Feature


How to Come to the Lord’s Table


By Andy Webb I


 the disorders in their practice of the Lord’s Supper and how they had taken a meal that was essentially supposed to show their communion with one another and how they had made it a source of discord and disunity. They were so abusing the sacrament of the Lord that it ceased to be a blessing to them and instead it had become a curse. Corinthians coming to the Lord’s table would arise from that table angry at one another as often as not, some of them having been shamed, others having disgraced themselves through glut- tony and drunkenness. What were they doing? They were partaking of the Lord’s Supper in an un-


worthy fashion. Their Lord’s table manners, were abominable and openly re- pudiated the sacred principles that the Lord’s Supper was designed to convey. Whether or not they were unbelievers, they were eating and drinking in an un- believing fashion that repudiated their profession of faith. They would not have been doing anything substantially worse if they had been sleeping through the preaching of the Gospel or perhaps even actively heckling the preacher. What Paul does in response to these problems is to proclaim to them what


the Lord’s Supper really is, and then he tells them in no uncertain terms who should be coming to it and in what manner.


What is the Lord’s Supper?


Before we begin to examine the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:23-34, it may help to have a summary of what he says about the supper before us and I can give no better summary than that of Thomas Watson who wrote the follow- ing in answer to the question “What is the Lord’s Supper?”:


26 “It is a visible sermon, wherein Christ


         -              and wine, our communion with Christ       a sacrament divinely instituted, wherein by giving and receiving bread and wine,            -  ” Turning back to 1 Corinthians 11


- minding them of what are called the Words of Institution. As an interest- ing aside this record of the institution of the Lord’s Supper came before the writing of the Gospels, so this is prob-        Lord’s Supper in the Bible.


Paul tells the Corinthians that


his instructions regarding the way they were to practice the supper was what the Lord had given to him. He


The Associate Reformed Presbyterian


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