As a church we celebrate communion or translated Santa Cena meaning holy supper once a month. Each time, we celebrate, I briefly explain what communion means to us as believers and why we do it. I try to explain it similarly each month but give different reasons so that I am saying the same thing every month. As a pastor, you can explain something in so many ways but never know for sure if the congregation comprehends what you are trying to express.
The women of the church are going through a study call Abundant Life on the basics of Christian faith. They do a chapter every week on various topics like baptism, obedience and why we read our bibles. This week they got to the chapter about communion. Jessie thought this would be pretty simple topic to discuss because we read from various passages like 1 Cor 11. Boy was she wrong. The women began to dive deeper into the topic and asked a lot of questions about it. When you grow up listening to a priest who says the wafer and juice actually transforms into the real body and blood of Jesus, speaking biblically what we as Christians believe about communion and what the bible actually says about it was clearly needed. All around us people believe the wafer is actually physical body. This is such a foreign idea to me. But if you consider that your religion is not based on your own study but on what a priest tells you, why would even question what this man who speaks for God say. He speaks on God's behalf so he would not be lying?
I have said repeatedly "Don't just take my word for it. Test what I say. I can make mistakes. The bible is the final authority. Study it for yourself. Don't just believe something because someone tells you." So I ask you, why do you believe what you believe? Is it because you have heard good preaching? Have you studied on your own, what the bible says or do you just take it from because some teacher said. I am dealing with this very thing in studying Romans 8:28-39. We are studying it as a church during our Thursday night bible study. We started Romans a year ago in September. We have gotten to Romans 8 and have slowed way down taking one or two verses per study. The truth that is packed into the chapter take years to study. I feel as though I am just scratching the surface in our bible studies. But what I want is for the people who come to see we are not making anything up but searching the scriptures to see how they connect with other parts of the bible. My desire is to see milk drinkers become self-feeding meat eaters. I am off to study more on Romans. Have a great day.
The women of the church are going through a study call Abundant Life on the basics of Christian faith. They do a chapter every week on various topics like baptism, obedience and why we read our bibles. This week they got to the chapter about communion. Jessie thought this would be pretty simple topic to discuss because we read from various passages like 1 Cor 11. Boy was she wrong. The women began to dive deeper into the topic and asked a lot of questions about it. When you grow up listening to a priest who says the wafer and juice actually transforms into the real body and blood of Jesus, speaking biblically what we as Christians believe about communion and what the bible actually says about it was clearly needed. All around us people believe the wafer is actually physical body. This is such a foreign idea to me. But if you consider that your religion is not based on your own study but on what a priest tells you, why would even question what this man who speaks for God say. He speaks on God's behalf so he would not be lying?
I have said repeatedly "Don't just take my word for it. Test what I say. I can make mistakes. The bible is the final authority. Study it for yourself. Don't just believe something because someone tells you." So I ask you, why do you believe what you believe? Is it because you have heard good preaching? Have you studied on your own, what the bible says or do you just take it from because some teacher said. I am dealing with this very thing in studying Romans 8:28-39. We are studying it as a church during our Thursday night bible study. We started Romans a year ago in September. We have gotten to Romans 8 and have slowed way down taking one or two verses per study. The truth that is packed into the chapter take years to study. I feel as though I am just scratching the surface in our bible studies. But what I want is for the people who come to see we are not making anything up but searching the scriptures to see how they connect with other parts of the bible. My desire is to see milk drinkers become self-feeding meat eaters. I am off to study more on Romans. Have a great day.