For this cause many among you are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep.
Eating or drinking with an insufficiently reverent attitude directly causes illness and death.
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The cited passage
What current science says
Illness from eating and drinking is caused by pathogens (Salmonella, E. coli, norovirus), toxins, allergens, or nutritional problems — not by the eater's mental attitude while consuming the food. Your stomach acid doesn't check your sincerity before digesting. The same bread and wine consumed 'worthily' vs 'unworthily' has identical nutritional content and identical pathogen load. Food poisoning is caused by contamination, not contemplation. The one grain of truth here is that stress can affect digestion (the gut-brain axis is real), but stress from guilt doesn't cause death — it causes mild gastrointestinal discomfort at worst.
What the text says
This comes from 1 Corinthians 11:30. The text says 'for this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep' (i.e., have died) — attributing illness and death directly to eating the Lord's Supper 'unworthily,' framing improper dining etiquette as literally lethal.
Three honest ways to read this passage
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As history
The text records how its authors understood the world with the knowledge they had. Read this way, a difference from modern science is a window into the ancient mind, not a failure.
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As accommodation
The text speaks to its first audience in their own terms, to make a point that isn't mainly about physics or biology. Read this way, the scientific detail is the vehicle, not the cargo.
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As contradiction
The text makes a claim about the physical world that modern findings dispute. Read this way, the difference is a genuine factual disagreement worth naming.
GEBible doesn't pick one of these for you. Each entry shows the passage, what it says, and what current science says — nothing more.