“The point is to fill the day with godly celebration, rest, feasting. Sabbath keeping is the best wine, not tepid water. Observed the right way, the children in the home should grow up longing for the Lord’s Day to come. Remember that in obeying this commandment, we must not turn aside either to the right …
Circus Water
“As detailed word studies by teetotalers have shown, the abuses had gone so far that Corinthians believers were starting to act silly from drinking too much grape juice” (Mother Kirk, p. 109).
Cooking and Eating
“Of course we know that Word and sacrament go together. But how do they go together? In the minds of many believers, the two go together like ham and eggs, two disparate but complementary elements combining in a pleasing way. But perhaps they go together in another way entirely — one suggestion is that they …
Warring With Peace
“When we eat and drink at His table, with a servant’s heart, we are not attending a gloomy memorial, sitting in the dark, feeding on a dry cracker. We are engaged, by the mercy and grace of God, in the extension of Christ’s kingdom. We are conquering the world through sitting down in the peace …
Self-Suspension from the Supper
“If a man is coming to the Table with a bad attitude, then he should not hold back from partaking. Rather, he should come confessing the attitude. But what if he remembers his brother has something against him (Matt. 5:23)? The passage is talking about presenting a gift, and not about receiving this gift from …
The Cup is the Covenant
“A lot of ink has been used in the discussion of Christ’s statement that the bread was His body. Comparatively little has been said about His statement that the cup was the new covenant. Thus we will not have a full understanding of the Supper until we recover an ability to think in covenantal categories” …
Partaking
“This sort of covenantal participation is not limited to the godly. Something similar happened to the idolaters of Corinth. They were partakers at a demonic table, but no sacerdotal miracle was occuring there either. But by eating at an idolatrous feast, those worshippers were covenantally identified with the demons behind their idols” (Mother Kirk, p. …
Not Water Through a Hose
“There is true blessing here, and it is the result of covenantal identification. This is a blessing that is poured out on the believer by a sovereign God in a providential response to the believer’s obedience. The blessing does not come through the elements, like water through a garden hose. But it does come on …
No Covenantal Island
“This shows us that the sacrament is not a covenantal island in the middle of a noncovenantal world. Rather, everything around us must be seen in covenantal categories — unbelief included — with the Table of the Lord at the center of believing covenantal living” (Mother Kirk, p. 100).
Two Kinds of Real Christian
“Suppose a man marries and he knows that he is going to be unfaithful to his wife — in fact, he already has adulterous plans. But for various reasons, he thinks it expedient to be married, so he does to the church and makes the vows. Now, is he married? Of course he is — …