{"id":183,"date":"2007-09-15T09:37:48","date_gmt":"2007-09-15T13:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/godandculture.wordpress.com\/2007\/09\/15\/this-do\/"},"modified":"2007-09-15T09:37:48","modified_gmt":"2007-09-15T13:37:48","slug":"this-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/this-do","title":{"rendered":"This Do…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Growing up in the independent Baptist tradition, and having served as a pastor in that tradition for nearly 25 years, I think\u00a0qualifies me to suggest that Baptists – at least the variety I’m familiar with – have a less than serious attitude toward the Lord’s Supper. Most Baptist congregations – fearing the Sacrament will become a ritual and lose its meaning – observe the Table (or “Communion”) at least once per month, some once per quarter, and then in ways that appear more “tacked on” to the service rather than as an integral part of the worship.<\/p>\n

At the church I pastor our own church leaders have begun taking a serious look at the why’s and wherefore’s of the Lord’s Table. We are examining what it means, both Scripturally and historically, and attempting to determine who should take the Lord’s Supper (young children who have made a profession of faith? visitors to the church who share faith in Christ but are not members of the church?), the significance of the elements as a means of grace and for the presence of Jesus,\u00a0and whether or not the frequency of the Lord’s Table matters. I’m still working my way through this issue, but my heart tells me that the Lord’s Table should be observed at every main gathering of the church where the Word is also preached and expounded. The objections I hear to this have more to do with the trouble we would have to go to each week to prepare for the Table than they do with biblical reasoning. Rather than tack it on once a month in a way that seems more akin to punching a ticket than entering into genuine communion, the serious nature of the Lord’s Table requires a willingness to be inconvenienced by the preparations necessary to observe it on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n

There are three views of the nature of the Table: the Roman Catholic view of transubtaniation which says the wafer and wine (juice) BECOME the body and blood of Jesus upon the blessing of the priest (Jesus IS the elements); the Lutheran view of constubstaniation which says that Jesus is present IN and THROUGH the elements, short of actually becoming the elements; and the view held by most Baptists, Assemblies of God, Presbyterians, and non-denominational churches that Jesus is present AT the Table, not in the elements or the elements themselves, but as the host who invites us to share WITH him at the Table. This last view is the one I would hold.\u00a0John Piper gives four reasons why<\/strong> <\/a>“This is My Body” does not mean that Jesus actual body and blood materializes in the elements.<\/p>\n

Louis W. Accola, a former Lutheran pastor and now Pastor for Spiritual Formation and Pastoral Care at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Phoenix, AZ, has written a very pastoral approach to these questions in Given for You: Reflections on the Meaning of the Lord’s Supper<\/a>. The book is short (96 pages) and contains study questions for group discussion at the end of each chapter. He re-energizes the Table with its original intended significance as a place of forgiveness, a place of remembering, a place for the receiving of grace, as a place of witness to the lost world, and as a place from which we can look forward to actually being in the presence of the Risen Lamb, eating and drinking with Him in His Kingdom.<\/p>\n

In his appendix he offers Eleven Reflections on The Lord’s Supper<\/em> which I reproduce here not because I necessarily agree with all of them, but because they are catalysts for my own thinking. I’m including only the points and not Dr. Accola’s extended explanation of each:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Lord’s Supper is gospel, not law.<\/li>\n
  2. The Lord’s Supper is a sign.<\/li>\n
  3. The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament of renewal.<\/li>\n
  4. The Lord’s Supper is participation in the community of Jesus’ followers.<\/li>\n
  5. The Lord’s Supper is a memorial feast.<\/li>\n
  6. The Lord’s Supper is an act of confession.<\/li>\n
  7. The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament of repentance.<\/li>\n
  8. The Lord’s Supper is a sacarament of joy.<\/li>\n
  9. The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament of the continued Christian life.<\/li>\n
  10. The Lord’s Supper is the mode of Jesus’ body and blood.<\/li>\n
  11. The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament of hope.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Growing up in the independent Baptist tradition, and having served as a pastor in that tradition for nearly 25 years, I think\u00a0qualifies me to suggest that Baptists – at least the variety I’m familiar with – have a less than … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godandculture.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}