November 26, 2009

• notes on "House Church", chapter 2

  "House Church", by Steve Atkerson et al, notes on Chapter 2...  Your thoughts and comments in reply are welcome...

   

  Chapter 2  - The Lord's Supper

  p.32 They state their point that the Lord's supper is to be a joyful occasion (more focused on the Lord's coming and heaven than on quiet/somber remembering His past death for us), that it is to be a full meal, not just a token.

  p.35 They look at 1 Cor. 11.  I certainly agree that the Corinthians were eating a full meal, but the question is what Paul was criticizing.  He was very critical of the way they were partaking of the Lord's supper.  But was the problem that they were treating the supper as primarily a MEAL to satisfy their physical hunger?  Or was the problem that they were not waiting for each other, some eating first so there was no food left?   Here's the passage:
  --
   20Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper,
  21for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk.
  22What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you.
  23For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread;
  24and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
  25In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."
  26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes.
  27Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.
  28But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
  29For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.
  30For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep.
  31But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.
  32But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.
  33So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
  34If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that you will not come together for judgment The remaining matters I will arrange when I come.
  --
  They contend that it's the second interpretation that's correct.  I can just barely agree with them, but I'm not 100% convinced.

  p. 36 They claim that the Greek of Luke 22:19 means "Do this to remind Me" rather than "Do this in remembrance of Me".  Wow, that is a huge change of meaning.  They talk about other times in the Bible that people 'remind God' of His promises, and I'm with them there.  There's no problem with that.  For example, John at the end of Revelation asks Jesus "please come quickly", after Jesus had just told John that He would be coming quickly. Habakkuk, Isaiah, David, etc. The only question is what this Luke passage is truly saying. Here's Luke 22:
  --
   14When the hour had come, He reclined at the table, and the apostles with Him.
  15And He said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;
  16for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God."
  17And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He said, "Take this and share it among yourselves;
  18for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes."
  19And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me."  [OR.. "do this to remind Me."]
  20And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.
  --
  You can also check out the Greek at Blue Letter Bible http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Luk&c=22&v=1&t=KJV#conc/19
  I am honestly not sure about this one.  I tend to doubt that some German theologian 'Joachim Jeremias' has suddenly come up with the "right" interpretation that the rest of the church has been missing for all these centuries, but it is conceivable.  As far as I can tell, the Greek could be translated either way.  Either meaning makes Biblical sense also.  I still tend to lean slightly toward the traditional interp, as follows:  The original Passover seemed to have been instituted primarily as a reminder to the Israelites, and only secondarily as a "reminder to God" (that the Redeemer was coming).  Everything about the context and later explanation of the Lord's Supper points toward the fact that Jesus was taking off on the Passover to make a new ritual that would be the perfect reminder to His followers of His death in fulfillment of the old covenant and His establishment of the new covenant.  I'm fine with the notion that we "remind God" so-to-speak every time we take the Lord's supper, but since the rest of the NT seems to focus more on the reminder to us humans, that makes the traditional interpretation of this verse seem more sensible to me.  E.g. 1 Cor 11:26 "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes."

  p. 38 They complain that the modern eating cracker fragments and drinking from little individual plastic cups destroys the picture / analogy of the one loaf--one body analogy of 1 Cor 10:16-17 - "Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread."  They're probably right that the analogy breaks down at that point... but surely it already had broken down at the point of yon house church across town eating from a different loaf of bread than the current house church, yes?    Also they skip over the question of sanitation / germs passed from person to person through all that saliva on the passed cup...

  p. 38/39 They discuss one purpose of the Lord's supper as "creating unity" -- i.e. I think, reminding people that they are all "one" in Christ Jesus - there is no rich/poor, slave/free, male/female distinction of worth or value any more.  This is good.

  p. 40 - They point out that contemporarily participation in the Lord's Supper looks more like a funeral than a wedding feast, as soft mournful music plays on the organ, the ushers look like pallbearers, etc.  However, what about Paul's statements that "let a man examine himself, and so let him eat"... and his strong warnings about eating unworthily/unexamined-ly...  Certainly the reason for the modern atmosphere is that people are indeed remembering Jesus' death ("proclaiming the Lord's death until He comes") and taking some time to examine their hearts before eating.  Would not loud laughter and jubilant conversation feel out of place at someone's funeral?  Did Jesus mean for the Lord's supper to be mostly remembrance of the past, or mostly anticipation of the future?  Most contemporary churches say the former, Atkerson and colleagues say the latter.  What does the Bible say?  Your comments are welcome.  Certainly we're to be "rejoicing in the Lord always"(Phil 4)... and fixing our hope on His coming (1 Peter 1) but don't the few passages that specifically talk about the Lord's supper seem more solemn and remembrance-oriented?  (1 Cor 11, Luke 22, etc)   If Jesus wanted the Lord's supper to focus on His return rather than His death, why didn't He say so specifically?  Instead, He and Paul seem to put the emphasis on Jesus' death....  yes?

  p. 40 They make the point that the supper was celebrated weekly in the NT.  Makes sense to me.

  p. 42 They give some nice practical considerations for church meals.

  p. 43 They suggest that unbelieving visitors can partake of the Lord's Supper with no problem, as the warnings of 1 Cor 11 only apply to believers.   ???  Where do they get that from?  If I were responsible for explaining the Lord's supper to unbelievers, after reading 1 Cor 11, I think I'd recommend that they not participate in that symbolic act that says "I have been saved by Jesus Christ - I am a participant in His body and blood."....
  In summary, I share their queasyness at the prepackaged/assemblyline version of the 'token' Lord's supper and I think that most churches don't fellowship together over meals often enough.  However, I am still pondering whether their contention is correct that the Lord's supper should be a boisterous occasion focused on His return rather than a solemn remembrance of the price He paid for us.  Perhaps both could be incorporated... A time of solemn reflection followed by a time of more anticipatory participation....  Overall, I think their vision of weekly church meals with the intentional inclusion of the "ceremonial"/cultic part of the Lord's Supper is a good vision.

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