1 Corinthians 11:30

This verse follows directly after Paul's warning about taking Communion carelessly. "Fallen asleep" is a phrase Paul uses as a tender way of referring to death — it was a common early Christian expression carrying the idea that death for a believer is not the end. Paul makes a striking and unsettling claim: that some members of the Corinthian church had become physically weak, ill, or had even died as a consequence of how they had dishonored the Lord's Supper. This reflects an early Christian belief that God takes this sacred practice seriously, and that selfishness and irreverence within the community of faith carry real consequences — not only spiritual, but sometimes tangible ones.

Father, I confess that I sometimes treat sacred things as routine. I do not want a faith that costs nothing. Wake me up — gently — to the weight of who you are and what you have done. Help me approach you with real reverence. Amen.

This is one of those verses that makes modern readers shift in their seats, and maybe it should. We tend to prefer a God who is endlessly patient, gently shrugging at our half-hearted religion. And God is patient — more so than we deserve. But Paul does not soften this. He says, plainly and without apology, that some people got sick. Some died. Because of how they treated something holy. We do not have a clean theological formula for why some people suffer and others do not — that mystery is real and anyone who claims otherwise is not being honest with you. But this verse challenges a different assumption: the idea that how we practice faith has no real stakes, that going through the motions costs nothing. Paul believed it cost something. That casual religion — especially when it masked injustice and contempt for the poor — was not just spiritually empty but genuinely dangerous. You may not know exactly what to do with that. But let it sit with you: Does your faith have weight? Does it cost you anything at all? Or has it become comfortable enough to carry in your pocket without noticing?