u/Kitchen-Bridge-7349

As an honest LCMS member and hopping to be a future LCMS pastor I'm confused by closed communion. We base the practice off of 1 Corinthians 10-11 but this passage seems to communicate the opposite of what the LCMS teaches. The LCMS says that Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, etc.. Can rightly be considered Christians and yet we refuse them the sacrament based on their disbelief in the true presence.

The systematics of closed communion makes perfect sense to me but the hermeneutics of 1 Corinthians 10-11 does not.

Paul talks about how we (the church) who are one body partake of one bread (1 Cor 10:17). He then goes on to say that there are divisions in the church in order that those who are genuine can be seen, thus inferring the false Christians are also revealed (1 Cor 11:18-19). He uses that as a spring board to show that taking communion in an unworthy manner is to either: hog it all to yourself (1 Cor 11:21) thus not discerning the body rightly, or not examining yourself properly (1 Cor 11:28-29).

We seem to have to choose between two ways of thinking.

1. Say that those who do not believe Jesus when he says "this is my body" and "this is my blood" are committing heresy and are thus not a part of the church and cannot receive the bread because they are not a part of the body.

Or

2. Give them the sacrament and therefore recognize our unity as one body and thus one church as Paul commands.

It looks like choosing this middle ground actually makes the LCMS guilty of not discerning the body rightly rather than the other way around.

Can someone explain this to me?