The Lord's Supper Vol. 6.1--- the Saturday Night Thing
About the whole Saturday night thing in the earlier post.
The Churches of Christ have held a long-standing tradition of having the Lord's Supper on Sunday and only on Sunday-- the first day of the week. This arises, as near as I can tell, from the reference in Acts 20:7.
"On the first day of the week, we came together to break bread."
The Bible contains both exclusive and non-exclusive examples and commands. An exclusive command can be seen in Exodus 13:3-10, involving the eating of unleavened bread during the Passover. Verse 6 is a non-exclusive statement about the eating of unleavened bread: "For seven days eat bread without yeast and on the seventh day hold a festival to the Lord." It is non-exclusive because it doesn't rule out leavened bread. The statement becomes exclusive in verse 7: "Eat unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen within your borders."
Acts 20:7 is a non-exclusive example. It doesn't preclude other days. If the text had said "Meet together on the 25th day of the 12th month to give gifts.", would we still feel comfortable giving gifts on Father's day and Mother's day and anniversaries? Probably so. Combine this with the fact that Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper on either Wednesday night or Thursday night (depending on whose references you read), and that the Jewish day began and ended at sundown, not midnight. Also, Acts 2:42-47 might be saying that they broke bread daily in their homes, which is probably a reference to the Lord's Supper.
Since I was very small, I have heard the phrase "Speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent." We just haven't done that very well. In the case of the Lord's Supper, we have taken Acts 20:7 to be exclusive and limiting, and ignored other texts. Should we break bread on Sunday? Absolutely. Should it be exclusively on Sunday? Probably not. If I am with a group and they are convinced it should only be on Sunday, I would never press the issue and weaken their faith, but I believe the Lord's Supper can be taken any time on any day, if we are true to the memory of Jesus and his body when we take it. Our mission team members shared the Lord's "Supper" early each morning on our trip, and drew great strength from it for the day's work. I can only believe the Lord was smiling those mornings as we shared, because he worked marvelous and unbelievable things on that trip.
The Churches of Christ have held a long-standing tradition of having the Lord's Supper on Sunday and only on Sunday-- the first day of the week. This arises, as near as I can tell, from the reference in Acts 20:7.
"On the first day of the week, we came together to break bread."
The Bible contains both exclusive and non-exclusive examples and commands. An exclusive command can be seen in Exodus 13:3-10, involving the eating of unleavened bread during the Passover. Verse 6 is a non-exclusive statement about the eating of unleavened bread: "For seven days eat bread without yeast and on the seventh day hold a festival to the Lord." It is non-exclusive because it doesn't rule out leavened bread. The statement becomes exclusive in verse 7: "Eat unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen within your borders."
Acts 20:7 is a non-exclusive example. It doesn't preclude other days. If the text had said "Meet together on the 25th day of the 12th month to give gifts.", would we still feel comfortable giving gifts on Father's day and Mother's day and anniversaries? Probably so. Combine this with the fact that Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper on either Wednesday night or Thursday night (depending on whose references you read), and that the Jewish day began and ended at sundown, not midnight. Also, Acts 2:42-47 might be saying that they broke bread daily in their homes, which is probably a reference to the Lord's Supper.
Since I was very small, I have heard the phrase "Speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent." We just haven't done that very well. In the case of the Lord's Supper, we have taken Acts 20:7 to be exclusive and limiting, and ignored other texts. Should we break bread on Sunday? Absolutely. Should it be exclusively on Sunday? Probably not. If I am with a group and they are convinced it should only be on Sunday, I would never press the issue and weaken their faith, but I believe the Lord's Supper can be taken any time on any day, if we are true to the memory of Jesus and his body when we take it. Our mission team members shared the Lord's "Supper" early each morning on our trip, and drew great strength from it for the day's work. I can only believe the Lord was smiling those mornings as we shared, because he worked marvelous and unbelievable things on that trip.
posted by G'ampa C @ 5:50 AM
1 Comments:
At 6:13 AM,
Serena Voss said…
Great post! I just stumbled on your blog this morning.
Haven't had much time to blog this year, but maybe later.....
Much aloha,
Serena
Post a Comment
<< Home