Why We Won’t Have Online Communion

“Many churches will work to adapt their normal practices to online formats, including the Lord’s Supper. We, too, have worked to provide continuity of worship and Bible study via the internet, yet we will not be making the same provision for the Lord’s Supper. Here are three reasons why.” - GARBC

Discussion

[Dan Miller] In my understanding being together (real or virtual) as an entire local church is simply not a prescribed aspect of Lord’s Table. For centuries, Jewish families or small groups ate Passover every year in their homes.

Well, we are talking about the Lord’s Supper, not Passover, and for the Lord’s Supper Paul says to gather together in one place. Obviously not everyone can make it to any particular service, but it ought to be performed at a service that most people can come to. If everyone is Zooming in from home, or watching from home via LiveStream, they are actually in multiple places not one. Communion isn’t an individual act of worship it is corporate. One of the issues with trying to do a corporate ceremony remotely is that you lose the togetherness that comes when people are together physically. You can’t tell who is there with you very well. You don’t feel the togetherness like you do when you are physically together. You can’t tell if everyone is ready or if everyone has been served. You lose the solemnity of the ceremony. You lose the pressure to stay focused. You lose the pressure of not participating if you are not right with the Lord (much easier to partake when you should not if you are alone at home). There are probably other aspects to this that I have not thought of. It is one thing to provide preaching or teaching remotely as doing the best you can do in a bad situation, but it is another to view the service as a real gathering, when it’s not a real gathering. For the Lord’s Supper, I think that is a show stopper.

Now, some might protest that Zoom (and similar) provides some additional functionality over Livestream or YouTube that mitigates some of these issues, but many of those benefits go away when you have large number trying to participate, or don’t know how to use the features.

If you like online, virtual education = you’ll lean towards online communion

If you hate online, virtual education = you’ll not like online communion

The reasoning and the mindset for the respective positions is often similar.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

Regarding 1 Cor. 11:20, Paul describes them coming together with a word not usually used for the Church in his main purpose of telling them that what they are doing really isn’t the Lord’s Supper. Notice; it’s a description, not a prescription. Otherwise, the main actual descriptions of the Lord’s Supper are of the original one in the Gospels, which predates the Church age altogether.

There are a fair number of things Paul does tell the Corinthian church about how to do this, and how not to, but one thing that he doesn’t do is tell them what constitutes a quorum, a rightful setting, and the items here. Again, historically speaking, there’s a reason for this; it was an extremely common occurrence practiced in a church founded among those (Priscilla and Aquila) evicted from Rome for Judiasm, and was practiced among house churches there due to persecution. So they came together when they could, and I’d argue we ought to do the same.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

[TylerR] If you like online, virtual education = you’ll lean towards online communion

If you hate online, virtual education = you’ll not like online communion

I did a full MA in Bible completely online. I’m also teaching my adult SS class via Zoom right now. I’m for distance education. Of course, my kids are home from college now and doing class work online. It’s not the same and it is not as good. It’s great to be able to do distance learning when there is no other option, but the experience is not as good. I just think the gathering together in person is an important part of the Lord’s Supper, for what it means and how it is to be conducted, and that doing it another way loses enough that we ought to wait until we can do it properly.

I would appreciate some context from folks who know - how does the persecuted church do the Lord’s Supper? How did persecuted Christians in days gone by do the Lord’s Supper? Surely they didn’t all gather together; it had to be sub-units. I’d appreciate any insight this could bring to our discussion of virtual communion.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

Well, we are talking about the Lord’s Supper, not Passover, and for the Lord’s Supper Paul says to gather together in one place.

Interesting use of the exclamation mark, Andy. I take it that the idea that the Lord’s Table has it’s foundation in the Passover is somewhat shocking to you. I get that. But should it be? Do you agree that when Jesus said, “As often as you do this…,” he was sitting at Passover meal?

[Dan Miller]

Interesting use of the exclamation mark, Andy. I take it that the idea that the Lord’s Table has it’s foundation in the Passover is somewhat shocking to you. I get that. But should it be? Do you agree that when Jesus said, “As often as you do this…,” he was sitting at Passover meal?

That’s from all my years of programming in C.

Yeah, I understand that. I view that as an indication that Jesus is fulfilling the picture of the Passover and instituting a new ordinance. We are NT believers and now the assembly/church is where we practice the Lord’s Supper. We don’t kill lambs, spread its blood on our doorposts, or eat a passover meal at homes anymore.

I take that to mean Jesus expected it to continue, but with a new understanding of what it was.

I actually believe that we should be having a full passover - BUT, it has clearly been truncated to bread and wine at some point in church history. I don’t have a big problem with that. Just as I have no problem with missionaries using other juices besides grape.

But I also join Bert in observing that the “whole church” aspect that we enjoy is at most descriptive, not prescriptive. I also see no indication that the whole Corinthian body of believers was in one place based on the text of 1 Cor.

The understanding that I have is that the particular part of the Seder Jesus used for the part we celebrate as the Lord’s Supper is the finding of the last matzo and its eating as “afikomen”, which observant Jews often translate as “Nachtisch”, or “dessert”.

I don’t believe that it must be normative for Christians to observe the whole Seder, let alone in its modern Talmudic form, but about 20 years back, my family hosted a Passover meal and used the actual order (brought by a guest who grew up Jewish), and it was uncanny how the elements of that service paralleled Biblical truth. So at the very least, I think that at least from time to time, a full Passover meal could be extremely beneficial to believers.

Where one might interpret these things differently, IMO, is where Paul tells the Corinthians that they ought not be gluttonizing and getting drunk at the Lord’s Supper, and tells them more or less “if you need to eat more, do so at home!”. That would at least be compatible with the Lord’s Supper being not specifically the Seder as a whole, but rather the Afikomen and the fourth (?) cup. The counter-argument would be the comment that people would be tempted to gluttony more if it were the full meal and not just the last matzoh/last cup.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

[Bert Perry] The understanding that I have is that the particular part of the Seder Jesus used for the part we celebrate as the Lord’s Supper is the finding of the last matzo and its eating as “afikomen”, which observant Jews often translate as “Nachtisch”, or “dessert”.

I don’t believe that it must be normative for Christians to observe the whole Seder,…

This idea is what I meant by “truncated.”

[Bert Perry]… The counter-argument would be the comment that people would be tempted to gluttony more if it were the full meal and not just the last matzoh/last cup.

Yes - it is tough to imagine people selfishly chowing down on bowls of little dry crackers.

Thanks, everyone, for an interesting discussion. It seems that there is something here for everyone to ponder.

G. N. Barkman

Smiling. :^) My best guess is that the Manischewitz matzo are dry because they’d ferment in the box if they weren’t, and that’s a Talmud violation. The matzo we made were actually quite moist. Still not what you’d eat a ton of without something on it, but that noted, early Christians did indeed subsist mostly on bread and such, no?

But that said, apparently it was the wealthier believers who were gluttonizing—the very people who would not have necessarily been limited to bread and water for dinner. So again, I can argue that one either way, too.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

[Dan Miller]

But I also join Bert in observing that the “whole church” aspect that we enjoy is at most descriptive, not prescriptive. I also see no indication that the whole Corinthian body of believers was in one place based on the text of 1 Cor.

I’m not completely sold on the idea that Paul intended it to be descriptive only. The term “church” itself means assembly. The very name indicates to me that we ought to be physically gathering together. Then, regarding the Lord’s Supper, the contrast is between what happens at church (the assembly) and at home. Paul says if you are going to do something illegitimate concerning the Table, do it at home, not at the church. The church is where the official, legitimate Supper takes place. There is no provision for doing it at “home” if that is not where the church is assembled.

If you like online, virtual education = you’ll lean towards online communion

If you hate online, virtual education = you’ll not like online communion

The reasoning and the mindset for the respective positions is often similar.

Speaking for myself, I am opposed to both but my reasons have nothing in common whatsoever. They are completely different.

[Dan Miller]
RajeshG wrote:

If, in spite of what the Scripture reveals, it is legitimate to observe the Lord’s Supper together virtually with each person ingesting the elements in his own home instead of in the gathering together of a local church in one physical place, why stop there?

In my understanding being together (real or virtual) as an entire local church is simply not a prescribed aspect of Lord’s Table. For centuries, Jewish families or small groups ate Passover every year in their homes.

What Jewish families did for centuries in eating the Passover is irrelevant to what Christians are supposed to do in observing the Lord’s Supper. They are not one and the same thing.
Paul begins his instruction in 1 Cor. 11 by speaking of their coming together in the church (11:18). He does not say when you come together in your homes or in your small groups, etc. Then in 11:20 he specifies that they were coming together in one place, not in multiple groups in multiple places.
At the end of the passage, in connection with the same verb (sunerxomai) that he used in both 11:18 and 11:20 to speak of their gathering together in the church, Paul issues apostolic imperatives commanding them how they are observe the Lord’s Supper properly:
1 Corinthians 11:33 Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another. 34 And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto condemnation. And the rest will I set in order when I come.
He explicitly contrasts what they were to do when they would come together in the church vs. what they were to do at home. There is no basis for holding that anything Paul says in this passage supports observing the Lord Supper in one’s home (unless the church gathers in the home) either actually or virtually.