The Lord's Supper

Thanks to Sean C. Casey, who transcribed this from the original tape. Additional editing was done by the author to reflect additional insight gained since the creation of the tape in 1986.

Turn in your bible please to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and we'll begin our study there. In this section of scripture, Paul is addressing some abuses of the Lord's Supper.

1 Corinthians 11:23-25, "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the [same] night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake [it], and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also [he took] the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink [it], in remembrance of me. "

Turn now to the book of Luke. Chapter 22:14

Luke 22:14-20, "And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer: For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide [it] among yourselves: For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom of God shall come. And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake [it], and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup [is] the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you. "

What we have here in Luke and in 1 Corinthians 11, is revealed to us the fact that the Lord's Supper was instituted as a remembrance of the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 26 of 1 Corinthians 11 Paul in addition says;

1 Corinthians 11:26, For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.

Now in this passage in 1 Corinthians 11 we find that the Lord's supper was celebrated during a time that the disciples came together. If you look at verse 17, Paul introduces this section with these words;

"Now in giving these instructions," Now these instructions that Paul is speaking about are the previous instructions. The previous 16 verses of 1 Corinthians 11 had to do with Paul's teaching about the head covering, that is, the covering of the woman's head while she is in the meeting of the church. "Now in giving these instructions" Paul says, these instructions about the head covering, "You should not derive from that an approval of the other things that occur during the meeting." The fact that he'd given instructions about something in addition, did not mean that he would neglect to correct the problems that they were having during this meeting of the church.

Now in giving these instructions I do not praise you since you come together. Not for the better, but for the worse. For first of all when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you and in part, I believe it. For there must also be factions among you that those who were approved may be recognized among you. When ye come together therefore into one place, [this] is not to eat the Lord's supper. For in eating every one taketh before [other] his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.

Paul repeatedly uses the term "come together". This term is translated into two English words from one Greek word, Sunerchomai. And, what it means in the original Greek is to come together. But it is more intimate than the English would imply to us.. In Matthew 1:18 the same word is used by Matthew to describe sexual relations between Joseph and Mary.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

It's the same word, Sunerchomai. So this coming together, it has this sense of intimacy to it. And it's important that in the Lord's Supper we think of an intimate relationship. The primary reason for the disciple's coming together was to eat the Lord's Supper. This is strongly implied in verse 20 when he says;

When ye come together therefore into one place, [this] is not to eat the Lord's supper.

His purpose in saying "this is not to eat the Lord's supper" is to address that while the focus and purpose of the coming together was to eat the Lord's Supper, their behavior robbed the special meal of it's significance. What they were doing in fact, was perverting the Lord's Supper. So while they were indeed sharing a supper, it just isn't the Lord's Supper that they were celebrating. Now another passage which demonstrates that it was the purpose and focus of the meeting of the church at this time to eat the Lord's Supper, is Acts Chapter 20:7.

Acts 20:7 And upon the first [day] of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.

We see here that Paul had come to Troas where he stayed for 7 days. Now Paul could have called a meeting of the church to have the disciples come together so that he could address them and teach the things that he wanted to teach. But since it was the custom, as is suggested here, for the disciples to meet on the 1st day of the week, Paul waited until that day, preached all night as you read in the preceding verses, and left the following day. It seemed he was in a great hurry to leave and move on the very next day after he was to address the disciples, but he waited for the 1st day of the week. It was the custom of the disciples to meet on that day. But notice it says "When the disciples came together to break bread." They didn't come to hear Paul! They didn't come to hear anyone speak from a pulpit! They didn't just come to go to meeting and fill a pew, they came to have the Lord's Supper! That was the reason they came together. In Acts chapter 2 we see the first mention of the breaking of bread as being a custom of the church.

Acts 2:40 And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added [unto them] about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

Now in the original Greek it says the fellowship was manifested in 2 ways through the breaking of bread and prayers. Fellowship of breaking of bread and fellowship of prayers. It's more clear that way in the Greek than in the English. But the breaking of bread was a fellowship meal. And it seems that in the beginning they did this steadfastly. They continued in the apostles' doctrine, the apostles' teaching, and in the fellowship through breaking of bread and fellowship of prayer. And we begin to see a pattern emerging as you move down to verse 46:

Acts 2:46 And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,

You would think that they would celebrate the Lord's Supper in the temple. But it says they continued daily in the temple and broke bread from house to house. In the beginning it seems that the breaking of bread took place in an appropriate place -- in the home, probably with a few families meeting and sharing in this fellowship meal. How different from the practice of the church today! Now turn back to 1st Corinthians, but this time to chapter 10. Paul tells us a little bit about what the Lord's Supper symbolizes. Let's begin with verse 14 to pick up the context:

1 Corinthians 10:14 Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we [being] many are one bread, [and] one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.

When Christ said this is my body, he didn't mean to say that it was his own literal, physical body. But it has become the body of Christ symbolic of the body of Christ, the church. Paul revealed in the book of Ephesians and Colossians the principle of the church being the body of Christ.

Now the scriptures went to great lengths to teach us that not one bone of Christ's body was broken. In the original Passover meal they were commanded that of the lamb of which they partook during the Passover, not one bone was to be broken. And when Christ died on the cross, while the thieves that were crucified on either side of him had their legs broken Christ was pierced with a spear and his bones were not broken in fulfillment of those prophesies. But here we have the bread, we're told that the bread was broken. Now this is does not symbolize His literal body being broken because clearly that's not the picture the words would give us. The picture is that the bread is broken and distributed to us because we all partake of one loaf, symbolizing our membership in the one body of Christ, that we're members of each other as individuals. And so the bread symbolizes the body of Christ being broken so that His brokenness will result in the healing of His Body, the Church.

Now Paul, in dealing with the problems in the 1st Corinthian church calls this to mind as he tries to correct their abuses in the Lord's Supper. If you'll look at verse 27.

1 Corinthians 11:27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink [this] cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of [that] bread, and drink of [that] cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.

What is the Lord's body? As we've learned before, the Lord's body is that fellowship of the body of Christ, its fellow believers. Their problem is indicated in verse 21.

For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others, and one is hungry, and another is drunk.

There was a lack of sharing during the Lord's Supper, during a meal that was to symbolize the intimate fellowship and communion of the body of Christ. Our membership as being members of that body. And the communion it symbolizes. During that supper they were making a mockery of that fellowship. They were seeing to their own needs, filling their own bellies at the expense of others. One would go hungry, another would be filled. So when he charges them with not discerning the Lord's body. It is an utter failure to understand the fact that your brother whom you are watching go hungry while you are being filled is a member, a fellow member, of the body of Christ. And when you do not discern the Lord's body in eating in an unworthy manner you become guilty of the body and blood of The Lord. He continues in verse 30 to give us the consequences of celebrating the Lords Supper in an unworthy manner.

There is sickness among the membership, and there is also death for those who had not repented.

For if we would judge ourselves we would not be judged. But when we are judged we are chastened by the Lord that we may not be condemned with the world. Therefore my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. But if anyone is hungry let him eat at home lest you come together for judgement, and the rest I will set in order when I come.

Paul's remedy for this situation is to wait for one another. We're supposed to bear one another's burdens. There ought to be the pure expression of love among those who are members of the body of Christ. We have been created to love one another when we were created anew in the new birth. And this meal that symbolizes all that the new birth means, is being made a mockery. This is one of the few places we're told of a specific sin that God chastens with sickness and death. It is a very serious thing to celebrate the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner. Verse 28:

1 Corinthians 11:28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of [that] bread, and drink of [that] cup.

Now there are those who have put into this section of the scripture different meaning than what it actually says here. There are those that say before we come to the Lord's Supper we have to cleanse ourselves of unconfessed sin. And if we do not then we are unworthy to eat the Lord's Supper. "Unworthily" people have taken to mean, describes the worthiness of the participant, and that's not what it means at all. It isn't describing the participant, it's describing the manner in which it's taken. It's an adverb. It doesn't mean to show the condition of the participant. It's the manner in which you eat it. And the context determines what the meaning of this verse is, verse 28, in examining ourselves. In verse 27 he says "therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Verse 29, for he who drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks eats and drinks judgement to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. There is the definition of eating and drinking in an unworthy manner. Not discerning the Lord's body. It has nothing to do with unconfessed sin, a condition that we never find in the pages of the New Testament. Confession of sin we received under the law, the first mentioned in Leviticus chapter four. In the New Testament Paul taught us that while in our flesh we serve the law of sin, in our mind we serve the law of God. In chapter seven of Romans he also said that while in the flesh we sin, the inner man is in agreement with the law of God. In 1st John we're taught that we continually confess our sins and we are being kept continually cleansed. It's impossible for a Christian to fall into a state of unconfessed sin, where he might be out of fellowship with the Lord as some say. It's never taught anywhere in the pages of New Testament scripture that we can be out of fellowship with the Lord. By Christ's one sacrifice we have been perfected forever. As a matter of fact in the eating of the lamb of the Passover which came to be the Lord's Supper, they were told to leave none of it until morning. The lamb was to be totally consumed. Once you've partaken of the body of Christ spiritually you need never eat of it again. This supper is a remembrance -- not the actual meal that saved us! We're taught in John chapter 6, that we would have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. Of course He wasn't speaking of the Lord's Supper. "He said my words they are spirit, and they are life". He was speaking symbolically of appropriating the death of Christ to ourselves. Once we've eaten, we need never eat of it again. In John 6:50 the Lord said:

John 6:50 This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

When you eat of the bread that makes you live forever, there's no need ever to eat of it again. We need to eat daily because we would die if we failed to eat. But the bread that he gives us is once for all time. Again, the sacrificial lamb in the Passover was to be eaten up, there was to be none left for the following day, because that one day of the eating of the lamb was to suffice till the following year. So in 1 Corinthians 11 when Paul talks about eating and drinking in an unworthy manner, he's certainly not taking care of sin problems. That's been taken care of by the death of Christ. Am I saying that we should come to the Lord's table to contemplate sin with plans in our hearts to leave the table and go commit sin? No! We're to put away sin from ourselves. Just as it says in the celebration of the Passover in the Old Testament. Which we'll look at in a little while for some other reasons. They were to put away all leaven from their territories for that period of the feast of unleavened bread which followed the Passover. There was to be no leaven among them and of course leaven, as we're taught in Galations and in 1 Corinthians and throughout the scriptures, represents sin. So when we come to the Lord's table let's be careful not to contemplate sin in our hearts. We should repent of sin. Not confess it as if to call the blood of Christ down on it again, (our inner man continually confesses sin), but to turn away from sin. When we fall off the path we're supposed to get back on it, not look back, but looking unto Jesus. We're to cast off the sin.

Now, should we keep the Lord's Supper open to all those who would come into the assembly, or close it only to those who are members of our local assembly. In 1 Corinthians Chapter 10 we're taught that the bread was symbolic of the body of Christ. Now a local assembly is not a body of Christ, it is part of the body, and being part of the body, it is body-like. But in the New Testament we're taught that the body of Christ represents the whole church. Just as in Paul's argument there in 1 Corinthians 10:18 he as a type shows us "Observe Israel under the flesh". He speaks of the whole nation of Israel. He doesn't compare Israel to a local assembly. Israel speaks of the entire nation, not as individual tribes, but as the whole nation. And similarly the body of Christ represents the whole body of Christ. All of those Christians who are believers throughout the world are participating in the Lord's Supper in their local assemblies, and are spiritually united. In much the same way that Paul spoke about in 1 Corinthians 5 during the disciplinary meeting of the church, Paul said that he could be with them in spirit judging with them. And in the same way when we are celebrating the Lord's Supper throughout the world in individual assemblies, it symbolizes the fellowship that we all have with one another spiritually. So, have we been given the responsibility to make sure that no unbelievers by mistake partake in the Lord's Supper with us? I don't think so because in 1 Corinthians 11 Paul lays the responsibility of eating the Lord's Supper in a worthy manner at the feet of the individual partaking. As he says "But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. Nowhere are we taught we're to examine one another to make sure that they are taking the Lord's Supper in a worthy manner, or indeed that they are worthy of the Lord's Supper. The Lord himself will discipline abuses of that. As he said "We're judged by the Lord that we may not be condemned with the world. So we need to be careful that we do not put restrictions on the Lord's Supper that He Himself does not put on them. Again, we need to take great care in how we celebrate the Lord's Supper. It's very important to the Lord because He's chosen this specific way to be worshiped as He indicated when He said, "Do this in remembrance of me." And if we don't do it properly there are specific chastening actions that the Lord will take as he's indicated to us such as sickness and death.

Also, we must make sure that we observe the Lord's Supper with at least the frequency that is revealed in scripture. The Lord has given us the weak as a pattern of a cycle of human life. The Lord as we're told created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. And so he gave that to us for a Sabbath rest and a Sabbath was a complete seven days, a complete cycle in our lives. And it would seem to be fitting that at least once in that cycle of the seven days we would make sure that we celebrated the Lord's Supper with each other. And how fitting it is that he's chosen the 1st day. In the law they gave the first tenth of all that they made as they prospered, and in the same way we give him the first day of our week. And on that first day we remember him first. The Lord's Supper is the highest form of worship that we have in the way that we remember the Lord. Now there are those in the protestant church that celebrate Christmas and Easter, two holidays that the Lord never told us anything about and we need to be very careful to worship him in ways that he did not reveal. We have many examples from the Old Testament of people who went beyond the scriptures in worshiping the Lord in ways that he has not revealed. Christmas and Easter are worship forms because anything we do to remember the Lord is worship. But let's make sure that we celebrate the Lord's Supper in the way that he's told us to. Let's be very careful of it. Let's be extraordinary at it and not just take it for granted, or just kind of do it ritualistically. So let's look at some of those aspects of how we should celebrate it.

First of all, what is the bread, and what is the wine?

Why is it that the Lord chose bread to be representative of His sacrifice for us? Think of what it is that the bread was made of. First wheat grains are harvested. Some of the grains will be set aside to plant the next crop. In each grain is the potential to create many offspring. Most of the grain however, will not be given the opportunity to reproduce. Instead, they will be crushed and ground into powder. The potential of life for the individual grain is given up to prolong the life for another. These many ground grains are then fashioned into a seamless whole from which many will eat.

How like Christ this is! He told us there was no greater love than that expressed by a man laying down his life for his brethren. Christ Himself never took a wife nor had any children. The prophet Isaiah spoke about this many years before the birth of Christ.

Isaiah 53:8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

He had no one to carry on His name, to declare his generation. He was the grain which would forego reproduction and instead be broken for our food. The ground grain, or flour is mixed with water and then put in the fire where whatever survives of the grain is completely killed. How like Christ descending into Hades on our behalf. Christ told us:

John 6:35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

The bread, as we know from the Old Testament, must be unleavened. That is, it must contain no yeast. The reason for that is given to us in Exodus chapter 12:18:

Exodus 12:18 In the first [month], on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even. Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land.

Now the first day of the unleavened bread is the Passover. There was to be no leaven found in their territories. In addition to that we're told in the book of Deuteronomy no leaven was to be eaten or they would be cut off. It seems pretty much the same in the New Testament with the Lord's Supper. If it were not celebrated properly , that person would be cut off by reason of death or sickness. And so, we have to believe that when the Lord celebrated the Lord's Supper with his disciples, he certainly would have been in accordance with the law. And we ought to take care that we do it in the same way that the Lord did with his disciples, eating unleavened bread. Leaven is the symbol of sin and the unleavened bread symbolizes the sinless righteous body that he gave for us.

In addition to that we must make certain that since there is no leaven to be found in the meal or in the house, that our drink, the wine must not be leavened. Fresh pressed grape juice, or "Must", is by nature leavened, because the grape peal itself, when the grapes are picked from the vine have an outer coating of leaven or yeast which grows on the outside of the grape, and that is how wine is made. Naturally when the grape juice is pressed leaven is introduced into the juice and begins feeding on the sugars present in the juice and fermentation starts. So there is living leaven in grape juice, or "Must". And so at this time in order to get rid of the leaven in the grape juice it would have to be fermented and allowed to ferment completely until the alcohol content came to a point of between 9 and 14% alcohol when all of the yeast cells or the leaven in the grape juice would have been killed.

Alcohol as we know, is an antiseptic, and the leaven would be killed by the alcohol once it reached that point in fermentation. What actually happens is that the yeast cells feed on the sugars and the byproduct that is formed is the alcohol. The alcohol is actually the excrement of the yeast cells and gives to us a perfect picture of sin. Sin works out its own destruction in our lives, and we're taught that the life is in the blood. When we sinned in Adam, sin slew us. It says in Romans chapter 5. For as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. And we're told the soul or the life that sins shall die, and the wages of sin is death, so when we sinned we died. We were totally unconscious, totally without power, to save ourselves. We were without strength. As we're told in Romans, when we were without strength God died for us. The wine is a perfect picture of the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. Leaven scripturally represents sin. And when you introduce the leaven or the sin, into the blood of Jesus Christ, and our sin was laid upon him, his blood overcame sin. And you cannot outsin the power of his blood. Similarly, once the leaven has worked it's way through the wine and brought the alcohol content between 9 and 14%, it dies. It completely dies. You can continue to pour leaven into that wine and it will not start fermenting again. As soon as the leaven comes into contact with the alcohol, it will die. And similarly we cannot outsin the power of Christ's blood to overcome sin. Alcohol is an antiseptic, and the wine is an antiseptic to leaven. Wine was used in those days as an antiseptic. How fitting it is that they used wine in the Lord's Supper, where it represented the blood of Jesus Christ which is the perfect Antiseptic, the perfect cleansing agent for the wounds that sin gave us. It cleanses sin from our lives. As we're taught in 1 John we're being kept continuously cleansed by his new life, his eternal life which courses through the heart of the new man, and it's a perfect picture of that. In addition to that, in 1 Corinthians 11 we're told in verse 21 for in eating each one takes his own supper ahead of others and one is hungry and another is drunk. Now if, as some sincere believers believe, the use of fermented wine in the Lords supper is tantamount to blasphemy, why wouldn't Paul have taken occasion here to rail against them for the use of fermented wine in their Lord's Supper? He doesn't do so. He just breezes over that. The problem here was not that they were drinking fermented wine. The problem was that they were drinking too much, leaving others deprived. And that is the pattern throughout the bible. The law, which contains many things about the most minuscule things in daily life, never once said "though shalt not drink fermented wine or beverages or intoxicating drinks." What the Bible does teach is moderation. And the Lord has chosen the fermented wine would be the symbol of his blood. It would be the blood of the New Covenant, a drink of celebration and joy to replace the blood of the sacrifice.

Psalms 104:15 And wine that makes glad the heart of man,... ...and bread which strengthens man's heart.

Because the Lord's Supper is repeated and because we're taught in Hebrews that we do not repeat the shedding of Christ's blood, He didn't give us a blood sacrifice as in the Passover lamb to celebrate repeatedly to show his death. Because by nature, in the New Covenant the blood has been shed once for all. Now the perfect symbol of that once for all shedding of blood is a drink of joy as wine is depicted in the Old Testament. The joy that we no longer have to shed blood, that we no longer fear the shedding of our own blood, and that we're not going to be held accountable for our sin. Christ is taking it upon himself. What a celebration we have in the Lord's Supper! So many things to meditate upon.

You know, It is really troubling that so many today really do not enjoy celebrating the Lord's Supper on a weekly basis or even more often as we've said earlier from house to house -- that it has become a ritual in churches where we take little tiny cups, not the one cup that Christ gave us, little individual pieces of bread, not the one loaf that Christ gave us. It's passed around as we sit in pews, everyone quiet, no fellowship, staring at the back of one another's heads or staring down into their laps. It's not the meal that we'd see at the Lord's Supper when Christ ate it with his disciples. In that instance there was a meal of fellowship where on display was the love and care that they had for one another. There was the mindfulness that this was a meal that united them and made them one. It's interesting, when you suggest that we have the Lord's Supper on a weekly basis, that so many people respond, "Well, that would make it common." or "It would become ritualistic." or "It would lose it's meaning." Yet we don't hesitate to pass the offering plate every single week. When was the last time they forgot to do that! That doesn't become common. That doesn't lose it's meaning. Would we put the same standard on giving our wife a kiss every day? Hugging our children? Does it become too common when we do those things, when we display our affection? We certainly become very hypocritical when it comes to the Lord's Supper. It seems to me that if the Lord puts such a high standard on how it is celebrated so that He threatens chastening with sickness and death, we should certainly not relegate the Lord's Supper to something that's done only once a month or quarterly or once every six months (or as in some segments of Protestantism, only once a year on Easter). It would seem a very dangerous thing that we do. You know, it's quite possible that a lot of the deadness we have in our churches is directly attributable to the fact that we have neglected the one thing that Christ told us to do in remembrance of him. I would think that those who truly Love Christ would desire to share that meal with others as often as they possibly could. It is probably the primary example of the true worship that Christ talked about in John chapter 4. Worshiping him in Spirit and in Truth.

May I suggest to you that when you desire to worship the Lord together with other believers that sometime you invite another family to your house and after you've shared a meal together, prayed, and shared from the Bible on some aspects on what the Lord's Supper means, share the Lord's Supper with another family. Partake of the blessing of the true worship that Christ has given us as they did when the original fire of the church was lit -- when they broke bread from house to house and they had all things in common. I can testify to the blessing it is. I've done it many times and I can't put into words the meaning, the bonding that it gives to your relationship with other Christians. The fire that it lights in your heart in love for the Lord, the appreciation that it gives you for his death, because indeed it is a meal in which we show the death of the Lord until he comes. It keeps us mindful that we eat this meal until he comes. And our eyes on him waiting expectantly for him to appear and take us home with him. In addition you might suggest to your pastors in your local church that if you are not having the Lord's Supper on a weekly basis now that in order to bring back vitality to your church that you would begin to celebrate it on a weekly basis, at least weekly. Because in truth, the meeting of the church is not the true meeting of scripture if it does not include the Lord's Supper and make it the focus of the meeting. Remember what we saw in Acts chapter 20 that it was their custom to break bread on the first day of the week. In 1 Corinthians 11 they came together to break bread. In Acts chapter 2, they broke bread daily from house to house, and they continued in the fellowship of breaking bread and prayers. We don't hesitate to speak of praying often, it doesn't become too common, let's also not hesitate to celebrate to celebrate the Lord's Supper often. Let's seek to be true worshipers of the Lord. To worship him in the way that he revealed to us to do. After what He has done for us, it wouldn't seem too much to ask! If you really want to know Christ, you will know Him in the breaking of bread!

Luke 24:30-35, "And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread. "

May God the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, prosper you in the power of His resurrection, that you might know Him through obedience to His Word, and by putting away the deeds of the flesh you may further unmask the glory which changes from glory to glory, even the glory of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

Now to God our Savior Who alone is wise, be Glory, Majesty, Dominion and Power, both now and forever. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

"THE ANCIENT PATH" seeks in the spirit of the New Testament letters to Preach the Word and to correct, rebuke and encourage, with patience and careful instruction, the assemblies gathered to Jesus Christ. It ignores denominational divisions and reaches out to all who have ears to hear in these last days. Please do not ask for a doctrinal statement. We have none as we are constantly changing our understanding as we bring ourselves continuously into conformity to what we are learning from God's Word. To conserve resources, we do not distribute hard copies of these articles but make them available on the world wide web. You may download, create and distribute our articles in printed form. We ask that you let us know how you are using them so that we may determine the wisdom and /or effectiveness of continuing this ministry.

If we can be of assistance to you in this manner, or answer questions about the Bible, and this message, please don't hesitate to contact us. We want to do whatever we can to help you.

Copyright (C) 1989-1997 by An Evangelist of Christ All Rights Reserved.
Some portions of Scripture may be taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,
Copyright (C) 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.
Used by permission.
Permission is granted to copy this document
in any form provided that no editing is done
and no charge is made for distribution.