Baptists and The Lord's Supper

There is an interesting post and subsequent conversation by Dr. Jim Hamilton filling in for Dr. Russell Moore on Dr. Moore's blog. The topic is “One More Attempt to Stir the Pot: How Often Should a Church Take the Lord’s Supper?” and Dr. Hamilton takes Baptist churches to task for failing to observe the Lord’s Supper with enough frequency…

What difference does that make to us today?

Well, the whole point of being a Baptist is being biblical. We Baptists aren’t Baptists because our parents were Baptists, because we think Baptist culture is superior to all others, or because we think identifying ourselves as Baptists will improve our standing in society. We’re Baptists (or should be) because we think that being Baptist is the most biblical way of being the church. That is, we claim that the structure and practices of our churches is closer to the pattern we see in the New Testament than any other (or should be).

This means, I think, that if we become convinced that the earliest church took the Lord’s supper every Lord’s day—and if this was so widespread that when Paul and Luke are traveling from one place to another, they know that if they find a church gathered on the Lord’s day that church will have gathered to break bread—if we become convinced that the earliest church in every place took the Lord’s supper every Lord’s day, we will want to do the same.

That gets right at the heart of the problem in the SBC: the conservatives won the battle for the inerrancy of Scripture but, as Paul Washer rightly points out, that was only half the battle. The other half of the battle, the sufficiency of the Scriptures, died without so much as a whimper in many parts of the SBC (not everywhere as men like Al Mohler, Paul Washer, Voddie Baucham, Tom Ascol and others demonstrate).

While the blog post itself is interesting (it comes from a Southern Baptist perspective but the conclusion is at odds with many a baptist church practice), the comments are equally and perhaps more insightful. One comment really jumped out at me, comment #3:

Good point well taken. However, our church’s constitution and by laws restrict us to observing the supper once per quarter. Another point as to the frequency of our observation of the supper is our Lord’s words at the last supper himself. “as oft as ye eat/drink, do it in remembrance of me.” Notice He said, “as oft’ not as seldom. Personally I believe the supper should be observed at least once per month. It is a good examination for each of us to look inward to test where we are with the Lord Jesus, and to proclaim His death until He comes. In my humble opinion, the key word as to the frequency of observing the supper is “oft”. I do have a really serious problem with anyone who thinks of the supper as being boring. Obviously someone has a glitch in their love relationship with Christ that needs to be dealt with quickly!

Wow. It is the right thing to do but the church by-laws and constitution prevent it? First, show me a church constitution in the New Testament. Where in the world do we find it excusable to dictate church practice where a man-made (probably in the last 10-50 years) document in a particular local church dictates the practice of an ordinance of the church that is commanded and carried out for two thousand years? Here is an idea. Tear up that constitution if it prevents the body from carrying out the commands of Scripture. You can live with a church constitution, you cannot live without the Word of God.

It is a travesty that we observe the Lord’s Supper as rarely as we do. It is such a vital, and should be such a vibrant, part of the life of the church and yet we have transformed it into an empty ritual that we partake of quarterly with all of the enthusiasm we show in opening our 401(k) statements. When did we stop declaring the Lord’s death until He comes (1 Cor 11:26) and start passing the crackers and the grape juice mechanically? I would argue that even as we are clamoring to recover rock solid, expository preaching in churches, we are neglecting the breaking of bread and I don’t see where preaching supersedes the Lord’s Supper in the life of the church. Think I am exaggerating? There are tons of conferences on preaching out there, but how many conferences do we see on the importance of the Lord’s Supper? I fear that in rejecting Rome’s heretical teaching on transubstantiation we have overreacted too far the other way and neglected the Supper. I have had this conversation with some Baptist pastors in the past and at least one shrugged it off because he was afraid people would get upset if the frequency was changed. I say if someone gets upset because you observe the Lord's Supper more often, you should not only let them leave, you should encourage them to leave!

What was interesting was that many of the commentators brought up the Plymouth Brethren church practice of weekly communion in a separate service. If you are going to have some form of institutional church meeting, certainly I can see the rationale for the body of believers opening the door of the meeting to unbelievers so they can hear the Gospel preached, but the Lord’s Supper is reserved for Christians. Unbelievers who come and take the supper do nothing but heap condemnation upon themselves. I really find myself drawn to much of the Plymouth Brethren practices, although I am concerned about the danger of legalism and dependence on external piety.

(HT: James Lee)