Paul first writes concerning the bread, reporting the words of Jesus, that “This is My body, which is for you” (11:24). He does this after first mentioning that Jesus had taken bread, given thanks, and broke the bread (11:24). Then, he goes on to indicate that “every time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (11:26). Then, continuing on to the twenty-seventh verse, Paul again speaks of bread, with the verse closing out with “the body and blood of the Lord” (11:28b). This calls attention to and reaffirms the symbolic nature of the bread, as it stands in for the body of Jesus. Then, in the twenty-ninth verse, Paul writes “the one who eats and drinks,” omitting but implying the bread and the cup, “without careful regard for the body eats and drinks (the bread and the cup again implied though omitted) judgment against himself” (11:29).
Changing gears a bit, the insistence that follows, in which Paul reasons “that is why many of you are weak and sick, and quite a few are dead” (11:30), along with “if we examined ourselves, we would not be judged” (11:31), “but when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned with the world” (11:32), the address to “my brothers and sisters” (11:33a), and the final addition of “when you come together to eat, wait for one another” (11:33b), seems to indicate a change of focus. Paul is, quite clearly, speaking to the group again.
Taking that into consideration, a re-reading of the twenty-ninth verse, in which Paul makes two implicit references to the bread and the cup, while also mentioning “the body,” should arouse our curiosity. To which body is Paul referring? Is he here using “body” in the same way that he used in the twenty-fourth and twenty-eighth verses? If so, why the multiple implied references to the bread and the cup in verse twenty-nine, with a sudden shift to the body, if “body” here is to be taken as yet another reference to the bread? The Greek word that is in usage has a minor variation, sharing the same root, so it is incumbent upon the hearer to tease out the subtle shift that has taken place in this verse. Paul’s use of “body” here has been shifted away from a reference to the bread of the communion table, and has been re-directed and used in reference to the body of believers---the church to which Paul writes. This causes the usage to fit well with the words that began to be directed to the group, as Paul confers attention upon the congregational body.
At first glance, this seems like a strange conclusion, but when we reconsider the larger context (the whole of the letter) into which the treatment of the subject fits, and when we listen to the letter in a single sitting, with problems within the church as a whole in mind, then the seemingly strange conclusion becomes not so strange at all. Paul is a thoroughly trained and gifted rhetorician, highly skilled in argumentation, and quite capable of building a case for his teachings through a sustained narrative in which pieces function as essential building blocks. His letter to the Romans is probably the finest example of this studiously acquired skill. Just as Israel identified itself according to its own historical narrative, and just as Jesus saw and fit Himself within that narrative of God’s redemptive plan for the restoration of His good creation, Paul goes to great lengths to provide the recipients of his letters with a narrative structure that will aid in their coming to terms with that which he is attempting to communicate.
With that said, it is valuable to remember that Paul’s letters, though thoroughly dissected and broken into smaller pieces, with theological, ecclesiastical, soteriological, and Christological premises drawn from fragments that are really not meant to be fragments at all, are intended to be viewed as a whole. Things written and dealt with early in the letters will tend to have a bearing on what comes later, and ideas and issues presented later in the letters will generally spring from a foundation laid earlier in the letter. We must take all necessary precautions to avoid isolating passages and interpreting passages in isolation, without taking great pains to provide a contextual construct before doing so, especially if so doing fails to take into account the necessary historical considerations (social, political, economic, linguistic, religious, etc…). So in considering what appears to be a rather novel idea of considering “the body” of verse twenty-nine of chapter eleven as a reference to the church, rather than to the bread, we must proceed to recognize what Paul has done earlier in the letter.
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