Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from April, 2013

On Wine and Broken Bread at Communion

A. Introduction Three issues are relevant to whether a congregant ought to have the option of eating broken bread and drinking wine at communion: 1.             Whether Jesus intentionally chose broken bread and wine, to the exclusion of other possible elements, to represent His body and blood. 2.             Whether churches have an obligation to preserve the sacrament of communion as Christ intended it to be practiced. 3.             Whether the Bible conveys authority to churches to materially and substantially alter a sacrament instituted by Christ. I’ll not patronize the reader by writing “The Biblical Case for Using Broken Bread and Wine at Communion.” The idea that Jesus used anything other than broken bread and wine at the Last Supper is risible, and no one I know clings to the notion that Jesus and the apostles ate crackers and consumed grape juice that evening. In the law we deal with something called “the burden of proof.” I

Should a Christian Sue a Christian---A Response to HB

Hal-- I'm finally fully operational on my Mac, and I've uncovered my old email and password I use for my posting abilities on this site. And as I logged in I was hit with your post: Should a Christian Sue a Christian? Your biblical analysis is spot on, of course. And I don't really see how anyone could argue with what you've written. I'd just like to add a couple points to complement your post. The question you presented had to do with a lease agreement. If the offending party to the lease is a churchgoing Christian who refuses both to pay the lease and to leave the premises. In that circumstance, I suppose you would go to question (3) in your post, and perhaps conclude that person is certainly exhibiting no signs of being a believer, since his actions force the premises owner to pay, for instance, a $600.00 per month mortgage to let the erstwhile renter squat indefinitely. In that circumstance, if the premises owner were ultimately unable to pay, the bank wou