Wednesday, August 22, 2007

I Corinthians 11

Jesus asked His disciples and us to remember His sacrifice by remembering the Last Supper. Specifically, He wanted us to recall, through the symbolism of the bread and wine, that He gave His body and blood as atonement for our sins. The point was not to create a ritual. The point was to create a way to remember.

We don't use rituals to tell stories or remember events very much anymore. In our highly literate, internet-based society, we can collect our knowledge on blogs and web pages rather than learning by rote tradition. In the time of Paul and Christ, though, the majority of people may not have been able to read at all, so they needed a way to help everyone remember the history of the church.

The Lord's Supper was just one of those mechanisms, but in Corinth it was twisted into a party. The Corinthians took the event of eating and drinking together and turned into something focused on eating and drinking rather than remembering that the focus should be on Christ. That's what Paul is admonishing them for. If you are looking to eat and drink for entertainment or nourishment do it at home. If you are remembering the sacrifice of Christ through the symbolism of food, then you are in the proper frame of mind for the Lord's Supper.

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