I was going to buy this for my wife Pam along with an emerald ring to replace the engagement ring she lost, for Christmas. In Greek it means Jesus Christ Conquers
-
Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
Eucharistic Divinity
- Thread starter Cathode
- Start date
I think my wife would love that too, EWF. Etsy & Ebay has become my 'go to' sites' for unique gifts.
I want you to know my wife and I pray for you daily. I can't begin to imagine the grief you are dealing with.
Thanks my cousin Brian’s wife Anna just had breast surgery to remove tumors in the breasts … add her please.
Regarding that religious medal. It’s gold with little gem stones. Pam would have loved it.
an odd thing happened last evening as I was making my dog & I a meal. My cellphone went on and started playing a song by ELO, Don’t bring me down. Could Pam be telling me something?!? She was a DJ in Uof Miami and loved contemporary music like ELO, Moody Blues, Emerson Lake and Palmer .. especially Pink Floyd…. Wow
Anna is now added to our prayers.
Pam is certainly cheering you on during this pilgrimage. Thanks for sharing this
She invested 40 yrs in me so of course
#elo #dontbringmedown #drumcover
#elo #dontbringmedown #drumcover
I honestly had not realized just how important the Eucharist was to me until I lived without it… it is central to Christs bringing people together and in remembrance to Him. It’s not the sermons that draw my attention, it’s the communion of fellow believers getting together to share the body & blood of our Savior who freely gave it to us for our salvation… yea, I get it now… that’s why I’m rediscovering ecumenical rituals… they have become vital to my Christian worship criteria.
Exactly! I cringe when I see baskets of pre-packaged wafers & grape juice at exit doors of churches for people to take home with them and commune by themselves. While many on the board would contend that the Eucharist as celebrated in high church traditions is not what Jesus had in mind, I suspect the vast majority here would agree that 'communion-on-the-go' is not either.
Absolutely brother
For you and Pam mate. I can’t believe this guy actually sings the flute solo the original band played.
Got to say it kind of beats the original.
Enjoy.
Ahhh takes me back… Pam has that in our car and often played it. Me I liked Rodger D and the WHO, the EaglesEmerson Lake & Palmer, ElO, Stevie Winwood, EarthWind & Fire, Crosby stills Nash Young. Pams list is far longer than mine… she thanks you for your musical selection..you’re providing joy to her spirit heart
37818
Well-Known Member
Christ is actually in His believers, not in the elements of the observance.
1 Corinthians 10:17, For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.
1 John 5:12, He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
1 Corinthians 10:17, For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.
1 John 5:12, He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
Last edited:
Hey there Cathode,
I am very interested in the question of whether the body and the blood is actually the body and blood of Jesus Himself. I have had some interest in Eastern Orthodoxy lately, though there are several major issues that I find un-reconcilable… and this is one of them.
The question for me is “should I take John 6 and interpret it physically or spiritually?”
The question for John 6 being physical is that, if that’s what he meant, why didn’t he invite the believing disciples to eat his body after all the other ones left and he was left with 11 true believers? Didn’t he want them to have eternal life?
Second, and more important… My major issue is the actual institution of the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus instituted the Lord’s supper, he says:
He must be speaking spiritually here. He literally call the cup they had just taken the “fruit of the vine” and says it was wine ”from now on”. I literally cannot see a way around this.
And if you spiritualize “fruit of the vine” somehow, not you are guilty of 1) not being consistent, or 2) being guilty of the same charge you make against people that take this spiritually.
Anyway, hoping for a scriptural response
I am very interested in the question of whether the body and the blood is actually the body and blood of Jesus Himself. I have had some interest in Eastern Orthodoxy lately, though there are several major issues that I find un-reconcilable… and this is one of them.
The question for me is “should I take John 6 and interpret it physically or spiritually?”
The question for John 6 being physical is that, if that’s what he meant, why didn’t he invite the believing disciples to eat his body after all the other ones left and he was left with 11 true believers? Didn’t he want them to have eternal life?
Second, and more important… My major issue is the actual institution of the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus instituted the Lord’s supper, he says:
The problem with taking Him in a literal Physical sense here is that after he makes the statement “This is my body… This is my blood”, he then goes on to say he wont drink the fruit of the vine again. I cannot reconcile that he uses the literal terms “This is my body… This is my blood” with “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine FROM NOW ON”.
He must be speaking spiritually here. He literally call the cup they had just taken the “fruit of the vine” and says it was wine ”from now on”. I literally cannot see a way around this.
And if you spiritualize “fruit of the vine” somehow, not you are guilty of 1) not being consistent, or 2) being guilty of the same charge you make against people that take this spiritually.
Anyway, hoping for a scriptural response
Ascetic X
Active Member
I attended a local Greek Orthodox Church for a while, mainly due to my love for The Philokalia, and devout books published by St. Vladimir Seminary Press. I loved the unearthly, celestial liturgies and the short sermons. I liked the icons, but not the kissing veneration of them. I could not agree with Mary being mother of God.
So I quit attending their services, but still listen to Orthodox sermons on YouTube, and still value my many Orthodox books, especially texts by the desert hermits and monks.
At this church, communion consisted of chunks of bread immersed in a vat of wine. The priest would use a spoon to fish around for a lump of wine-soaked bread, then the members would have the spoon inserted into their mouth. This seemed unbiblical and unhygienic.
You note that Jesus called the Passover communion wine “this fruit of the vine” right after the disciples partook of the bread and wine. This is a great proof that we are not to take “my body and my blood” literally. Otherwise, He should have said “this blood of mine” when He referred to the Eucharist wine.
Succinctly and skillfully stated!
Ps: will agree with all your points on EO! I think they are wonderfully faithful to Christ and the scriptures in many ways, yet like the RCC ended up adding things that they cant reform because of their views of apostolic succession, etc.
But like you I still listen to plenty of their stuff, just as I do Calvinists with whom I have disagreements with and others, heh! There is much faithfulness out there and much I can learn from those I disagree with!
Last edited:
Ascetic X
Active Member
When I was young, zealous, and gullible, I got involved with a cult that exalted their main teacher to a ridiculous extreme. I loved his teachings and got swept away with the cult’s exclusivity and intolerance of different views. It took me many years to snap out of it.
I thought, “why didn’t I go with a normal, mainstream, orthodox evangelical organization?”
But when I started attending these regular churches (Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Nazarene, COGIC, etc.), I was appalled at how weird they were doctrinally and politically. Hardly any but old school Mennonite and Baptist churches are preaching the gospel. Most mainstream denominations are woke, liberal, and embrace the gay agenda.
So Baptist is my denomination, especially the Bible Churches.
However, I learn things from a variety of denominations, even Catholic and Quaker. I wish all denominations were simply slight variations of true Christianity with insignificant differences in style.
In Martin Luther's time it was usual for only the priests to partake of bread also.
Religious life in England centred around the Mass. It seems that in the early Church, all Christians had taken part in communion regularly. From the 6th Century, however, it became the custom for lay people to receive it only once or twice a year. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) specified that all Christians should receive at least once a year, at Easter. In England, this was referred to as ‘taking one’s rights.’ But partaking at the mass was not the standard practice of the laity; usually the congregation merely watched the priest celebrate. Since the end of the 11th Century it had been the custom for the priest, having intoned the words “Hoc est meum corpus’ to raise the wafer above his head so that all the people could see and worship what the Church taught was the very body of Christ. Most parish churches would celebrate “high” or “sung mass” each week, in which singing would be involved and the congregation joined in with the clergy, though only the clergy usually partook of the elements. People would push and shove each other to get a seat at the front where they could get a seat toward the front and see the ‘host’ or wafer being raised. Low mass was celebrated every day. Here the only the parish priest took part, speaking the liturgy in a low voice and partaking of the elements himself. Yet still many parishioners would come to the church to see the host in the priest’s hand, rising up out of their seats to get a better look. In the larger churches, several masses might be celebrated one after another and a bell would be rung so that the laity might hurry from one to another. The martyrologist John Foxe recounted how the early Lollard priest William Thorpe was preaching at a church in Shrewsbury, when the ‘sacring bell’ was rung and many of his congregation ran past him to see the host being raised in another part of the church.
Protestant Archbishop Cranmer had seen this enthusiasm among the people early in his career. He asked rhetorically: “What made the people to run from their seats to the altar, and from altar to altar……..peeping, tooting and gazing at that thing which the priest held in his hands, if they thought not to honour the thing which they saw? What moved the priests to lift up the sacrament so high up over their heads? Or the people to say to the priest, “Hold up! Hold up!”; or one man to say to another, “Stoop down before;” or to say, “This day I have seen my Maker;” and, “I cannot be quiet except I see my Maker once a day”? What was the cause of all these…….but that they worshipped that visible thing which they saw with their eyes and took it for very God?’ (cf. Deut.4:15).
The reason for the reluctance to partake of the bread and wine seems to have been dread of consuming the very body and blood of Christ unworthily. Safer by far to observe the ritual from a safe distance. There were those who insisted taking the elements regularly. Margery Kempe did so weekly and records that this was regarded by her neighbours as ostentation. Eamonn Duffy, a Roman Catholic historian, also mention a Lady Margaret Beaufort who received monthly and ‘even so was regarded as something of a prodigy.' As related, for the large majority, observance was once a year, at Easter, preceded by confession to a priest the week before.
The mass lay at the very heart of medieval Roman Catholicism. The prestige and power of the priesthood rested on the belief that they, and they alone, had the power to change the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. To deny this was the ultimate heresy. It was the reason for which all the English martyrs from the earliest Lollards to the victims of the Marian persecution were burned. When Margery Kempe’s ostentatious piety put her under suspicion of heresy, she was investigated by the Abbot of Leicester and required to state her orthodoxy, which she did as follows:
‘Sirs, I believe in the sacrament of the altar in this wise, that whatever man has taken the order of priesthood, be he never so vicious a man in his behaviour, yet if he say duly the words over the bread that our Lord Jesus Christ said when he made his Maunday Mass [ie, at the Last Supper], I believe that it is his very flesh and his blood and not material bread, not may it ever be unsaid once it is said.'
So no matter how evil the life and manner of an individual priest might be; no matter how great a rogue the Bishop who ordained him, once ordained, he held the power to summon up the bodily presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to deny this was the greatest heresy. Indeed, the greatest enthusiasm was expected of all at the celebration of the mass. Duffy writes, ‘Holding up of the hands and the more or less audible recitation of elevation prayers at the sacring was a gesture expected of everyone; refusal or omission was a frequent cause of the detection of the Lollards. And the refusal of such gestures might be held to exclude one from the human community, since they excluded one from the church…..’
To encourage belief in this doctrine of ‘Transubstantiation,’ special catechisms and didactic poems were composed for the congregation to learn. For example:
‘It seems white and is red,
It is alive and seems dead,
It is flesh and seems bread;
It is one and seems two,
It is God’s body and no more.’
To which the Lollards replied: 'The farmer grew it; the baker cooked it, and it is not God.' There is something very idolatrous in declaring that a piece of bread is really God.
[From my blog: The People’s Reformation (2)]
It’s either the greatest act of idolatry in human history or the Eucharist is Jesus come in the flesh for actual Communion with us.
Jesus declared the change, so it is changed.
He declared it was his blood, THEN ALSO declared he would not drink the FRUIT of the vine from THEN until He comes back in the kingdom.
He said both, so it is spiritual that reconciles the scripture.