{17} What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.

(17) The apostle thinks it good to take away the love feasts because of their abuse, although they had been practised a long time, and with commendation used in churches, and were appointed and instituted by the apostles.

People's New Testament

11:22 What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? The practice is rebuked. The place to eat their feasts was at home.

Or despise ye the church of God? By a selfish feast, where some ate luxuriously, and put to shame others, perhaps the poor, who had nothing.

Wesley's Notes

11:22 Have ye not houses to eat and drink your common meals in? or do ye despise the church of God - Of which the poor are both the larger and the better part. Do ye act thus in designed contempt of them?

King James Translators' Notes

have not: or, are poor?

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

22. What!-Greek, "For."

houses-(compare 1Co 11:34)-"at home." That is the place to satiate the appetite, not the assembly of the brethren [Alford].

despise ye the church of God-the congregation mostly composed of the poor, whom "God hath chosen," however ye show contempt for them (Jas 2:5); compare "of God" here, marking the true honor of the Church.

shame them that have not-namely, houses to eat and drink in, and who, therefore, ought to have received their portion at the love-feasts from their wealthier brethren.

I praise you not-resuming the words (1Co 11:17).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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.