Communion....or The Lord's Supper

Our Lord, Jesus Christ, came together with His apostles right before His death on the cross to observe the Jewish Passover feast.  Jesus was a Jew and kept the Jewish Law throughout His lifetime.  But at this last Passover feast, Jesus used the opportunity to command these apostles to remember Him in the future by partaking of unleavened bread, representing His body, and fruit of the vine, His blood.  The account of this event is stated in three places in the New Testament: Matthew 26, Mark 14, and Luke 22.  The fourth of the gospels, John, does not cover this teaching of Jesus.  We might note, just as a way of remembering, that the location of these three accounts is 2 chapters back from the end of each of these books.

We also read that Paul recounted this occurrence in His first letter to the Corinthians.  Read 1 Corinthians 11 where Paul is chastising the church in Corinth for their poor observance of the Lord's Supper.  Some were using it as a common meal, some eating while others were not, some just not giving it proper respect.  This is good teaching for us in seeing the importance not only in taking it but in taking it in an appropriate way.

Then in the book of Acts, the fifth book of the NT, as the church begins to grow, we find Christians getting together to observe the Communion, or Lord's Supper, on the first day of the week, Sunday.  Note Acts 20:7, "Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight."  The Christians were following the typical practice now of worshiping on Sunday and taking the bread and fruit of the vine to remember Jesus, just as He had taught them to do. 

In these passages, the first 3 spoken by Jesus Himself, the teaching of Paul on the subject, and the passage in Acts, written by Luke, we learn clearly what the Lord wanted of us in the matter of taking the supper in remembrance of Him.  Thus, we come together on Sunday, each Sunday, to do the same. 

Thanks for reading.  And keep the faith!