Breaking the Bread and Drinking the Cup of the New Covenant in Jesus' Blood
"Unless you eat my flesh drink my blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:53-54
Click the explanation you want now, of why and how Jesus wants us to remember His sacrificial death and participate in His body and blood.
A. Break Bread Together Often
B. Glorify Jesus by Remembering His Sacrificial Death the Way He Said to Do
C. Avoid a Purely Rationalistic View of Communion
D. Let God Work Through the Lord’s Supper to Make It Truly Holy Communion
E. Practice All Vital Elements of Worship
F. Celebrate Sacred Seasons and Holidays
07A. Break Bread Together Often
Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 7.
The purpose of this chapter is to explain our Lord Jesus' command to break the bread and drink the cup of the New Covenant in His blood.
Jesus said, "Unless you eat my flesh drink my blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:53-54.
1 Corinthians 10:16-17 says that we participate in Christ's body and blood as we celebrate the Lord's Supper.
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body."
Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." Matthew 26:26-28 (NIV)
Mr. 'Traditionalist' complains, "Those believers are too new to break bread. They’ll assume it’s magic or something!"
Mr. 'Foresight' corrects him, "It is more important that they obey Jesus than have perfect understanding at this time. They don’t need wise scholars to see that God’s work is not superstitious magic! Be careful about warning them too much against over-emphasizing the mystery. Do you want them to take a purely rationalistic view that throws God out altogether? That would be far worse!"
Find the importance Jesus attached to our participation in His body and blood:
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."
He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. who can accept it?" Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before? The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are life." John 6:51-63 (NIV)
Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 (NIV)
Find in Acts 2:41-46 where the new believers in the first New Testament church broke bread:
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts. (NIV)
Find in 1 Corinthians 11:27-34 why God punished the Corinthians who failed to discern and respect the mystical presence of the body of Christ:
Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world. (NIV)
Find in Acts 20:6-7 how often the new churches broke bread:
But we sailed from Philippi after the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and five days later joined the others at Troas, where we stayed seven days. On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. (NIV)
07B. Glorify Jesus by Remembering His Sacrificial Death as He Said to Do
Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 7.
Regularly celebrating the Lord’s Supper helps keep a church body healthy and disciplined. In new fields where inexperienced workers lead tiny churches in homes. It also makes their worship more serious and authentic.
Patterson struggled to enable new churches to benefit from the Lord’s Supper:
At first, our new churches in Honduras seldom celebrated the Lord’s Supper; they did so only when a missionary or ordained pastor was present. Thus they missed God’s fullest blessing, because they disregarded Jesus’ command about breaking bread. Conscious of this shortcoming, they did not take their church and its worship very seriously, because they felt that they were second rate Christians. So we adapted ordination requirements to the culture, authorizing new elders in our pastoral training program to officiate the Lord’s Supper, under the authority of more experienced pastors. We asked only that they meet biblical requirements for a pastor, nothing more.
Some of the leaders of our national association rushed to our area for an emergency session. They voted not to recognize the lay pastor’s licenses that we gave to biblically qualified elders. They prohibited these men from serving the Lord’s Supper. When one lay pastor stood to defend his pastoral role, tears filled his eyes and he could not speak. He then took his lay pastor’s license from his pocket, tore it up, threw it on the floor, and walked out of the meeting, crushed.
I determined that it would never happen again. We met again with our workers and affirmed in prayer that we would obey Jesus and break bread in spite of the ruling of our national association of churches. Our churches continued to obey Jesus’ command: "Do this in remembrance of me". Some used a free and spontaneous style in breaking bread; others kept part of the classic liturgy. All took it seriously. I rejoiced to see them discover profound communion with God and the presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper.
Please think and pray for a moment concerning how you and your coworkers are making it possible for any leader who meets God's biblical requirements to serve as a shepherding elder, to do so. Ask for courage to do away with any man-made requirement that keeps such leaders from serving as God wants them to.
07C. Avoid a Purely Rationalistic View of Communion
Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 7.
Some evangelicals, in their zeal to avoid any association with the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation that says the bread and wine become the physical body and blood of Christ, disallow any supernatural work. They leave God out entirely; they permit no mystery of any kind.
The mystery of communion is the invisible work of the Holy Spirit. The miracle is His transforming work in us, the church body. There would be no benefit in transforming inert pieces of bread! The Holy Spirit strengthens our unity with Christ and his Body as we partake worthily of the bread and cup. Out of respect for Christ’s body we should examine ourselves first, as Paul directed, and confess our sins to God.
Some churches in new fields neglect the Lord’s Supper, because, for whatever reason, their missionaries fear letting new Christians obey Jesus by "breaking bread." Contrary to Scripture, they start a "preaching point" and provide a long time of doctrinal preparation before new believers are allowed to obey Jesus. This fear—whether fear of too much emphasis on the sacraments or too little—breeds human rules, limitations and rationalistic definitions that weaken the celebration of communion. Other churches fail to obey Christ because they lack clergy who have been approved to lead the ceremony. Others, with roots in rationalistic cultures, neglect it because, having denied any supernatural work by the Holy Spirit in the Lord’s Supper, they see little value in it. They fear that the people will take a medieval, magical view still held by traditional Catholics. Satan uses these fears to prevent their obedience.
Among Evangelicals there are two common views of the Lord's Supper:
Unfortunately some missionaries, fearing they will offend one or the other of these parties, simply avoid the sacrament.
Fear is contagious. Can we trust the Holy Spirit to illumine the minds of believers as they prayerfully examine what God says about the Lord’s Supper in John 6:26-69 and 1 Corinthians 10:16-17; 11:23-34. Or must we give them reactionary formulas that often appeal to philosophical explanations of symbol and sacrament, rather than to God’s Word?
If you have been a victim of rationalistic Western thinking, please take a moment now to ask God to free you from this bondage, and to embrace the mystery of participating in the body and blood of our Savior in His sacred supper.
07D. Let God Work through the Lord’s Supper to Make It Truly Holy Communion
Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 7.
Some Christians need to learn to keep quiet and let the bread and cup do the speaking, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us not turn this most sacred ceremony into merely another teaching time! If believers seldom shed tears of repentance or joy during the Lord’s supper, it is because we are not letting God make his intended impact. Jesus ordained communion for us to remember His sacrifice and our oneness with Him, and thereby to encounter his presence in a stirring, edifying way. He enables us through our physical senses to recall our sins and his blood that was shed to forgive them.
Patterson found that he had to escape from his own prejudices against "liturgy":
I winced when a poorly educated village pastor handed to each person for Communion a full glass and a whole tortilla, without the usual admonitions and explanations. "I shall have to straighten him out," I thought. The people slowly took small bites of the tortilla and sips from the glass. They lingered, holding the glass as though it contained priceless diamonds, eyes closed in meditation. I squirmed, fearing that it would take forever. These poor, illiterate peasants! Then I noticed the tears. I had never seen such a united, contrite spirit around the Lord’s Table! Everyone was in rapt communion with Christ—except me. What had I missed?
I returned home humbled and prayed as I looked again at what the apostles taught. Like many whose churches avoid the word "sacrament", I felt uneasy when someone expressed anything mystical, for I feared that superstition would distort the ceremony instituted by Christ. But was it not I with my rationalistic background, who was in the greater danger of resisting the supernatural work of God? Define the mystery in human terms and you kill it.
I compared churches in Honduras that enjoyed the mystery of the Lord’s Supper with those that neglected it or resisted anything supernatural. Worship was definitely richer in churches that celebrated the drama of communion and embraced its mystery.
Long after the Protestant Reformation even non-liturgical churches kept the table for the Lord’s Supper in the central position in the front of the sanctuary, and some had a kneeling rail at which they served it. The pulpit was off to one side. During the last two centuries, with the rise in education and the growing need to correct false doctrine, many churches gave the central position to the pulpit. The altar shifted to a lower position, with flowers on it three out of four Sundays. Now contemporary churches have no pulpit at all, and the worship team is the center of focus during the praise time. In contrast, I have found that for new churches on new fields with new workers, regular celebration of the Lord’s Supper improves church discipline, deepens the worship, and keeps everyone focused on the central theme—Christ.
How often should a church celebrate the Lord’s Supper? Liturgical churches normally celebrate it the first day of the week, as in Acts 20:7. Virtually all churches for at least three centuries after the Reformation celebrated it as the high point of weekly worship. Churches in new fields without experienced preachers and worship leaders will do well to celebrate it weekly to ensure that the people experience serious, edifying worship and encounter God together as a body.
Please consider for a moment how celebrating Communion can deepen the worship of your church--or the churches of those you train--and strengthen discipline and fellowship.
07E. Practice All Vital Elements of Worship
Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 7.
Missionaries to new fields must practice small group worship. For this they need to discern the essential elements of group worship:
House churches or cells should have a definite beginning and end for the worship time. Let the people know the moment when the living room in a private home becomes a sacred sanctuary, and also when it becomes an ordinary room again.
These elements of worship take on various external forms. For example, Praise may be sung, read from the Psalms or a liturgical manual, chanted, prayed, dramatized, shouted or meditated in silence, standing or lying facedown. God accepts all such forms as long as they come from our heart.
The elements of worship may be combined. For example, we might do three of them at once by reading the Word as a prayer to praise the Lord. Many of the Psalms combine several elements.
A new church in a new field must set apart a definite, regular time for serious worship, especially if it meets in a home with only a handful of members. Here is how Patterson discovered the importance of countering the informality of a private home:
When meeting in a home that lacked the worship atmosphere of a chapel, we wanted to convert the room into a temporary sanctuary. It helped to have a definite beginning and ending for the worship. Often we started with a call to worship during which we stood while someone invoked the Lord’s presence and blessing. Sometimes we stood in a circle while the hostess brought the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper and placed them in the center. It helped to arrange the chairs in a circle. Sometimes we started in a home with only three or four new believers for several weeks before inviting the public, to make sure that the new leader could direct things with confidence when visitors arrived. On occasion, only one or two new believers and I were present when a church in embryo first met to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.
07F. Celebrate Sacred Seasons and Holidays
Cited from Church Multiplication Guide, Patterson and Scoggins, William Carey Library, Pasadena, chapter 7.
Liturgical churches follow a church calendar that provides for a variety of teaching, celebration and use of symbols. Non-liturgical churches sometimes rob the children of a blessing and powerful teaching tool by neglecting the sacred seasons. Often adults also receive Christ more readily or make serious commitments during Advent (the fourth Sunday before Christmas until Christmas), Lent (the 40 weekdays before Easter) and Easter. National holidays also offer occasions for special celebrations. We should keep an eye on the church year with its seasons, as well as national holidays, for opportunities to edify people.
Both the Old and New Testaments affirm seasonal celebrations. We should not over-react in an effort to avoid too much emphasis on non-biblical holy days, by unnecessarily emptying our calendar of valuable seasonal celebrations, especially in cultures with Roman Catholic or Orthodox backgrounds.
Some legalistic churches avoid happy celebrations, because they hold expressions of joy in suspicion. Most people are repulsed by unnatural asceticism. Our Lord took the Jewish festivals seriously and enjoyed happy celebrations. The legalists sneered at Him for being a partygoer and for drinking wine. Those with mature faith have reverent and sober moments as well as times of joyful celebration on earth as in heaven.
Some churches enhance special occasions with feasts, like when a new church begins or when a new member is brought into the church body. Weddings and anniversaries of key dates in the life of the churches or their members also offer occasions for celebration.
Please take a moment now to plan how you and your coworkers will enable your people to celebrate sacred days and seasons in a way that honors God and edifies His people.