At Fairview we practice the Lord’s Supper weekly. (You can read here for an explanation of this practice.) One question that we receive is, who can participate in the Lord’s Supper?

Closed, Close, or Open

Different churches have different stances on who can participate in the Lord’s Supper. Some practice “closed” communion which permits only those who are members in good standing of that church to participate. Some practice “close” communion which is similar to closed but also allows others who are members in like-minded churches to participate. The last, and the one we practice at Fairview, is open communion where all those we are followers of Christ, who have been baptized, and are participating with proper motives can participate.

Why Open Communion?

In passages such as 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 where the Lord’s Supper is discussed we recognize that this ordinance is for the church, those who are followers of Christ. The instructions in this passage are for those present to examine themselves, to ensure they are eating and drinking in a worthy manner. That is, they are not living in immorality, they are not causing strife or division in the body, and so on. The Supper is for believers who are walking in fellowship with the Lord. If anyone does partake in an unworthy manner this passage tells us that the Lord will judge. At Fairview, we repeat this warning before we partake and give opportunity for people to confess sin to the Lord.

Is Baptism a Requirement?

While there is no explicit command for participants of the Lord’s Supper to be baptized first, but it can be inferred from Scripture. First, no Christian in the New Testament was an unbaptized Christian. People believed and were baptized. Second, baptism is the initiatory rite of the church. To be baptized is to be identified with Christ and his body, it happens at the beginning of one’s Christian life and only happens once. The Lord’s Supper is a regular practice, not a one-time rite. It is a remembrance of Christ’s work that inaugurated the new covenant. As such, it is the regular practice for baptized believers to participate in the Lord’s Supper. In fact, in the Didache, that ancient document describing early Christian practice, it makes baptism a prerequisite for the Lord’s Supper. It makes the best sense that baptism, an ordinance that symbolizes and pictures ones entrance into the new covenant and being a disciple of Christ would be done before the practice of the ordinance that remembers union with Christ and participation in that covenant. So yes, baptism should come before one partakes of the Lord’s Supper.

What About Children?

Since both ordinances (baptism and communion) are not effective in their actual working but depend on the faith of one who participates, young children often lack the maturity to understand the meaning and significance of these ordinances. It’s my understanding that both baptism and the Lord’s Supper should be reserved for those old enough to understand what it means to follow Christ. That doesn’t mean that a child cannot be a Christian, but the ordinances should wait until there is a greater understanding. For example, children are prevented from getting a loan from the bank, getting a mortgage to buy a house, they do not buy their own clothes, they do not vote, they are limited in many things because of a lack of maturity. And deciding to follow Christ and participate in the ordinances are an even a greater commitment than these things. And when I speak with people who’ve been baptized young, many express that they wished they waited till they were older. Considering this, it is best for children to wait until they are more mature to participate in these ordinances of the church.

Defending Sunday Worship?

Imagine having to defend the practice of gathering together for worship (in song, Scripture reading, and preaching). How would you explain these practices to someone else? What if you also had to give good reasons for gathering together on Sunday to do these things? Would you look at church history? Your own church’s tradition? Would you use only the Bible?

You would think that this should be a trivial task since the church has been meeting on the first day of the week for so long and it’s a nearly universal practice. However, if you were seeking to defending the weekly gathering of the church on Sunday and look for clear scriptural support you would find these two verses:

Acts 20:7 says, “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.”

1 Corinthians 16:2 says, “On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.”

That’s it. Yet our statement of faith concerning the Lord’s Day says this: “We believe the first day of the week is the Lord’s Day commemorating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that it is the divinely appointed day to be kept sacred for worship and spiritual exercise.”

I agree with that statement, but we have to admit that we don’t have a command in Scripture that details this perhaps as much as we would like.

What’s the point of discussing Sunday worship? I want you to see that there is more scriptural warrant for weekly communion and a weekly shared meal than there is for meeting on the first day of the week. That is, if you believe meeting on the first day of the week is scriptural (as I do and as our statement reads), then it would follow that we also believe that meeting should consist of the Lord’s Supper and a meal together.

Scriptural Support for a Weekly Practice of the Supper

The institution of the Lord’s Supper is in three of the four gospels (Matthew 26:26–29; Mark 14:22–25; Luke 22:14–23). We see it practiced in the early church in Acts 2:42 and Acts 20. And, we also see it commanded and practiced in Corinth during the gathering of the church (1 Corinthians 11:17–34; 10:16–17). You can see already that there is more Scripture dealing with this than with gathering on the first day of the week.

Acts 2:42

Acts 2:42 says, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

What is the breaking of bread? This can be a term used for a regular meal (cf. Luke 24:30,35; Acts 20:11; 27:35).
Acts 2:46 says, “And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.” Clearly, a meal is in context here.

However, almost all interpreters understand Acts 2:42 to refer to the Lord’s Supper taking place in the context of a meal for the following reasons:

• The breaking of bread appears between a list of spiritual church-gathering activities “teaching and the fellowship” and “prayers” in Acts 2:42.
• Paul uses the term “the bread that we break” (1 Cor 10:16) to refer to the Lord’s Supper.
• Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper in the midst of the Passover meal (Luke 22:7–23).
• The Lord’s Supper in Corinth (1 Cor 11:17–34) was practiced with a meal.

In summary, Acts 2:42 describes the daily gathering in the first few weeks of the church where they would gather for teaching, prayers, fellowship, and eating together while practicing the Lord’s Supper.

Acts 20:7

Acts 20:7 says, “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.”

What is being described here? The now weekly (rather than daily) gathering of the church on the first day of the week (Sunday). This is the day of the week when they “gathered together to break bread.” This appears to include a fellowship meal (Acts 20:11) as well as the Lord’s Supper.

In summary, Acts 20:7 describes the weekly gathering as including a meal, practicing the Lord’s Supper, and listening to teaching.

1 Corinthians 11:17–34

This passage describes the Lord’s Supper and its abuse in Corinth. Of note is the following:

• The Lord’s Supper was in the context of a meal (v. 21, 33)
• The Lord’s Supper was practiced when they came together as a church—i.e., weekly on a Sunday (“when you come together” [v. 17]; “when you come together as a church” [v. 18]; “when you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat.” [v. 20]). From verse 20 especially, we see that they came together to eat when they gathered as a church.
• The saying “as often as you eat…” which has traditionally been used to argue that the frequency is not important was quoted in the midst of a weekly practice of the Supper.

In summary, 1 Corinthians 11:17–34 describes the weekly gathering of the church where they practiced the Lord’s Supper and ate a meal together. As we consider all these verses, it seems that every time the church gathered they shared a meal and practiced the Lord’s supper.

Historical Support

If there is so much evidence in Scripture, then why does this practice seem so foreign to the church? There are many factors, but there have also been many in church history that have defended the practice. Consider the following:

The Didache, the earliest Christian document besides the New Testament describes the practice of weekly communion. It says, “But every Lord’s day gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure” (14:1).

From the earliest Roman description of Christianity, the imperial governor Pliny the Younger (61/62–c. 113) mentions in a letter to the emperor Trajan (reign 98–117) that Christians in Bithynia and Pontus were in the habit of meeting on a weekly basis to partake of food (Pliny, Letter 10.96).

Justin Martyr in his First Apology (151/155 AD) discusses the Lord’s Supper as a regular weekly communion (Justin Martyr, First Apology, 65 and 67).

John Calvin, the reformer held that ancient rule that no meeting of the church should take place without also partaking of the Lord’s Supper. Ultimately, he was denied by those in authority over him but he prayed that future churches may recover this ancient practice.

Charles Spurgeon said, “So with the Lord’s Supper. My witness is, and I think I speak the mind of many of God’s people now present, that coming as some of us do, weekly, to the Lord’s table, we do not find the breaking of bread to have lost its significance—it is always fresh to us. I have often remarked on the Lord’s-day evening, whatever the subject may have been, whether Sinai has thundered over our heads, or the plaintive notes of Calvary have pierced our hearts, it always seems equally appropriate to come to the breaking of bread. Shame on the Christian church that she put it off to once a month and mar the first day of the week by depriving it of its glory in the meeting together for fellowship and breaking of bread and showing forth the death of Christ till he comes. They who once know the sweetness of each Lord’s day celebrating his supper, will not be content, I am sure, to put it off to less frequent seasons. Beloved, when the Holy Ghost is with us, ordinances are wells to the Christian, wells of rich comfort and of near communion” (“Songs of Deliverance,” Sermon no. 763, July 28, 1867).

Despite the Scriptural and historical warrant, the vast majority of Baptist churches today and through the last few hundred years have observed the ceremony once per quarter or once per month. Some have argued for weekly practice such as William B. Johnson, the first president of the Southern Baptist Convention, but it remains a minority position.

The Marks of a Healthy Church

These marks are based on Mark Dever’s book Nine Marks of a Healthy Church and the website 9marks.org

1. Expositional Preaching

An expositional sermon takes the main point of a passage of Scripture, makes it the main point of the sermon, and applies it to life today.

2. Biblical Theology

Biblical theology is sound doctrine; it is right thoughts about God; it is belief that accords with Scripture (1 Tim 1:5; 2 John 1–6; Titus 2:1–10).

3. The Gospel

The gospel (good news) is that:

1. The one and only God who is holy made us in his image to know him (Gen 1:26–28)
2. But we sinned and cut ourselves off from him (Gen 3; Rom 3:23)
3. In his great love, God became a man in Jesus, lived a perfect life, and died on the cross, thus fulfilling the law himself and taking on himself the punishment for the sins of all those who would ever turn from their sin and trust in him (John 1:14; Heb 7:26; Rom 3:21–26, 5:12–21)
4. He rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted Christ’s sacrifice and that God’s wrath against us had been exhausted (Acts 2:24; Rom 4:25)
5. He now calls us to repent of our sins and trust in Christ alone for our forgiveness (Acts 17:30; John 1:12). If we repent of our sins and trust in Christ, we are born again into a new life, an eternal life with God (John 3:16)
6. He is gathering one new people to himself among all those who submit to Christ as Lord (Matt 16:15–19; Eph 2:11–19).

4. A Biblical Understanding of Conversion

A biblical understanding of conversion recognizes both what God does and what people do in salvation. In conversion, God:

1. gives life to the dead (Eph 2:5)
2. gives sight to the blind (2 Cor 4:3–6)
3. gives the gifts of faith and repentance (Phil 1:29; Acts 11:18).

And in conversion, people: repent of sin (Mark 1:15; Acts 3:19) and believe in Jesus (John 3:16; Rom 3:21–26).

A biblical understanding of conversion recognizes that only God can save, and that he saves individuals by enabling them to respond to the gospel message through repenting of sin and trusting in Christ.

Church members’ lives should be marked by the fruit of conversion, and churches should admit to baptism and the Lord’s Supper only those who show evidence of conversion.

Churches should evangelize and teach about the Christian life in such a way that the radical nature of conversion is continually emphasized.

5. A Biblical Understanding of Evangelism

Evangelism is simply telling non-Christians the good news about what Jesus Christ has done to save sinners with the aim to persuade them to repent and believe. In order to biblically evangelize you must:

1. Preach the whole gospel, even the hard news about God’s wrath against our sin.
2. Call people to repent of their sins and trust in Christ.
3. Make it clear that believing in Christ is costly, but worth it.

6. A Biblical Understanding of Church Membership

According to the Bible, church membership is a commitment every Christian should make to attend, love, serve, and submit to a local church (1 Cor 5:12; 2 Cor 2:6; Acts 20:28; Heb 13:17).

7. Biblical Church Discipline

In the broadest sense, church discipline is everything the church does to help its members pursue holiness and fight sin. Preaching, teaching, prayer, corporate worship, accountability relationships, and godly oversight by pastors and elders are all forms of discipline.

In a narrower sense, church discipline is the act of correcting sin in the life of the body, including the possible final step of excluding a professing Christian from membership in the church and participation in the Lord’s Supper because of serious unrepentant sin (Matt 18:15–20; 1 Cor 5:1–13).

8. A Concern for Discipleship and Growth

Scripture teaches that a true Christian is a growing Christian (2 Pet 1:8–10). Scripture also teaches that we grow not only by instruction, but by imitation (1 Cor 4:16, 11:1). Therefore churches should exhort their members to both grow in holiness and help others do the same.

9. Biblical Church Leadership

The Bible teaches that each local church should be led by a plurality of godly, qualified men called elders.

Paul lays out the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3:1–7 and Titus 1:5–9. Passages that evidence a plurality of elders in one local church include Acts 14:23, Acts 20:17, 1 Timothy 4:14, 1 Timothy 5:17, and James 5:14.