Do What? Bounded Freedom at the Table

• This article is no longer available online, but articles about the Lord’s Supper that appeared in the July 12/19, 2009, and June 10, 2007, issues of CHRISTIAN STANDARD–plus more–are available for purchase as a single, redisigned, easy-to-read and easy-to-use downloadable resource/pdf (a fuller explanation is below).

The Lord’s Supper: A Memory and More

Item D021535209  “¢Â  $2.99

If you keep doing something often enough, long enough, it will change you. Take, for example, the Lord”s Supper.

If we practice the Lord”s Supper in a meaningful way, week after week, it will change us for the better by helping us grow closer to God. If we treat it as a ritual largely devoid of meaning, however, it can damage us by causing our faith itself to become a meaningless ritual.

In this 14-page resource, eight writers look at the Lord”s Supper (Communion) past, present, and future””its power, purpose, and promise.

As one writer puts it: “Nothing delivers the death of Jesus like the Lord”s Supper!”

The articles previously appeared in CHRISTIAN STANDARD (primarily in the issues of June 10, 2007, and July 12/19, 2009).

All downloads include permission to reproduce material up to 10 times for ministry and educational purposes. To order this resource, CLICK HERE; To sample the first few paragraphs of Robert F. Hull’s article, continue reading below . . .

If you looked at 100 Communion tables, at least in Protestant churches, what would they have most in common? Whether they are small and cheaply made or huge and ornate, most would prominently display these words: "Do this (or, "this do") in remembrance of me."


There are four accounts in the New Testament of the last meal of Jesus with his disciples; we might think all of them include these words, but these words, in fact, are found only in Luke and 1 Corinthians. Still, almost all Christian groups have taken these words as a mandate for the church in perpetuity.
But it is reasonable to ask: Do what? What is the this that we are supposed to do? Have a meal, at which time we remember Jesus? Specifically, have a Passover meal (or something like a Passover)?
Well, we might say, “That”s silly. Paul shows in 1 Corinthians that already by AD 51, less than two decades after Jesus” death and resurrection, this meal had become part of a distinctive Christian worship gathering; it wasn”t just any kind of meal, and it wasn”t a Passover.”
But the question persists: What is the this we are supposed to continue to do? Being a people who take the biblical accounts of Christian origins seriously, we want to get it right. If we are church leaders, we want to be sure we are setting the right example for our congregations, that we”re helping them to get it right . . .