Online Sermons
Lesson #20 - Communing With One Another
Series: The One-Another WayLESSON #20 – COMMUNING WITH ONE ANOTHER
A SORELY MISUNDERSTOOD ASPECT
If a visitor to our Sunday assembly made inquiry as to what exactly was taking place
with “the bread and the wine”, how would/should we respond?
? Most likely our chief “answer” would include an emphasis on the vertical.
We would surely point out that The Lord's Supper is a commemorative event where we focus on our Lord's death.
Hopefully we would stress the sacrificial element of this memorial feast of atonement.
To partake of “the communion” demands a heavenward gaze as we ponder God's amazing grace
The Supper reflects on the suffering of Jesus - - the physical pain, mental anguish and societal shame - - and perhaps most importantly, the spiritual forsakenness experienced by Jesus Who became sin on our behalf. cf. Mt.27:46 & 2Cor.5:21.
? Yet there is another dimension of The Supper that is intentionally horizontal.
This angel requires that we contemplate the cross event in light of “the one-another” Way.
We often fail to underscore this important perspective.
The very word COMMUNION testifies to this point: communion, communal & community are all in the same family.
The Supper speaks of our FELLOWSHIP (koinonia / having all things in common).
1Cor.10:16 states, Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a SHARING in the blood of Christ?
Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?
STRONG WORDS OF CORRECTION
? 1Cor.11:29 calls attention to the fact that the Corinthian Christians were failing to judge the body rightly.
The word “body” in the passage is not a reference to the physical body of Christ.
Instead it speaks to the body of Christ (the church).
~ In other words the problem at Corinth was not that the believers were not focusing enough vertically (on the hill
of Calvary), but rather there was a failure to think horizontally. They were not thinking enough about the church.
This is borne out in the text of 1Cor.11:17-22.
Their behavior was not at all in keeping with the work of the cross (breaking down the dividing wall). cf. Eph.2:11-22.
By means of the Cross of Jesus Christ all believers were reconciled to God in ONE BODY (Eph.2:16).
? The church at Corinth was plagued by divisions and factions (1Cor.11:18 & 19).
This sectarian spirit went beyond 1Cor.1:10ff (I am of Paul; I am of Apollos; I am of Cephas).
Thus Paul exhorts (1Cor.11:20-22): Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper,
for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk (sated).
What! Do you not have houses in which to each and drink? Or do you despise the church of God, and
shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you.
James Thompson (Our Life Together, pgs.68-69) writes:
“The problem was that while some of the Christians feasted, others were hungry and were forced
to feel their poverty painfully and shamefully. The Corinthian congregation, which should have
been a company of brothers and sister at worship, presented a shameless picture of social division.
The Lord's Supper at Corinth was far from being a communion of brothers and sisters with each other.
It had become an occasion for cliques to separate brethren. Wherever that happen the Supper is distorted.”
Note the exhortation in 1Cor.11:33 to “wait” for one another!
