First, do no harm

We've been thinking much about North American missionary efforts.  This statement is from a secular book, echoes-though rather coldly, the premise that you're not helping someone by doing something for them they ought to do themselves.

An important consequence of redistribution among cultures has been to make those who lived in nonindustrial civilization and adhered to non industrial values artificially competitive.  International aid, rescue missions to counter famine and disease, and technical intervention fooled many into believing that their life prospects had sharply improved--without the necessity on their part of updating their values or significantly altering their behavior.

--The Sovereign Individual, Davidson and Rees-Mogg, pg. 394

We have handed them the fruits of our faithful Christian heritage without pressing on them that this is the fruit of righteousness and their low condition looks much like the curse of God on a nation that disobeys Him.  Also at play is the our not believing that the church could so take hold of and transform their culture that they would receive the blessing promised in Scripture on a nation which obeys.

Observations while substitute teaching

We are not raising our children for dominion.  Implied in dominion is a resistance.  We must take dominion. From who?  There are dominions, authorities, and powers that resist this dominion.  We need to train for war.  By not training for war, we bring it upon us.  We make its coming worse by believing we can avoid it by never mentioning it, forbidding it to be spoken of, by speaking of it as human tragedy of the past.  A peaceful oppression, an unresisted march of tyranny is a tragedy.  In war there are individual tragedies but within a national glory.

Without the gaol of dominion boys are restless and unmotivated, unaware of the challenges they may face.  Without the threat of opposition, girls are arrogant and unproductive, mot understanding that monsters are real.

The Lord’s Supper and Outsiders

Here is the verse we typically hear before taking communion to indicate it is only for believers.

I Cor 11:27-29 ”Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.“

In most teachings I have read or heard on the topic this view is repeated--believers only. But why?

“Because the Bible says so!”

Allow me to introduce my Imaginary Antagnoist(IA) for this post. He is a fundy.

Does the Bible say that non-believers should not take the Lord’s supper?

It is a question of audience, mechanism, and purpose.

Audience

I Corinthians was written to brothers as opposed to outsiders. I don’t know of anywhere in the Bible where Paul addresses “outsiders” and why should he? The New Testament is largely someone elses personal mail, addressed to a particular party. The bible can never mean what it never meant (thank you, Gordon Fee).That passage in 1 Corinthians is about how the church treats each other, which is Paul’s big concern.

Mechanism

How would a little square of white bread and thimble of weak grape juice (or whatever) bring judgement on an unbeliever. What are we saying here? That an unbeliever, one who if dead in unbelief, would go to hell comes under greater judgment in this life if he consumes these element in the context of a certain ceremony? Or greater judgment in the next? I recall a Far Side comic where in hell there was a room for “People who drive slow in the fast lane.” That seems as silly as having one for “Communion-takers.” If it is “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” then why do churches make such a big deal about it?

More to come....