1 Corinthians 11:31 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

For if we would judge ourselves, &c.— In 1 Corinthians 11:29 the Apostle uses the word διακρινων,— μη διακρινων,— "Not discriminating, or not putting a difference between the sacramental bread and wine, which St. Paul, with our Saviour, calls Christ's body, and other bread and wine, in the solemn and separate use of them." The Corinthians, as has been remarked, ate the Lord's supper at and with their own ordinary supper, whereby it came not to be sufficiently distinguished (as became a Christian and religious observance so solemnly instituted) from common eating for bodily refreshment; nor from the Jewish paschal supper, and the bread broken, and the cup and blessing used in that: nor did it in this way of eating shew forth the Lord's death, as it was designed to do by the concurrence and communion of the whole assembly of Christians, jointly united in the partaking of bread and wine in a way peculiar to them,—with reference solely to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what St. Paul calls eating unworthily: to avoid which, he exhorts them to judge themselves, or rather (in plain allusion to this not discriminating the Lord's body) to distinguish or discriminate themselves; for διακρινειν means the same here as it does 1 Corinthians 11:29 and is never used to signify judge. He is little versed in St. Paul's writings, who has not observed how frequently he uses the same word that he had used before, to the same purpose, though in a different construction; as here he applies διακρινειν to the persons discriminating, as in the 29th verse, to the thing to be discriminated; though in both places it be put to denote the same action.