The Lord’s Supper is made up of participles—eating and drinking. The Lord’s Supper is not made up of material elements—bread and wine. The bread and wine are a necessary part of it, certainly, but the partaking of Christ happens in the action, motivated by evangelical faith. But the common life, the koinonia, the partaking together, …
That Same Table
Jesus made Himself known to the disciples at Emmaus in the breaking of the bread. When they returned to Jerusalem, they made a particular point about relating this aspect of the story. Now we know that the Lord deals with us in this Supper, but we sometimes assume that the only sins He deals with …
So Pipe Down Then
God feeds us. He is not a negligent Father, one who fails to provide for His children. His table is always set well, and always furnished with all that we need. Of course, like naughty children, we sometimes do not eat what is set before us. Some children do not come to the Table at …
Nothing Buttery and the Table
The Bible I preach from is a material book. That is all it is. There is nothing else there. The Bible is nothing but paper and ink. And of course to speak this way is to fall into the fallacy that one writer called nothing buttery. Of course, paper and ink is all it is …
He Summons Us By Name
God is the Lord and He intends something in this Table. We are His covenant people, called by His name, and it is our task to intend the same thing. Perhaps we do not know what that is, and are secretly glad for the ignorance. Or perhaps we do know, and have been shrinking from …
Eucharistic Dualism
An important part of our responsibility in coming to this Table is to reject all false contrasts and inconsistencies. We reject as unscriptural every attempt at eucharistic dualism, a process which tries to pit external against internal. The superstitious come to the Table in order to fool about with mere externals, considered as such. Their …
Faith and Frequency
We come to this table on a weekly basis. It is frequently assumed by many that the only reason for this would be because of some kind of superstitious regard for the merits of the Supper. But superstition is a matter of the heart, a question of attitude. At the time of the Reformation, the …
The Efficacy of Ritual
This is a ritual meal, and in one sense we may say that this is all it is. The problem with the expression, though, is that such a statement would almost certainly be heard as a minimizing or reductionist statement. Those who want or need it to be more than such a “minimal meal” then …
Hungry Faith
In the covenant the Lord draws near to us. Because He draws near to us we are commanded to draw near to Him by faith. This is the table of the covenant, a central means which God has provided for us to draw near to Him in faith. He has engaged with us to be …
Drinking the New Testament
The covenant of the Lord is objective. It exists in the world, within the course of history. We are living in the times of Regeneration that the Lord Jesus told us about. But in saying that the covenant is objective, we do mean that it is to be understood as a mechanical thing, grinding away. …