The traditional thesis that justification for the post-Reformation separation of a ministry of preaching and the Eucharist lies in the existence of two different forms of worship in the NT—the one deriving from the synagogue worship tradition, the other from the institution of Jesus—has proved to be untenable in modern exegesis (at first O. Cullmann, then G. Kretschmar, Hahn, et al.). In place of the Jewish (and pagan) cult Christ instituted a table fellowship within which the proclamation of the Word to the community took place (H. W. Heidland). Alongside this was the service of baptism and also missionary preaching. Other meetings are to be regarded as complementing the basic eucharistic structure or as singling out specific elements of this structure, and they are always to be related to it.Nathan D. Mitchell, Frank C. Senn, et al., “Worship,” The Encyclopedia of Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI; Leiden, Netherlands: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Brill, 2008), 787.
We must add that the Seder Amram Gaon, in conformity with the oldest rabbinical tradition, prescribes certain variations in the third berakah, either for the Sabbath or for a high holy day.93
The festive form is especially noteworthy, and all the more so because it is the object of very specific allusions in the Toseftah.94 After the petition for the kingdom of the house of David to return to its place, it introduces this passage:
“Our God, and the God of our fathers, may the remembrance of ourselves and [the remembrance] of our fathers and the remembrance of Jerusalem, thy city, and the remembrance of the Messiah, the son of David, thy servant, and the remembrance of thy people, the whole house of Israel, arise and come, come to pass, be seen and accepted and heard, be remembered and be mentioned before thee for deliverance, for good, for grace, for lovingkindness and for mercy on this such and such a day. Remember us, jhwh, our God, on it for good and visit us on it for blessing and save us on it unto life by a word of salvation and mercy, and spare, favour and show us mercy, for thou art a gracious and merciful God and King.”
NOTE: I added the underlining of each occurrence of “remembrance” and also inserted “[the remembrance]” before “of our fathers” to reflect the wording of the Hebrew original. See images below+ showing the English and Hebrew text from David Hedegård’s book that Bouyer quotes from (marked with red brackets) and the occurrences of zikkaron (green underline) within the quoted section.
What is remarkable in this text is the so abundant use made of the term memorial* (in Hebrew: zikkaron). It is impossible to imagine a better confirmation than this text for the thesis already so solidly established by Jeremias in his book on the eucharistic words of Jesus.95 The “memorial” here is not merely a simple commemoration. It is a sacred sign, given by God to his people who preserve it as their pre-eminent spiritual treasure. This sign or pledge implies a continuity, a mysterious permanence of the great divine actions, the mirabilia Dei commemorated by the holy days. For it is for the Lord himself a permanent attestation of his fidelity to himself. It is therefore the basis for a trusting supplication that the unfailing power of the Word which produced the mirabilia Dei renew them and accompany them in the present. It is in this sense that the “memory” of the divine actions which the people have kept faithfully can urge Adonai to “remember” his people. For our subjective commemoration is merely the reflection of an objective commemoration, established by God, which first of all bears witness to himself of his own fidelity. Hence this prayer formula, which is so characteristic and which was to pass over from the Synagogue into the Church: “Remember us, O Lord.”
The meaningful expressions petitioning that “the remembrance of thy people, the whole house of Israel, arise and come, come to pass, be seen and accepted and heard, be remembered and mentioned before thee for deliverance, for good, for grace, for lovingkindness and for mercy on such and such a day …” underline the objective character rightly attributed by Jeremias to the memorial understood in this sense. A pledge given by God to his faithful, precisely so that they will re-present it to him as the homage of their faith in his fidelity, and in thus becoming the basis of their supplication, the “memorial” therefore becomes, as Max Thurian emphasizes, a superior form of sacrifice,—the sacrifice that it fully integrated in the Word and the act of thanksgiving which it arouses as a response.
Nothing proves this better than the fact that this “memorial” formula was added similarly to the Abodah prayer, which originally consecrated the Temple sacrifices. Hence the sacrificial character attributed to the communal meal.96 In blessing God for its meal and in acknowledging in it through this berakah the memorial of the mirabilia Dei of creation and redemption, the community acknowledges it as the efficacious sign of the perpetual actuality within itself of these mirabilia, and still more precisely of their eschatological accomplishment in its favor. The prayer for everything which leads to this accomplishment finds here the assurance of a pledge. In “acknowledging” the inexhaustible power of the Word that creates and saves, the faith of Israel, we may say, becomes one with its object. The people here is itself consecrated to the accomplishment of the divine plan, while it welcomes it in a mysterious and real anticipation.97 Here we have, the source as it were both of the Christian notion of the eucharistic sacrifice, and more generally, of the efficaciousness of the sacraments, as this was understood by the first Christian generations. As we shall see, the sacramental-sacrificial power of the eucharist will actually find the basic development of its expression in this third berakah, which has become the eucharistic anamnesis, together with its further extension in what will be called the epiclesis.[1]
* The passage quoted from David Hedegård’s translation of Seder R. Amran Gaon uses “remembrance” instead of “memorial.”
93 D. H., pp. 151 ff.
The footnote reference “D. H.” is to David Hedegård, Seder R. Amram Gaon, Part I, Hebrew Text with critical Apparatus, translation with Notes and Introduction (Lund, 1951), available online here:
English: https://archive.org/details/DavidHedegardSederR.AmramGaonLindstedt1951/mode/2up
Hebrew: https://archive.org/details/sederravamramgaonparticriticaltextdavidhedegard1951/mode/2up
94 Tractate Berakoth, III, 49 a. For the text, D. H., p. 152.
+ See images below (from the above links) of the English and Hebrew texts of David Hedegård, Seder R. Amram Gaon, pp. 151–152, section LXXIX/(79)
95 Op. cit., pp. 237 ff. See also B. S. Childs, Memory and Tradition in Israel (Naperville, Ill., 1962).
96 Cf. J. H. Hertz, op. cit., p 148 and p. 972.
97 Cf. Max Thurian, The Eucharistic Memorial (Richmond, 1960–61), pp. 18 ff.
[1] Louis Bouyer, Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer, trans. Charles Underhill Quinn (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), 84–86.
Every time Christians celebrate it [the Eucharist], as St. Paul says, they “announce” or “proclaim” this death, not first to the world, but to God, and the “recalling” of Christ’s death is for God the pledge of his fidelity in saving them.46[1]
46 1 Corinthians 11:26.
[1] Louis Bouyer, Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer, trans. Charles Underhill Quinn (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), 105.
Conversely, every time Christians eat together they can, via a shared loaf and cup, proclaim their shared fidelity to Jesus and bless and thank the Father for God's fidelity to them. I.e., every meal can be a Eucharist. (The significance of partaking from a single loaf and drinking from a common cup is addressed at length by O’Loughlin on pp. 159–176 of his book.) As O’Loughlin writes in his book:
The inappropriateness of a special ‘sacral meal’ category also clashes with a belief in the incarnation: if the Lord has come among us and shared in the ordinariness of our humanity, then every table must be capable of being a locus of divine encounter, and to designate the Lord’s table or the Lord’s supper as being in a wholly distinct class (however it might be perceived phenomenally by someone attending a Christian liturgy) is tantamount to adopting a functional docetism.
Thomas O’Loughlin, The Eucharist: Origins and Contemporary Understandings (London; New Delhi; New York; Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2015), 118.
- Using a silver cup: While silver has antimicrobial properties, there doesn’t appear to be any research supporting that using a silver cup has any significant germ-reduction effect.
- Using wine instead of grape juice: Wine does not have sufficient alcohol to reduce germs compared to grape juice. (The choice of whether to use wine or grape juice is a separate issue. There is evidence that some early Christian groups used water.)
- Intinction: Having people dip their piece of bread into the cup is likely worse, as hands often have more germs than mouths.
- Wiping and rotating: Having each person wipe the rim with a cloth after sipping and then rotating the rim so the next sip is taken from a different part of the cup (where it’s not warm from body heat, which is something that germs like) might reduce the already very slight chance of spreading infection. (E.g., you are far more likely to get something like COVID or even a cold from simply being in the room with an infected person than from sipping from the same cup they sip from.) This is how we did it at the home group I mention below in Addendum March 26, 2023.
- Voluntary abstaining: You can ask that people who know they are sick or have a cold or a cold sore abstain from the cup when it’s passed to them.
Many or maybe most churches (Protestant, at least) conduct communion by doing a recitation of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11:
Addendum September 10, 2022: The Didache
with the members then eating their wafer or piece of bread and drinking their thimble or cup of juice or wine.1 Corinthians 11:23–26 (NRSVue): 23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Compare this to how The Didache (Greek διδαχή didachē, pronounced di-duh-khay or di-duh-khee)—which many scholars date to 80–110 CE, though some argue for as early as 50 CE—treats the celebration of the Lord’s supper. These Eucharistic prayers seem to support what I state above about the “do this for my memorial” aspect of communion being a reminder to the Father, rather than a personal or corporate reflecting on Jesus’s death.
Also note that whereas in 1 Corinthians 11 Paul says that Jesus’s giving thanks for the bread was at the beginning of the supper and his taking and sharing the cup was after the supper, The Didache has the thanksgiving for both the bread and the cup at the beginning of the supper, with the thanksgiving for the cup coming before that for the bread.
Chapter 9:1 As for thanksgiving, give thanks this way.
2 First, with regard to the cup:
“We thank you, our Father,
For the holy vine of David your servant,
which you made known to us
through Jesus your servant.
To you be glory forever.”
3 And with regard to the *Bread:
“We thank you, our Father,
For the life and knowledge
which you made known to us
through Jesus your servant.
To you be glory forever.
4 As this < … > lay scattered upon the mountains
and became one when it had been gathered,
So may your church be gathered into your
kingdom from the ends of the earth.
For glory and power are yours,
through Jesus Christ, forever.”
5 Let no one eat or drink of your thanksgiving [meal] save those who have been baptized in the name of the Lord, since the Lord has said concerning this,
“Do not give what is holy to the dogs.”1 When you have had your fill, give thanks this way:Chapter 10:
2 “We thank you, holy Father,
For your holy name,
which you made dwell in our hearts,
And for the knowledge and faith and immortality,
which you made known to us
through Jesus your servant.
To you be glory forever.
3 You, almighty Lord, created all things for the
sake of your name,
and you gave food and drink to human
beings for enjoyment,
so that they would thank you;
But you graced us with spiritual food and
drink and eternal life
through <Jesus> your servant.
4 *For all things, we thank you, Lord, because
you are powerful.
To you be glory forever.
5 Be mindful, Lord, of your church,
to preserve it from all evil
and to perfect it in your love.
And < … > gather it from the four winds,
into the kingdom which you have prepared
for it.
For power and glory are yours forever.
6 May grace come, and may this world pass by.
Hosanna to the God of David!
If anyone is holy, let him come.
If anyone is not, let him repent.
Maranatha! Amen.”7 Allow the prophets, however, to give thanks as much as they like.
Kurt Niederwimmer and Harold W. Attridge, The Didache: A Commentary, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), 144,155. * = Textual emendation by the authorThe reference in The Didache 10:3 to “spiritual food and drink” echo the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:
though Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 10 for “food” and “drink” (βρῶμα brōma and πόμα poma, respectively) differ from those in the published editions of the Greek text of The Didache (τροφή trophē and ποτόν poton, respectively).1 Corinthians 10:1–4 (NRSVue) 1 I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.
John 6:63 (NRSVue) 63 “It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”So an argument could be made (as many Protestants do) that “eat[ing his] flesh” and “drink[ing his] blood” is about coming to Jesus and believing in him, and not about eating his real flesh and drinking his real blood in the more literal sense that the Roman Catholic and [Eastern] Orthodox Churches teach and confess. With this understanding the bread and wine of the Lord’s supper don't become or need to become anything other than the ordinary bread and wine that they are, as “spiritual food and drink and eternal life” are about and are obtained by coming to Jesus (and hence to the Father through him) and believing in him, and not by eating the bread and drinking the cup.
Chapter 141 Assembling on every Sunday of the Lord, break bread and give thanks, confessing your faults beforehand, so that your sacrifice may be pure.2 Let no one engaged in a dispute with his comrade join you until they have been reconciled, lest your sacrifice be profaned.3 This is [the meaning] of what was said by the Lord: “ ‘to offer me a pure sacrifice in every place and time, because I am a great king,’ says the Lord, ‘and my name is held in wonder among the nations.’ ”[ Translation supplement] Translation supplementKurt Niederwimmer and Harold W. Attridge, The Didache: A Commentary, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), 194.
In time the church began treating the Eucharist as being sacramental, including regarding the bread and wine as being or becoming Christ’s real body and blood. In conjunction with or subsequent to that, a hierarchical priesthood arose or was instituted in order to offer the bread and wine as sacrifices,...
What is meant by θυσία, the sacrifice to be presented at the meal?18 It seems tempting to understand θυσία to refer to the sacred action of the eucharistic celebration,19 or more precisely to associate it with the eucharistic elements (as, e.g., Justin does in Dial. 41.3 [Goodspeed, 138]).20 In that case Did. 14.1–321 would represent the oldest explicit instance of the understanding of the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice.22 This interpretation, however, is uncertain. The context permits still another possibility: that θυσία refers in a special sense to εὐχαριστήσατε. The sacrifice that is spoken of so often here would then be the eucharistic prayer offered by the congregation.23 It is stained if guilty persons speak it, but it is pure if their guilt is removed. But is this alternative a justifiable interpretation of the Didache text? No matter how unsatisfying it may appear to a later, more reflective consciousness, one cannot exclude the possibility that these alternatives are utterly foreign to the state of mind reflected in the text (and other, similar texts); that is, the tradition that comes to light here associates the sacred meal with the idea of sacrifice in the most general way, without making detailed specifications about what precisely is to be understood by “sacrifice” in this instance.24 That seems to be the most appropriate understanding of the Didache text. In any case, it is true that participation in the θυσία demands moral purity as ritual purity—and the prior purification by exhomologesis is intended in that sense.18 “During the first three centuries the Eucharist was understood in a threefold way as sacrifice. The sacrifice presented to God is, first of all, the prayers, second, the bread and wine, … third, the sacred action at the altar itself as analogue to the sacrifice of the death of Christ” (Lietzmann, Mass, 68).19 E.g., Harnack, “Prolegomena” 139; Knopf, Lehre, 36: “θυσία: the Eucharist as sacrifice”; Lietzmann, Mass, 193; Drews, “Apostellehre” 279: θυσία refers to the Lord’s Supper, not merely the prayers, as sacrifice. The proof of this is said to be the Malachi quotation that follows; see Koester, Synoptische Überlieferung, 214–15.20 Περὶ δὲ τῶν ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ ὑφʼ ἡμῶν τῶν ἐθνῶν προσφερομένων αὐτῷ θυσιῶν, τοῦτʼ ἔστι τοῦ ἄρτου τῆς εὐχαριστίας καὶ τοῦ ποτηρίου ὁμοίως τῆς εὐχαριστίας, προλέγει [sc. the prophet Malachi, 1:10–11*] τότε (“concerning the sacrifices offered to him by us, the nations, in every place, that is, the bread of the Eucharist and, likewise, the cup of the Eucharist”). Justin, however, is also acquainted with the other idea according to which the eucharistic prayers are a sacrifice to God: Dial. 117.1 (Goodspeed, 234).21 The term θυσία is used three times (the third in the quotation from Malachi).22 1 Clem. 44.4 may be considered older, but the meaning of the phrase δῶρα τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς there is uncertain. Otherwise one must obviously distinguish between the explicit examples and the idea itself; the latter can be older than the former. Thus, e.g., it seems to me that 1 Cor 10:16–22* implicitly presupposes the idea of the Eucharist as sacrifice.23 Thus, e.g., Harris (Teaching, 106), with reference to the quotation in Ps.-Cyprian De aleat. 4 (CSEL 3.3.96): ne inquinetur et inpediatur oratio vestra (“lest your prayer be troubled and impeded”); Johannes Behm, “θύω,” TDNT 3 (1967) 189–90 (cautiously). Wengst thinks that θυσία probably means first of all the prayers spoken by the congregation and second, in a broader sense, “the congregation itself as those who celebrate” (Didache, 55).24 It seems to me that the statements of Audet (Didachè, 462–63) tend in the same direction, as do especially those of Vööbus, Liturgical Traditions 107: “According to all the canons of typology, this [the reference of the word θυσία to the Eucharist] is the answer which must be given. However, for the sake of circumspection, the question should be raised whether the same notion also covered prayer, thanksgiving, hymns, in one word, all the acts of worship. There are reasons for thinking that the line between these acts and the εὐχαριστία as ‘sacrifice’ par excellence was not yet sharply drawn.” Vööbus adds (pp. 107–8) that θυσία here does not yet have the usual meaning of propitiation for sins. Cf. also Frank, “Maleachi 1, 10ff.” 72: “It is impossible on the basis of the text to attempt to define the precise referent of ‘sacrifice,’ whether the congregation’s prayer of thanksgiving or the breaking of bread. All that is permitted us is the conclusion that the whole action of the congregation on Sunday is understood as a sacrifice before God.” According to Moll (Opfer, 110) θυσία refers to “the whole action”; 115: “the sacrificial gifts in particular,” or rather “the … eucharistic prayer of thanksgiving spoken over the bread, which remains symbolically attached to the sacrificial gifts.”Justin Justin Martyr
Dial. Dialogue with Trypho
Did. Didache
Kurt Niederwimmer and Harold W. Attridge, The Didache: A Commentary, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), 196–197.
Addendum March 26, 2023: Denton Meeting Notes
I had an interesting experience tonight, which I will have to continue to think about.
At the end of the prayer meeting at 813 W. Sycamore Street in Denton, Texas, where some of the young men from a local assembly live, and where they have a weekly Thursday night prayer/worship meeting, Timothy Sheaff asked me to administer the Lord’s supper/table/communion. This was totally unexpected, by me at least. In other words, I hadn’t “prepared” anything, and also I hadn’t really been participating in the meeting in any exceptional way—I hadn’t shared anything, I hadn’t been waiting to say something, etc.
As I began speaking and breaking the bread (originally thinking just to recite Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11 by rote), I sensed a tangible “presence” of the Lord in our breaking of the bread and eating it that I had never before experienced during communion, a reality of His presence that I had never even associated with communion other than in a “theological” sense (and I have taken communion for nearly 23 years now, and was responsible for administering it in our former church on a monthly basis for perhaps 5 or more years). As best as I can describe it, it was like our communing was a fulfillment of Jesus’s words that He would not again drink of the fruit of the vine until He drank it new with His disciples (including us) in the Kingdom of God. I sensed—or maybe I can be so bold as to say that I knew—that Jesus was present in our gathering. He was there in our eating of the bread and in our drinking of the cup. He was there with us, maybe even eating and drinking with us. Maybe even eating and drinking as us. Or both.
It so impressed me that instead of just passing the cup around shortly after I had broken and passed the loaf around, I continued speaking and praying aloud about the bread, His body, giving everyone time to eat the bread slowly and to experience Him as I was experiencing Him, and to finish it before the cup came.
This was not for me something to be analyzed theologically, like:
Rather, it was a suprarational thing, maybe even mystical (without the bad associations that word sometimes has)—or at least it was to me. I don’t know if anyone else there sensed what I sensed. It transcended reality and the words the Scriptures use to relate what Jesus said. It didn’t contradict them (though one could perhaps read the Scriptures literally and find fault with what I am saying here), but in a sense it overshadowed them and gave them life—like there was a web or cocoon of light that enveloped the inscripturated words, thus containing them and likewise illuminating them. (This was the “image” that was sort of impressed on me as I talked later with Timothy about it, though I didn’t mention this to him.)1) Are the elements just symbols, or 2) is Jesus a) spiritually or even b) physically present in the bread and wine/juice, or 3) is it something else along the spectrum of which these two views are the extremes?
And it likewise touched on Jesus’s words that “where two or three are gathered together in My name, there I am in the midst of them.” He really is there with us in those times, not just “by faith.” And He was there tonight.
And He wasn’t there apart from our “communion”; He was there because of it, in our gathering together and in our eating and in our drinking of His body and His blood. Eating and drinking with us in His Father’s Kingdom.
Our “communion” time is perhaps only a foretaste of the Kingdom which is to come—and yet tonight it was the Kingdom, here and now. And it is the Kingdom, here and now. Communion with Him.
I talked with Timothy a bit about it afterwards.
I shared this by e-mail with some who were there and with some who weren’t.
I discovered today that William F. Orr and James Arthur Walther in their Anchor Yale commentary on I Corinthians said much of what I have been saying about the Lord’s supper/communion. Thomas O’Loughlin’s views seem to align with many of theirs, though he doesn’t mention either of the authors in his books that I refer to in this blog post, even though their commentary is from 1976.
Addendum April 9, 2023: Orr and Walther
As Orr and Walther state in the lengthy extract below:
I have long thought that the belief that the bread and the wine of the Eucharist change or have to change into Christ’s body and blood—a foundational and non-negotiable doctrine of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches and their institutional priesthoods—might have been based on a gentile misunderstanding of Jewish practices and culture. In fact, questioning and then rejecting belief in the change or the need for the change was a major reason I left the Eastern Orthodox Church after three years. It was nice to find my hunch validated by these scholars.If (as it would appear) the mistake of the Corinthians was a gentile misinterpretation of essentially Jewish language and the controversies of the later church have been founded on a faulty translation of the first-generation Christian ideas rooted in Jewish social and religious experience, then Paul’s explanation of the Lord’s Supper furnishes no justification for the complicated eucharistic theologies that were developed.
* Cf. The Common Catechism: A Book of Christian Faith (New York, 1975), in which “The Sacraments” are treated in Part Five, “Questions in Dispute between the Churches.”
Michael B. Thompson provides a comprehensive description of Paul’s vision for church meetings and worship:
Paul’s vision begins and ends with God, whose mercies in Christ by the Spirit are the ground, motivation, and enablement of praise. That praise is characterized by thanksgiving, and glorying in what God has accomplished (in addition to Rom 1 and 12: Col 3:17; 1 Thess 5:18; 1 Cor 11:26). It includes considerable singing of psalms and hymns (1 Cor 14:26; 14:15; cf. Col 3:16; Eph 5:19); we may have a song fragment in Phil 2:6–11 (although this continues to be disputed); cf. Eph 5:14; 1 Tim 3:16; etc. Prayer is an obvious feature (1 Cor 14:15), including blessings and thanksgivings in the Spirit (with interpretation, 1 Cor 14:16f), supplications and intercessions (e.g. Phil 4:6; 1 Thess 5:17). In particular we find prayer for Christ’s return (1 Cor 16:22; cf. Rev 22:20), and in a later letter, prayer for those in authority (1 Tim 2:1ff, 8).
Paul assumes a coming together (1 Cor 11:18, 20) for worship that remembers (particularly in the Lord’s Supper, 1 Cor 11:24f), that proclaims (1 Cor 11:26), and that is worthy (1 Cor 11:27–33). The Lord’s Supper is celebrated as part of a meal, which is to be entered into with discernment and consideration for the needs of each other (1 Cor 11:17–34). It is a sharing with and in Christ (1 Cor 10:16, 21f). The frequency with which Paul’s churches met and observed the eucharist is uncertain; at any rate, corporate worship was regularly on Sundays (1 Cor 16:2).
Worship is fundamentally corporate and united. We have already seen this implied in the singular ‘sacrifice’ (θυσία) of Rom 12:1, and 1 Cor 11:18 makes this explicit. It is inclusive of Jews and Gentiles glorifying God with one voice (Rom 15:6, 7–13—arguably the climax of Romans; cf. 1 Cor 12:13), if exclusive with regard to those who cause dissensions in opposition to the teachings received by the community (Rom 16:17; 1 Cor 5:3–5). It is characterized by uniformity of aim (Phil 2:2; Rom 15:5) but is wide enough to allow for diversity of expression and practice (Rom 14:5f).
Spiritual gifts are to be used for the common good (1 Cor 12:7). The gifts to be foremost in worship are the greater gifts (1 Cor 12:31), i.e. those which are intelligible and build up the community (Fee 1994:196f; 1 Cor 14:26). Love should govern their use (1 Cor 13; 14:1) and is the goal of instruction (Phil 1:9; cf. 1 Tim 1:5). Potentially each person has a contribution to make (1 Cor 14:26), although unintelligible speech should be accompanied by interpretation (1 Cor 14:27f), and prophecies should be weighed (1 Cor 14:29; 1 Thess 5:21). Like synagogue meetings, it probably includes readings from the Old Testament (Rom 15:4; 1 Cor 10:6; cf. 2 Tim 3:16); the reading of Paul’s letters has already been noted.
Paul envisions a worship that is ‘free’, enabled and empowered by an unquenched Spirit (1 Thess 5:19), yet orderly (1 Cor 14:40). This call to order implies local leadership (cf. Rom 12:8; 1 Thess 5:12; Phil 1:1), although some students of Paul see the existence of leaders in worship as a later development. Both sexes played leading roles (women prayed and prophesied, 1 Cor 11; cf. Horbury in this volume), but there were differences and limits as seen to be appropriate (1 Cor 14:34f). Here, as no doubt in many other respects, Paul’s vision was constrained by social realities. We may consider him to have been inconsistent in carrying through his declaration of equality (Gal 3:28; see Chester’s discussion in this volume), but any failure to eliminate all ‘barriers’ between men and women was probably rooted in a concern for mission; Paul urged what was ‘seemly’ in order not to erect barriers to others coming to faith. The same issue of consistency appears in his own policy of being all things to all people, that he might by all means save some (1 Cor 9:22).
For Paul, worship is not simply cerebral but worked out in appropriate postures (kneeling: Rom 14:11; Phil 2:10; cf. Eph 3:14; prostration: 1 Cor 14:25; standing: 1 Tim 2:8), attire (1 Cor 11:4–16) and ritual acts (the holy kiss: Rom 16:16; 1 Thess 5:26; 2 Cor 13:12) which signify and depict theological truths (baptism as a death: Rom 6:3f, and resurrection: Col the washing/rebirth in Tit 3:5; eucharist proclaiming the Lord’s death: 1 Cor 11:26). It could take particular liturgical forms such as the Amen (1 Cor 14:16) uttered in Christ’s name (2 Cor 1:20), the Maranatha formula (1 Cor 16:22), the cry ‘Abba’ (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6), confession formulae (Rom 10:10; Phil 2:11), benedictions (Gal 6:18; Phil 4:23; 1 Cor 16:23), doxologies (Rom 1:25; 9:5; 2 Cor 11:31; Rom 11:36; Gal 1:5; cf. 2 Tim 4:18; Eph 1:3), and the triadic blessing (2 Cor 13:14).
Where then would Paul ‘go to church’ today? Who best reflects his ‘vision’ for worship? An unspoken assumption in such questions of course is that his vision remained static and never changed. Nevertheless, we can offer a few observations with some degree of certainty. Besides the usual ingredients of prayer, praise and instruction that we might expect, the sort of gathered worship Paul hoped would characterize his congregations featured freedom yet form, unity yet diversity, authority yet mutuality. Gathered worship was not escape from the world where a life of worship is lived, nor an individualistic exercise in piety, nor essentially a one-way flow from a person ‘up front’ to the rest of the flock. Precisely in his insistence on the use of gifts and mutual ministry (1 Cor 14:26) he summoned his hearers to take risks that many find difficult to accept today. The risk includes the possibility of a genuine encounter with God that challenges, renews and transforms—and potentially embarrasses. The extent to which a church replaces that risk with control reflects its departure from at least a part of Paul’s vision.
Michael B. Thompson, “Romans 12:1–2 and Paul’s Vision for Worship,” in A Vision for the Church: Studies in Early Christian Ecclesiology in Honour of J. P. M. Sweet, ed. Markus Bockmuehl and Michael B. Thompson (Edinburgh, Scotland: T&T Clark, 1997), 129–131.
James D. G. Dunn writes the following:
34.3 Paul. Of the two early patterns of worship [temple and house-meeting] Paul was apparently more influenced by the free house churches of the Hellenists, though to what extent is not clear. Certainly house churches were an important locus of community life in Paul’s mission (Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philemon 2), as well of course as the larger (weekly?) gatherings of the whole community (1 Cor. 11; 14; cf. 16:2). But his concept of worship is more than a rationalizing of inherited forms and stems primarily from his concept of the local church as the body of Christ. We recall that the body of Christ is for Paul the charismatic community, that is, the community functioning charismatically. The body of Christ comes to expression, lives and moves, through the mutual interplay of gifts and ministries, the diversity of manifestations being integrated into a unity of purpose and character by the controlling Spirit of Christ (see above §29). But this means that the body of Christ comes to visible expression pre-eminently in and through worship: it is most clearly in worship that the diversity of functions (= charismata) demonstrate their mutual interdependence and unifying force (hence the discussion of charismata in 1 Cor. 12–14 centres on the assembly at worship).
How did this work in practice? The clearest answer is given in 1 Cor. 14:26–33a: ‘When you meet for worship, each of you contributes a hymn, a word of teaching, a revelation, an utterance in tongues, an interpretation …’. Here, beyond dispute, Paul conceives of worship as a very spontaneous affair, without regular structure or form, and wholly dependent on the inspiration of the Spirit. The only regulations he gives are: that there should not be an unbroken sequence of glossolalic utterances—an utterance in the vernacular, an interpretation, must follow each utterance in tongues, otherwise tongues should be wholly excluded; that each prophetic utterance should be evaluated by the prophets and/or the whole community (cf. 1 Cor. 2:12–15; 1 Thess. 5:19–22); and that no more than two or three glossolalic and two or three prophetic utterances should be allowed in any meeting. The period of worship then would consist in a sequence of contributions in which those with regular ministries would participate (prophets and teachers), but where any member might experience the urging of the Spirit to manifest a particular charisma (including a prophecy or teaching). The regular ministries were not expected to dominate the meeting or necessarily to provide leadership. Leadership would be provided by the Spirit, possibly through a regular ministry of leadership, but possibly also through an occasional gift of guidance or word of wisdom (1 Cor. 6:5; 12:28). As we noted above (pp. 122f.), in I Corinthians anyway Paul does not seem to envisage any established leadership as such.7
Whether women participated in this charismatic worship is not clear. 1 Cor. 14:33b–36, if original, appears to exclude any contribution from women, but a less rigorous interpretation is possible (for example, it forbids only their interrupting the process of evaluating prophetic utterances (14:29–33a) by asking unnecessary questions), and should probably be accepted in view of 1 Cor. 11:5 which clearly envisages women prophesying. Compare Acts 2:17f.; 21:9; Col. 4:15 and Rom. 16:1–12 (see above p. 134).
Finally we might note that there is no hint in 1 Cor. 11 or 14 as to how the meeting for worship was related to the common meal. The discussion of each does not seem to embrace the other or to leave much room for the other, and we best assume that Paul envisages two separate gatherings for the different purposes (cf. particularly Pliny, Epp., X.96.7).
7 However, one of my doctoral students, John Chow, argues that the leaders could not provide the answer because they were the problem!
and:
40.3 The Lord’s Supper in Paul. Paul speaks of the Lord’s Supper only in 1 Cor. 10:14–22; 11:17–34, but these few paragraphs are enough to show us where the communion celebrated in the Pauline churches was continuous with earlier tradition and where it had developed. The continuity with earlier tradition is most evident at three points. (1) Paul cites old tradition as the basis for his understanding of the Supper (1 Cor. 11:23–25)—a tradition which stems ultimately from the last supper of Jesus and his disciples. This is tradition which must have been handed on to Paul from earlier believers, even though its authority for Paul lay in the fact that he received it ‘from the Lord’ (see above p. 72). (2) The continuing eschatological emphasis of the Supper—1 Cor. 11:26: ‘… until he comes’. Though we should also note that the emphasis is not so strong: indeed v. 26 (‘For …’) looks very much like an explanatory note added by Paul himself rather than part of the tradition he received. (3) The Supper is still seen as a fellowship meal: in 1 Cor. 10:18–22 he draws a double comparison between the sacrificial meal in Israel’s cult (Lev. 7:6, 15), the Lord’s Supper and the feast in a pagan temple—and the point of comparison is that each is an expression of fellowship (koinōnoi, ‘partners’—10:18, 20);20 and in 1 Cor. 11:17–34 the Lord’s Supper is clearly thought of as taking place within the context of a meal.
At the same time certain developments are also evident.
(a) The relation between the fellowship meal and the words of interpretation over the bread and the wine is now somewhat clearer, since the partaking of the bread and the wine seems to be in process of becoming something in itself and to come at the end of the meal. This is somewhat speculative on the basis of a few clues, but the probability is that the rich Corinthian Christians were going ahead with their meal, while the poor (slaves, etc.) were usually able to arrive only in time for the Lord’s Supper itself (11:21, 33). Hence the rebukes of 11:27, 29: ‘not discerning the body’ probably means an eating and drinking which does not express fellowship with the poor and weak; ‘guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord’ is probably a re-expression of 8:11f. and means sinning against the weaker brother.21
(b) Although the eschatological note is present, the backward look to Jesus’ death is much stronger in 11:26. Here a shift in emphasis again becomes evident—from the fellowship meal as a whole as a symbol of the messianic feast, to the Lord’s Supper as such as a proclamation of Jesus’ death.
(c) Has Paul also allowed himself to be influenced by syncretistic thought so that the Lord’s Supper has become something of a magical rite? The case has been argued on the basis that pneumatikos in 10:4 should be understood to mean ‘conveying Pneuma (Spirit)’, that 10:16f. reveals a much closer equation between bread and body of Christ and between wine and blood of Christ than that of symbolism alone, and that 11:29f. is evidence of Paul’s own superstition at this point.22 Paul’s language is certainly open to such an interpretation. But it is clear from 10:1–13 that Paul is warning against precisely such a sacramentalism on the part of the Corinthians—such a view of the Lord’s Supper is a corruption of the Lord’s Supper. And since 10:1–4 is an allegory (‘the rock’ in the tradition is to be interpreted allegorically as ‘Christ’, etc.) pneumatikos is better understood in the sense ‘allegorical’ (see above p. 98). The passage 10:16f. could be taken as implying the Hellenistic idea of union with the cult deity (Christ) through eating his body. But v. 20 shows that Paul is thinking rather in terms of fellowship or partnership—a fellowship expressed through participating in the same meal, at the same table. The emphasis is not so much on what was eaten and drunk as on the sharing (koinōnia) of the same bread and cup (v. 16); believers were one because they shared the same loaf (v. 17) not because of some efficacy in the bread itself (see above p. 179 and n. 20). And in 11:29f., since the Corinthians made too much of the Lord’s Supper rather than too little (10:1–13), Paul is probably thinking of the illness and death as a result of sinning against the community (the body of Christ—cf. 5:5) rather than as an effect of the elements themselves.23
20 Not that each is a sacrificial meal; see e.g. W. G. Kümmel, An die Korinther, HNT, 1949, pp. 181f.; C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, A. & C. Black 1968, pp. 235ff. See also below n. 23.
21 Schweizer, Lord’s Supper, pp. 5f.
22 See e.g. E. Käsemann, ‘The Pauline Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper’ (1947–48), ENTT, pp. 108–35; J. Héring, The First Epistle of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, 1948, ET Epworth 1962, p. 120.
23 See e.g. A. J. B. Higgins, The Lord’s Supper in the New Testament, SCM Press 1952, pp. 72f.; Kümmel, Theology, pp. 221f.
James D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament: An Inquiry into the Character of Earliest Christianity, Third Edition. (London: SCM Press, 2006), 140–141; 178–180.