Introduction
Can we talk about the Lord’s Supper? I ask because worship is an area undergoing experimentation and change today, and established patterns are being challenged. This is a timely discussion because the Lord’s Supper exists in the context of worship, and its value and place ought to be reexamined along with the larger topic of worship.
These chapters centered around the Lord’s Supper are intended to condition our thinking about it by examining our vocabulary for it. The purpose is to have a better understanding of its value and place as a part of our worship. Our vocabulary, the words we have for something, not only affect our ability to talk about it, but also to think about it, which affects our understanding of it, and ultimately the value we give to it.
For example, someone once said that Eskimos have about 39 different words for snow. Which makes sense because when you live in the land of the midnight sun in the midst of ice and cold, snow is pretty important. But how many words do a people living in an equatorial jungle need for snow?
Every skilled occupation has its own vocabulary, as does every branch of science. This principle holds true for every soldier, sailor, butcher, baker, or rocket ship maker. This principle especially holds true for the Christian. One of the most important jobs pastors have is to teach their flocks the language of salvation. These chapters are about the language of worship and the Lord’s Supper.
Most of us agree that the Lord’s Supper is important. But how large is our vocabulary for it? How many words do we have for it? A reexamination of our vocabulary of the Lord’s Supper will bring out various aspects of it and how those aspects relate to, and affect not only our worship, but our walk with the Lord.
The heart of this set of studies is about aspects of the Lord’s Supper such as obedience, remembrance and memorial, proclamation of the Gospel, profession and confession of our faith, self examination, communion, thanksgiving, sacrifice, celebration, and anticipation of the Lord’s return. Study of these aspects of the Lord’s Supper will make its value and place apparent.
We will find that the God intends to foster a devotion of great purity and power to the Lord Jesus Christ so that He might have the preeminence in all things. The Lord’s Supper has its value and place in this plan, its own reason and season, which is to direct our worship to Jesus. We don’t want to make too much of this celebration, but overall we have made too little of it.
©FH 2012
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