Carl Trueman on the Lord's Supper

29 June 2012

What do you know, my old tutor Carl Trueman has jumped on my bandwagon again; this time by writing about the Lord’s Supper. This is quite helpful as he adds some recommended reading towards the end of the post.

Here are a couple of stand out lines:

“The Lord’s Supper is one of the most basic activities of the church. More ink hit more pages in the Reformation on this topic than on any other, including justification and authority. Yet the proportion of material on the issue produced in contemporary evangelical circles is very small compared to other, trendier topics.”

and

“The Lord’s Supper is important. It is important for biblical obedience. It is important for church discipline. It is important for comforting the afflicted and the weak. We neglect it to our very great impoverishment.”

He also, helpfully, explains how he prepares for administering the Lord’s Supper, something I confess to not having prepared adequately now compared to the attention given to the sermon. If you’ve ever led communion, how do you prepare?

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2 responses

Huw Humphreys

2 July 2012

Phil,

Thanks for this stream. It is interesting to see how folk have reacted. Some of the best material on communion (and its link both to what Jesus achieved and the deepneing sense of community) I still think is in Peterson’s “Christ Plays in 10000 Places”.

Being back among semi-Evangelical Anglicans in Milton Keynes means that I look forward to this service and its implications more than anything else in church life.

Years ago at a charismatic Afrikaans fellowship in Bloemfontein, we celebrated a Lord’s Supper that was preceded by about half an hour of confession, with prophetic input, words of knowledge, a liturgical approach that kept us all together, scripture readings. By the end of it, not only were you ready to join together with the Body of Christ and worship, but you felt clean, humbled, ready.

I have never forgotten it, but never really experienced it since, either. Closest I get is in Catholic or Orthodox mass, but then you run into other hassles….

Reply
1. Phil Whittall
  
  9 July 2012
  
  Thanks Huw, I think what’s emerging anecdotally is a sense of regularly being underwhelmed by the way we are presented with the Lord’s Supper. Nothing bad but rarely very good or great, not poor but rarely rich and deep.
  
  Reply

Carl Trueman on the Lord's Supper

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