Jun
28

Chapter 2 – Day 7

3 Comments

Not too much to update today – still slogging through the first 600 years of Church history.  Lots of Justin and Irenaeus today.

Jan and Andy (Krista’s grandparents) just got back from a trip and are off on another tomorrow morning, so I’ll have the place to myself again for a few days.  Not too much to keep afloat here – just some wild cats and a thirsty garden.

Posted in Thesis Chapter 2 - Blow by Blow
3 Comments Posted by isaac

3 Responses to "Chapter 2 – Day 7"

  • Doug Rutter says:
    June 28, 2008 at 9:56 pm

    Hey Issac,
    Just got done with a wedding and the bride and groom requested they take communion as part of the service. So I loaded up my traveling communion pack for the wedding.

    It got me thinking about “private” Eucharist. (weddings, hospitals, etc.) Any history of this sort of thing in the early church or was it allways an ecclesia thing?

  • isaac says:
    June 30, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Justin Martyr (c. 155) talks about portions of bread and wine/water being sent out to those who were absent, but it’s clearly an extension of the community event. They wouldn’t have had “their own service” if they weren’t present with the church; the bread and wine/water they received was the Lord’s Supper because it was an extension of the church’s celebration, not their own. Ignatius (c.115) is pretty clear about the church-gathered as the place for baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

    I used to go serve communion with my dad sometimes to people who couldn’t get out to church, and it always felt like an extension of what we did Sunday as a body – a very beautiful thing. But I’ve never understood the exclusive taking of the Lord’s Supper by bride/groom at a wedding when the rest of the church sits back and watches. Aren’t we all in this together? Isn’t the participation of the church community essentially what a wedding ceremony is for anyway – to have the church, as an ecclesial authority, affirm the couple’s covenant? We can’t all light a unity candle (nor should we), but we all drink from the same cup and share in the same bread as a sign of unity with Christ and each other.

  • Doug Rutter says:
    June 30, 2008 at 8:04 pm

    Thanks! I’ll have my next monster bride give you a call and you can explain that to them for me. :-) Hope the writing continues well…

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