every ordinary meal with someone outside the congregation.

This distinction prevents a careless application that labels all social contact as compromised worship. It also prevents the opposite mistake of saying participation never matters as long as a person privately feels detached. Paul asks what the act means within the setting and how it affects allegiance and others.

Modern situations require their own careful description. The study cannot decide every invitation by analogy alone. It can encourage honest questions: What am I being asked to join? What does this action signify? Whom could it mislead or harm? Those questions follow Paul’s concern for participation and conscience without inventing a universal rule for every meal.

The chapter’s opening warns against presumption

Before the assigned passage, Paul recalls the people who passed through the sea, ate spiritual food, and drank spiritual drink. He explicitly names Christ in relation to the spiritual Rock (1 Corinthians 10:1–4). These gifts are treated as real. The warning follows: many were overthrown in the wilderness, and their conduct serves as an admonition.

Paul names idolatry, sexual wrongdoing, testing Christ, and murmuring, then warns the one who thinks he stands to take heed lest he fall (verses 6–12). The point is not that sacred gifts are worthless. It is that receiving them does not authorize disregard for the faithfulness to which they call a people.

Verse 13 affirms God’s faithfulness amid temptation before verse 14 calls the readers to flee idolatry. The sequence joins assurance with an actual response. A person is not told to rely on confidence while remaining deliberately entangled in what the passage warns against.

In preparing for communion, humility therefore includes willingness to name a divided allegiance and take a practical step away from it. That may require a conversation, a changed commitment, or help from a trusted leader. The application should remain specific enough to be truthful; vague self-condemnation is not the same as responsive examination.

Session 3: A gathering can contradict the meal it celebrates

First Corinthians 11:17–22 begins with Paul’s refusal to praise the gathering. He says that they come together for the worse, names divisions, and describes a meal in which one is hungry while another is drunken. His question in verse 22 exposes the social injury: do they despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing?

These details must remain beside the familiar account of the bread and cup. Paul does not interrupt an otherwise abstract discussion to add a minor lesson in manners. The community’s conduct is the problem that frames his appeal to what he received from the Lord. The way people eat is contradicting the character of the gathering.

Avoid adding a detailed reconstruction that the passage does not provide. It does not identify every participant’s occupation, the precise layout of the house, or the arrival time of each group. It gives enough evidence to establish the wrong: division, private taking, hunger, drunkenness, and humiliation of those with less.

The first response is to notice who is being harmed. If a congregation studies communion while overlooking the people whose needs are treated as embarrassing, it can miss the force of Paul’s argument. Reverence for the meal and care for those gathered are inseparable concerns in this passage.

The received account calls the gathering back to Jesus

Paul introduces the account as what he received from the Lord and delivered to the Corinthians (11:23). He recalls the night of betrayal, the bread, thanksgiving, the words about Christ’s body, and the cup described in relation to the new testament in his blood. Remembrance appears with both bread and cup in verses 24–25.

Verse 26 adds proclamation and expectation: as often as they eat and drink, they show the Lord’s death until he comes. The meal looks back to his self-giving and forward to his coming. The community is being called to attend to the Lord whose death it proclaims, rather than to use the gathering as an occasion for private display or advantage.

Compare this with Luke without flattening the accounts into a single quotation. Luke describes Jesus’ desire to share Passover before suffering and his words about the kingdom. Paul emphasizes the received tradition within a correction of the Corinthians and names proclamation until the Lord comes. Both direct attention to Christ’s body, blood, and remembrance; each has its own immediate setting.

The comparison provides a useful test for preparation. Are we attending to the Lord’s gift and promised coming? Are our actions toward others consistent with the gathering in which that gift is remembered and proclaimed? Paul’s account gives theological weight to those practical questions.

Self-examination leads toward reverent participation

Verses 27–29 warn against eating and drinking unworthily and failing to discern the Lord’s body. The warning is grave because the meal concerns the Lord’s body and blood. It should not be softened into a statement that attitude and conduct are irrelevant.

The instruction in verse 28 is also important: a person is to examine himself, “and so let him eat” the bread and drink the cup. Examination is directed toward a fitting response to the meal. The text does not tell the reader to achieve a record of never having sinned before approaching. Within this passage, the examination must include the divisive and humiliating conduct Paul has just named.

“Discerning the Lord’s body” should retain the sacred reference to Christ’s body, while the immediate context requires attention to the gathered people and how they are treated. Reducing the whole paragraph to either an inward feeling or a social etiquette rule would leave out part of Paul’s concern. The meal’s significance is the reason conduct matters so deeply.

A useful examination asks about specific actions: Am I humiliating someone, taking without regard for others, refusing to acknowledge a wrong, or treating the meal carelessly? Where correction is needed, name it and seek appropriate help. Repeatedly searching for an undefined hidden failure can become a substitute for the concrete response the passage calls for.

Do not erase the warning or diagnose strangers from it

Paul connects the Corinthians’ conduct with weakness, sickness, and the fact that many “sleep” in verse 30. In this context, “sleep” refers to death. Verse 32 names the Lord’s chastening and explains it in relation to not being condemned with the world. The passage explicitly speaks of judgment; a study should preserve that seriousness.

It does not follow that a reader can identify the cause of every illness or death in a present-day congregation. Paul addresses a particular situation with a particular explanation. Turning that explanation into a diagnosis of someone whose circumstances we do not know adds a claim the passage has not given us authority to make.

The practical instructions remain clear. Paul calls for self-judgment, for waiting for one another, and for addressing hunger at home so that the gathering does not become an occasion of condemnation (verses 31–34). He moves from warning to changed behavior.

A pastoral response should likewise seek correction and care rather than speculation about another person’s suffering. Someone troubled by this passage can read it with a trusted leader and identify what the text actually asks them to do. Its seriousness deserves attention; it should not be used as a threat detached from the conduct Paul is confronting.

Christ’s self-giving orders the whole study

Jesus gives the bread and cup in relation to his body given and blood shed for his disciples (Luke 22:19-20). Paul names communion in that body and blood, then recalls the Lord's death as the center of the gathered proclamation (1 Corinthians 10:16; 11:23-26). The connection to Christ is the substance of these readings. Remembrance, allegiance, and care arise from receiving his gift with reverence. The community is called to recognize the Lord it proclaims and to let its treatment of others reflect the shared participation he has given.

A preparation exercise for the next gathering

Before the next gathering, reread the three assigned passages and write one sentence from each in your own words. Keep the emphases distinct: Jesus gives himself and commands remembrance; participation calls for faithful allegiance; the gathered community must examine how it treats people. Then read the actual words over bread and cup again, allowing them to correct anything your summary has missed.

Choose one practical response related to care. It may be making a truthful apology, ending a dismissive habit, asking whether someone needs help participating in congregational life, or following through on an agreed responsibility. Ask what would serve the other person rather than assuming that a public gesture is best. Respect privacy, and do not pressure someone harmed to offer immediate reassurance.

Bring questions about the meal itself to the people responsible for your congregation’s worship. Describe the passage and the question precisely. A study conversation can deepen understanding without becoming an attempt to settle every question by a single phrase removed from its context.

After the gathering, review whether you attended to Christ’s gift and whether the chosen act of care was carried out. This is not a measure of how intense an emotion you experienced. It is a way to keep remembrance connected to gratitude, allegiance, and faithful conduct over time.

An example prayer: Lord Jesus, help me remember your body given and your blood shed with gratitude and reverence. Search my conduct and turn me from divided allegiance and careless treatment of others. Teach our community to honor you in its worship and to care for those gathered in your name. Amen.

Sources and editorial note

• Luke 22

  Session 1, verses 14–23, with the full chapter’s Passover preparation, betrayal, service, prayer, and suffering context.

• 1 Corinthians 10

  Session 2, verses 14–22: communion and allegiance; read with the preceding warnings and following distinctions about ordinary meals and conscience.

• 1 Corinthians 11

  Session 3, verses 17–34: divisions, hunger and humiliation, received meal tradition, proclamation, examination, judgment, and waiting for one another.

Prepared with AI assistance for Learn of Christ and checked against the passages and sources listed here. This revision has not received independent human scholarly review. Scripture quotations are from the King James Version unless another translation is named. Prayers and exercises are original examples.

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