Honouring Christ

Posted on by korgrocker

“So anyone who eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup. For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honouring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself. That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died.”
1 Corinthians 11:27-30 NLT

I don’t think people realise how important and significant the Lord’s Supper really is. The Corinthian Christians seemed to think that it was just another opportunity for a fellowship meal, as we read earlier in this chapter. “When you meet together, you are not really interested in the Lord’s Supper. For some of you hurry to eat your own meal without sharing with others. As a result, some go hungry while others get drunk” (1 Corinthians 11:20-21). Paul, therefore, went to great pains to point out to them the error of their ways, and his teaching has been there for all to read ever since. But when was the last time we heard a sermon on the verses we are considering today? In churches today, it is expected that the congregation will know what the Communion service is all about and how it affects them personally. I’m sure many a pastor, knowing what is going on in people’s lives and understanding the issues these same people have shared with them in times of confidence, will despair as they watch the congregation eating the Communion emblems. Paul certainly did, and his warning has to be seriously reflected upon. 

Paul made a connection between judgment, sickness, weakness, and even death for those who fail to honour the body of Christ. Considering the emblems, the cup represents Christ’s blood, and the bread represents His body. The purpose of taking communion is to commemorate and reflect on the sacrificial death of Jesus. To do so without “honouring the body of Christ” brings judgment on the participant. So, to turn it around, by failing to examine ourselves before we share the Lord’s Supper, we effectively insult Christ’s body. To examine ourselves commonly means confessing our sins and receiving forgiveness through God’s grace. In the Corinthian context, perhaps we should include how we treat our fellow believers. There may be sins that we confess that require some remediation, for example, putting things right with someone we know. And this is why it is so important that we pause for a few moments before we take Communion. In some instances, we might find it better not to take Communion at all because of the seriousness of a particular situation in which we find ourselves. But whatever, we need to examine ourselves. 

The Psalmist, David, began Psalm 139 with, “O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me”. So it is no good pretending that God won’t know about something we would rather hide. David continued in the following two verses, “You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do”. As we continue to read this Psalm, we find that there is no escape from God’s gaze, even if we wanted to. This insight is probably one of the reasons why so many people deny the existence of God, because they know the consequences of believing in God, and the impact it will have on their lives of sin. A human being deserves punishment for their sins, but thanks to God’s grace and forgiveness through Jesus, we have a way into His presence.

But perhaps the essence of Psalm 139 is distilled within the last two verses, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life”. This is the self-examination required before we take the Communion emblems, and if God points out anything that needs to be addressed before we proceed, we must be obedient to Him. 

Dear Father God. We understand today the importance of having a right relationship with You, and at our times of Communion we remember what Jesus did for us at Calvary. Please forgive us for the times when our minds have wandered off into irrelevancy instead of focusing on You. Amen.

Holy Communion

Posted on by korgrocker

“For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.” For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again.”
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 NLT

Today’s verses are well known in Christian denominations, the Holy Communion, or Lord’s Supper, being the highlight of a service. The Roman Catholic denomination has a service called “Mass” in which they share in the sacrament of the Eucharist. But regardless of where they worship, all Christians celebrate a time when they remember the Lord’s Last Supper, in accordance with His instructions. Paul’s account in our verses today omits the events that preceded those momentous words of Jesus, while the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) capture the poignant drama of that fateful evening meal. 

There are two facets of the Lord’s Supper that I want to dwell on today. The first is that Jesus said, through Paul’s words, “Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it”. Jesus never intended for His people to delay celebrating this occasion, setting it apart as a special service perhaps four times a year. Some churches make the Lord’s Supper an integral part of their weekly meetings. Others only have such a service at irregular intervals, when someone remembers. But this is a very solemn and important part of a Christian’s life, because when we share the Communion with each other, it brings together the very essence of why we are Christians in the first place. There is the significance of the bread, being shared from, ideally, a single source such as a roll or a loaf, depending on the size of the congregation, and, nevertheless, primarily remembering that Jesus willingly sacrificed His body for us. This then captures the importance of being together in unity and spirit, and in the presence of the Lord. Then we have the cup of wine, which we share, as we remember Jesus’ death, where He shed His blood for the salvation of all who believe in Him. Today, it is sad in a way that we have abandoned the single source of the bread and the shared cup in favour of sanitised alternatives, which even take the form of a small plastic cup with two seals, with a small wafer of something sandwiched between the two and above the container of some form of juice. Where is the oneness in that? But the Lord’s Supper is an act of remembrance, and how we share it must never detract from the importance of Jesus and all that He has done for us. 

Jesus said, “This is my body, which is given for you”. We should note the word “given,” as many services substitute “broken” for it. Jesus was once described by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God (John 1:29), a statement with special significance because of the Passover lamb. We read in Exodus 12:46, “Each Passover lamb must be eaten in one house. Do not carry any of its meat outside, and do not break any of its bones”. John took great care in his Gospel to relate this account of the first Passover lamb with Jesus, in John 19:36: “These things happened in fulfilment of the Scriptures that say, “Not one of his bones will be broken.”” Why so many leaders choose to say, “This is my body, which was broken for you” escapes me. 

The second saying of Jesus was cataclysmic in its impact. The Jews, up to this point, had known only one covenant —the law of Moses. But Jesus came to bring a New Covenant, as we read in Matthew 26:26-27, “And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many”—the meaning of this we will consider on another day.

For pilgrims everywhere, the Last Supper is a time of remembrance, preparing our hearts through the confession of our sins and reminding us of the relationship between Christians both inside and outside our churches and fellowships. But above all, we remember all that Jesus did for us at Calvary. He died in our place, taking on Himself the punishment we deserved to redeem us from our lives of sin. And now we can stand before Father God wearing a cloak of righteousness given to us by Jesus. This is such an amazingly loving act that we can never forget it. Ever.

Dear Lord Jesus. How can we ever forget Your ultimate sacrifice at Calvary, where You died for us. We are so grateful and look forward to the time when we can join you in Heaven. Amen.

Sharing a Meal

Posted on by korgrocker

“When you meet together, you are not really interested in the Lord’s Supper. For some of you hurry to eat your own meal without sharing with others. As a result, some go hungry while others get drunk. What? Don’t you have your own homes for eating and drinking? Or do you really want to disgrace God’s church and shame the poor? What am I supposed to say? Do you want me to praise you? Well, I certainly will not praise you for this!”
1 Corinthians 11:20-22 NLT

It is evident from the verses we are considering today that the Corinthian church celebrated the Lord’s Supper by sharing a meal. It seems that everyone brought their own food and drink, which they then consumed themselves rather than sharing it with those who had little food to bring. So the wealthier members of the church had a party and got drunk, and the poorer members just looked on. Paul was distraught by these reports because not only was the church being brought into disrepute, but the church members, in the process, had missed the whole point of the Lord’s Supper. Paul was quite forthright in what he said – “Do you really want to disgrace God’s church and shame the poor?”

In the Matthew 26 account of the first Lord’s Supper, we find that it happened “On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread”. The Jewish festival of Unleavened Bread, also known as Passover, commemorates the Israelites’ hasty departure from Egypt. For seven days, starting the day after Passover, observant Jews eat unleavened bread and avoid all leavened products to remember their ancestors’ leaving slavery without time for their dough to rise. In the account, we read that the disciples followed Jesus’ instructions to find somewhere to share the Passover meal, where “ … the disciples did as Jesus told them and prepared the Passover meal there” (Matthew 26:19). Regarding the sharing of the emblems, we read, “As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take this and eat it, for this is my body.” And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it” (Matthew 26:26-27). And in that simple act of dividing up the bread and passing around a cup of wine, the Lord’s Supper was celebrated.

It is unclear how the Corinthians celebrated the Last Supper with a shared meal, but this was a very different way from the one we have adopted in most churches today, where the Communion service is mainly symbolic. But having said that, I can remember an especially significant Communion service which we held in the church I was attending. It was a mid-week get-together, and we each brought an item of food to share as a snack lunch. But after we had finished, we noticed a bottle of unopened grape drink and some bread rolls. It was then that we spontaneously shared some pieces of the rolls and a cup of grape juice to celebrate the Lord’s Body and Blood. We then continued in a time of prayer that was quite special. Sharing and remembering, the very point of the Lord’s Supper.

Dear Lord Jesus. We thank You for giving us an occasion when we can remember You and all that You did for us at Calvary. Once again, we remember the importance of why and how You celebrated that Last Supper. We worship You today. Amen. 

Doctrinal Arguments

Posted on by korgrocker

“Judge for yourselves. Is it right for a woman to pray to God in public without covering her head? Isn’t it obvious that it’s disgraceful for a man to have long hair? And isn’t long hair a woman’s pride and joy? For it has been given to her as a covering. But if anyone wants to argue about this, I simply say that we have no other custom than this, and neither do God’s other churches.”
1 Corinthians 11:13-16 NLT

Paul writes his final words about the head covering debate, pre-empting an argument and further discussion about the right and wrongs of such an instruction. Why did Paul not just provide written instructions, commandments perhaps, instead of the previous eleven verses in 1 Corinthians 11? Some people seem to need dogmatic and clear guidance in their Christian lives because anything else just confuses them. But instead Paul has been round the houses providing the reasons for why men should not wear a hat when they pray, and women should cover their heads to show that they are under a man’s authority. 

In what we refer to as a non-conformist church, few restrictions are considered “doctrinal” but the Anglican and Catholic Churches have many, and over the years people have tended to get very upset if they are violated. Taking the Anglican Church as an example, doctrinal arguments involve differing views on topics like the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy, the nature of sacraments, and the authority of Scripture versus tradition. These debates are often centred around a tension between the emphasis on tradition and reason, versus the Scriptures and the need for contextual interpretation. Contemporary disputes include the role of same-sex relationships, the authority of bishops, female roles, and the relationship between different parts of the Anglican Communion. Other arguments emerge over customs such as baptism. The Scriptures are clear that a believer’s baptism is by full immersion in water, supported by verses such as Matthew 28:19, “Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit”. How baptism is carried out can be found in Mark 1:9-10, “One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and John baptised him in the Jordan River. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove”. However, the Anglicans will sprinkle a few drops of “holy” water over a baby’s head, something not supported in the Bible. I can remember my sister being puzzled when I informed her that I was getting baptised by full immersion in the Pentecostal church where I came to know Jesus, because she said that I had already been baptised when I was an infant, showing her ignorance of what the Scriptures say. In the past, when I have challenged the reason for such customs, the main response has been “We have always done it that way”, with no reference to why and supporting Scriptures.

Paul was perhaps correct in his teaching about head coverings, because in the process he laid down theology that made sense. A wise pastor will from time to time teach the church members about theology and the beliefs of the church denomination or movement of which they belong, reviewing such customs as the Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion) by referring to the verses that support them. In the end, doctrines have to be supported by what is written in the Bible, but that still leaves a few customs that are not, and we must review why we do them. There is no place for following a ritual in our worship of God. But we must remember that what matters to God is not adherence to religious laws, customs and doctrines. Pharisees do that. It is what is in a person’s heart that really matters.

Dear Lord Jesus. You went to Calvary to set people free from their sins. That freedom provides us with the opportunity to worship You in a way that is heart-felt and real, giving You all the glory and all the praise. We bow before You in worship today, respecting Your place as God over all. Amen.

Unity?

Posted on by korgrocker

So, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. You are reasonable people. Decide for yourselves if what I am saying is true. When we bless the cup at the Lord’s Table, aren’t we sharing in the blood of Christ? And when we break the bread, aren’t we sharing in the body of Christ? And though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body. Think about the people of Israel. Weren’t they united by eating the sacrifices at the altar?”
1 Corinthians 10:14-18 NLT

Paul wrote, “though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body”. There are several different ways of sharing the Lord’s Supper. In Corinth, they started with a single loaf of bread, and each communicant took some of it as it was passed around the church. In many churches today, the sacraments are contained in a small plastic cup, with the liquid sealed and then a wafer sealed on top, a modern solution to the potential transmission of diseases such as Covid. Anglican churches have a special mass or Holy Communion service that involves a cup of wine and a plate containing wafers. But in it all, there is the sacrament of sharing in the body and blood of Christ, in memory of all that Jesus did for us.

To the Corinthians, Paul asked a question designed to focus their minds on the implications of sharing from the same loaf of bread. Surely, he was saying, this act of unity should be outworked in their relations with each other as they sensitively avoided any behaviour or belief that would upset their fellowship. Paul wrote to the Philippians the following: “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too” (Philippians 2:3-4). Jesus said to His disciples, “This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-13). And to the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose” (1 Corinthians 1:10). 

Today, there are many facets of the Christian church. As I write, the appointee for the post of Archbishop of Canterbury has just been announced —a woman from the more liberal wing of the Anglican Church. This is likely to be an appointment that will be divisive rather than inclusive, and we can expect, sooner or later, to see a schism emerge between the liberal and traditional wings of the Church of England. However, we also have various denominations and movements, each representing distinct biblical positions and interpretations. Unity in the church? We are far from it. Unity in our churches and fellowships? In many cases, that is not so apparent either. How God must grieve sometimes. 

We pilgrims carry a message of hope and reconciliation, which we share with those both inside and outside our churches. Human nature is full of its egos and sensitivities, and this is sadly very apparent in our churches. Worldly behaviour is so often brought inside our church doors, and this disrupts and distorts the true reason for why we are there. Church unity, I’m afraid, starts with us, and our example in sharing the love of Jesus with those around us. We are all at different stages in our Christian journeys, and our fellow believers often carry heavy burdens, such as health problems, financial worries, and so on. And yet we are commanded to love one another, with all that that entails. So we look out for one another and bless them as we are able, in the name of Jesus. We pray for them, we help them practically, we weep with them, and we laugh with them. And we graciously accept the love shown to us by others when we, too, struggle with our own issues. A fellowship of believers living in the “sweet spot” of Jesus’ love is a fellowship that will grow, both numerically and individually. 

Dear Father God. We are Your children, and our squabbling and lack of unity saddens You greatly. Please help us get this right, because one day we may spend eternity with the very people we lived with on earth. We ask this in the name of Your Son, Jesus. Amen.

Reasonable People

Posted on by korgrocker

So, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. You are reasonable people. Decide for yourselves if what I am saying is true. When we bless the cup at the Lord’s Table, aren’t we sharing in the blood of Christ? And when we break the bread, aren’t we sharing in the body of Christ? And though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body. Think about the people of Israel. Weren’t they united by eating the sacrifices at the altar?”
1 Corinthians 10:14-18 NLT

Paul summed up much of what he had been saying with the exhortation to “flee from the worship of idols”. It is worth mentioning what an idol is – it is anything that is worshipped in place of God, and it has a much further reach than statues or figurines. Idol worship won’t necessarily involve bowing with prayers and the like. In Paul’s day, it also included certain practices, such as sexual activity with a prostitute and eating meals with other worshippers. Today, idol worship is still with us, focused on activities, people or objects, any of which can be a problem if they get in the way of the true worship of God. 

Paul continued with an appeal to the Corinthian believers, based on his assessment that they were “reasonable people”. Such a person had the rational and mental ability to follow a line of logic in questions that Paul then put to the believers. If we read the previous chapters, we find that issues had emerged around idols, meals, and sexual morality, and the believers in Corinth had adopted sinful practices based on a false understanding of God’s grace and what He expected of them in their Christian walk. Having addressed these issues, Paul then appealed to these “reasonable people” with several questions. He started by doing what all good pastors do – he pointed the people to Christ. The Corinthians obviously were familiar with the sacrament of sharing in the blood and body of Christ at the Lord’s Table. So his first question was simple: when they blessed the cup containing the communion wine and then drank from it, were they not sharing in Christ’s blood? Similarly, when they each took some bread off a single loaf, were they not sharing in Christ’s body when they ate it? 

In a subtle way, Paul introduced the concept of unity between believers. Individual believers might have thought that through the grace of God, what other believers thought of them and their behaviour didn’t really matter. But through the lens of Holy Communion, everything changed. By sharing in the sacrament at the Lord’s Table, they were united, one with another. Such a logic, Paul thought, would surely resonate with these “reasonable people”, meaning that they would set aside their marginally divisive but sinful practices and instead prefer one another in their lives of fellowship. Paul wrote to another fellowship of believers in Galatians 3:28, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus”. 

So, for us pilgrims, the Christian life is not to be lived alone. It is, of course, possible to be a Christian without attending any church or fellowship. But, of course, by implication, such a Christian is still part of Christ’s body, and even if they are involved in some sinful practice, God will see what is going on and will be grieved by such behaviour. Being present in a fellowship of believers is an essential requirement for a Christian, whenever possible. There, we believers are accountable to one another in Christ, something that we of course understand because we are “reasonable people”. 

Dear Heavenly Father. Thank You for the unity we believers have with one another, through Your wonderful Son, Jesus. We praise and worship You today. Amen.

True Righteousness

Posted on by korgrocker

“Now, is this blessing only for the Jews, or is it also for uncircumcised Gentiles? Well, we have been saying that Abraham was counted as righteous by God because of his faith. But how did this happen? Was he counted as righteous only after he was circumcised, or was it before he was circumcised? Clearly, God accepted Abraham before he was circumcised! Circumcision was a sign that Abraham already had faith and that God had already accepted him and declared him to be righteous—even before he was circumcised. So Abraham is the spiritual father of those who have faith but have not been circumcised. They are counted as righteous because of their faith. And Abraham is also the spiritual father of those who have been circumcised, but only if they have the same kind of faith Abraham had before he was circumcised.”
Romans 4:9-12 NLT

Paul continues his logical analysis, designed to expose and debunk the feelings of superiority that the Jews in Rome were obviously suffering from. He challenged them with the thought that God considered that Abraham was righteous, not because he had been circumcised, but because of his faith. We read in Genesis 15:6, “And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.” But then some time later, we read in Genesis 17, that Abraham and his household were circumcised under the terms of the covenant God made with him. 

Paul set out a powerful argument that opened the door for all uncircumcised people to be capable of righteousness before God. We considered earlier the verse at the end of Romans 2, “No, a true Jew is one whose heart is right with God. And true circumcision is not merely obeying the letter of the law; rather, it is a change of heart produced by the Spirit. And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people” (Romans 2:29). Righteousness before God is a matter of our hearts. In Deuteronomy 30:6, we read, “The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live”. 

The Jews of Paul’s days were fixated on the thought that they were in a right place before God because they had been circumcised. Once again Paul reminded them that this was not necessarily the case. We pilgrims might claim that such a belief in an outward act would never apply to us. But it is possible for Christians to delude themselves, to end up in wrong thinking, replacing a heart relationship with God with something else outward and remote. I’m thinking about the liturgies and rituals we go through in practising our religion. One of them that comes to mind is the Anglican communion service, where the especially manufactured wafers and the communion wine are blessed and sanctified by the priest, and people then solemnly and individually take the sacraments. There’s nothing wrong in any of that but what about our hearts? I remember a time in such a service where two young men in the seats behind me were discussing the local football match as the priest was going through his ritual. They then proceeded to take the sacraments when they were available. What about their hearts? One of the most precious times I remember was at the end of a fellowship meal when there was some grape juice and bread left over. We spontaneously shared communion together. Jesus never said it was only the Anglican priest who could make the sacraments available. He said instead that we should remember Him through the sharing of the bread and the wine. About the bread, Jesus said, “… Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me”” (1 Corinthians 11:24). In the following verse, Jesus said, through Paul, “In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.””

Once again, we remind ourselves that righteousness starts with the states of our hearts. Do we believe in Jesus, in all that He has done for us, and the only way to God is through Him? Do we believe through faith that He died for us so that our sins were forgiven? Of course we do, but perhaps the Jews that Paul wrote to in Rome were a bit arrogant and confused. After they had read Paul’s letter they would have had no doubts about the source of true righteousness.

Dear Lord Jesus. We really do remember You, our wonderful Saviour. We worship You today with grateful hearts. Amen.