Communion and Christian Unity in the Lord’s Supper
Victor Knowles introduces a Christian Standard resource on the Lord’s Supper and shares a sample article section connecting Communion with Christian unity. The excerpt highlights Thomas Campbell’s concern over division among Christians and his description of the Lord’s Supper as “that great ordinance of unity and love.”
- The article points readers to a downloadable Christian Standard resource on the Lord’s Supper.
- The resource includes articles from several writers on Communion’s power, purpose, and promise.
- The sample excerpt reflects on Thomas Campbell, the Declaration and Address, and unity around the Lord’s table.
By Victor Knowles
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 Resource
The Lord’s Supper: A Memory and More
Item D021535209 • $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 sample the first few paragraphs of Victor Knowles’s article, continue reading below . . .
Campbell on Unity and the Lord’s Supper
Two hundred years ago an Irishman named Thomas Campbell came to America in hopes of finding a healthier religious climate. But his hopes were dashed when he found in America the same thing he had experienced in Ireland—division among professing Christians. On September 7, 1809, Campbell published the Declaration and Address, an irenic document calling for Christian unity. The heart of Campbell is seen in the following statement:
The Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one; consisting of all those in every place that profess their faith in Christ and obedience to him in all things according to the scriptures, and that manifest the same by their tempers and conduct, and of none else as none else can be truly and properly called Christians.
Robert O. Fife said, “The words of Thomas Campbell profoundly reflect the ‘mind of Christ’ (1 Corinthians 2:16). . . . The unity here conceived is personal (all those); universal (in every place); confessional (who profess their faith in Christ); sacramental ([profess] obedience to Him); Biblical (in all things according to the Scriptures); and ethical (manifest the same by their tempers and conduct).”1
In the Declaration and Address, Campbell lamented that religious division kept Christians from communing together around the Lord’s table.
What awful and distressing effects have those sad divisions produced! What adversions, what reproaches, what backbitings, what evil surmisings, what angry contentions, what enmities, what excommunications, and even persecutions! . . . How seldom do many in these circumstances enjoy the dispensation of the Lord’s Supper, that great ordinance of unity and love.
This is the only reference to the Lord’s Supper in the Declaration and Address, and note it is mentioned in the context of division. Campbell wondered how Christians could enjoy the observance of the Lord’s Supper in such circumstances. His seven-word description of the Lord’s Supper, however, is beautiful: “that great ordinance of unity and love.” Surely it is worthy of our consideration, examination, and participation . . .
Author: Victor Knowles
Victor Knowles is president of Peace On Earth Ministries, Joplin, Mo. This article is adapted from an address given to the Advanced Preaching class of St. Louis Christian College, Florissant, Mo., on Sept. 13, 2019, and to the Wabash Valley Christian Institute at New Hope Christian Church, Bridgeport, Ill., on Nov. 7, 2020.
