- An interesting discussion with a special guest,
Good morning and welcome to Let the Bible Speak.
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Announcer: From the churches of Christ
Let the Bible Speak
with Evangelist Kevin Presley.
Good morning and welcome to Let the Bible Speak.
Good morning and welcome to Let the Bible Speak.
It's great to have you in the audience today.
We appreciate you taking time
to study the Bible with us for a little while.
I'm joined today by Brother Ronnie Wade
and he may be a familiar face to you.
He appeared on the program sometime back here,
and also he was the host of Let the Bible Speak
for a good number of years until retiring
from the program in 2008.
And he remains very active across the country,
holding gospel meetings.
In fact he's been holding a meeting over the last few days
in the congregation where I labor here in Alabama,
but we're very glad to have Brother Wade with us today.
Thanks for joining us.
- Thank you.
It's good to be here.
- We're going to do something a little different
today on the program.
We're going to spend a little time with a discussion
concerning The Lord's Supper,
and Brother Wade has preached on this subject,
and he has held numerous public and written debates
throughout the years over this very subject,
and it's a subject of great interest to many of our viewers,
and I know that because I've received a lot of mail
and messages from you throughout the years
as we discussed the subject of The Lord's Supper.
And so we're going to talk about that today.
Before we do though we hope you all enjoy a song,
and we'll be back in just a moment.
- The Psalmist said, "Through Thy precepts,
"I get understanding."
The Bible is the revelation of God to man
and you simply can't live for God until you know something
about the Word of God
and you may say, "Well, I want to read
"and study the Bible, but I don't know where to begin.
"I feel overwhelmed" or "I don't understand the Bible."
I want to offer you a wonderful way
to get acquainted with the scriptures.
You'll learn about some of the most basic
and foundational teachings of God's Word
and you'll get a better handle on how to read
and approach and study the Bible as a whole.
Won't you get in touch with us today
and ask to be enrolled in the Bible Correspondence Course.
It won't cost you a penny and we'll mail the lessons
to your home and you take your time to read and study
through the lessons,
I think you'll be surprised how much you'll learn.
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Welcome back.
Again, I am joined today by Brother Ronnie Wade
from Springfield, Missouri who was the longtime host
of Let the Bible Speak and he joins us today.
We're going to have a little discussion today
concerning a very interesting
and very important bible topic,
and that is the subject of The Lord's Supper.
And we want to begin by reminding everybody
that really there are four places in particular
that we can look in the scripture,
and really only for places that tell us what Jesus did
when he instituted The Lord's Supper,
how he instituted the supper,
the significance of the items
that Jesus used in the institution of The Lord's Supper.
And that's in Matthew's gospel, Matthew 26,
Mark chapter 14, Luke chapter 22,
and then Paul's account later by inspiration
in 1st Corinthians chapter 11.
And Brother Wade, of course, takes the position
as I do and we have presented on this program many times
that there's a pattern for The Lord's Supper,
and that when the Lord established the communion
with his disciples that he used what he desired
to memorialize his body, his blood,
as well as The New Covenant.
And he took a loaf of unleavened bread
to represent his body,
and he took a cup containing fruit of the Vine,
which he said is The New Testament in his blood.
And then he commanded his disciples
this do in remembrance of me.
And so we would agree today that there is a pattern
for his instituting The Lord's Supper.
And Ronnie people have departed
from that pattern in recent years,
and if you will begin by going back
and giving us a little bit of the history
as to how that departure took place,
especially in modern times.
- You know if there is no pattern,
then it doesn't matter how you do it.
It's just that simple.
If you don't have a pattern,
then it's hard to violate a pattern
because you have to have a pattern
before you can violate it.
Really, the origins of changes that actually begin
to take place in The Lord's Supper
is really over the subject of sanitation.
That's what it's all about.
It's not about what did the Lord do
because most people reading Matthew 26 and Mark 14,
Luke 22 and 1st Corinthians 11 know what he did.
The language is too simple and the language is too plain.
The controversy comes in when people say,
well what did he mean by this and what did he mean by that?
What is the cup?
What isn't the cup?
And because of that, differences began to arise.
Now, if you go back far enough,
you really don't have to go back very far, 1915,
there were no individual cups in churches of Christ.
There was plurality in some churches.
Maybe two.
Generally men would sit on one side of the assembly
and women would sit on the other side of the assembly,
and they'd pass the cup
down each side in some congregations.
And then that graduated from a cup
on each side to maybe four cups.
I've known some churches that went to four cups
to facilitate the observance,
but finally when sanitation became such a hot issue
in society people decided, you know,
we just won't drink after anybody.
And so in 1915 for the first time,
a Church of Christ used a tray of individual cups.
That had originated, by the way,
amongst some of the denominations, but if you go back
and study the history of that, you'll find out
that it was strongly objected to
in the Methodist church, for example.
They were adamantly opposed to the individual cup system.
And some of the other denominations were opposed to it.
Now even to this day, even to this day
there's one branch of the Baptist Church
that still uses one cup.
The Lutherans still use one cup.
There're various other religious organizations
that have actually never gotten away from one cup.
And I remember a few years ago,
if you let me tell this little story,
I noticed an article in our hometown paper
about one of the Presbyterian congregations,
Presbyterian churches in Springfield.
And they were going to observe The Lord's Supper,
and I quote from the article,
just like it was observed by Christ.
And they said in the advertisement,
we're going to use one cup.
So, I called the preacher up,
and I said I see you're gonna have a communion service
and you're just gonna use one cup.
Why?
He said, well because that's what the Christ did it.
And so, I know by that
that English is easy enough to understand,
and obviously he understood that,
even though he certainly thinks there's nothing wrong
with using more than one.
So, I just wanna make this point.
The major problem in how The Lord
observed The Lord's Supper
with reference to the cup is sanitation.
It's a matter of drinking after somebody,
and people we've just reached a point in this country,
you know, where we just don't think we can do that
because it's too dangerous and diseases may be spreading.
Now I'm ...
You look at me and tell them I'm getting old,
but I can tell you in all my years,
I've been preaching over 65 years,
I have never known of a single case
where anybody ever got sick
or contracted any disease.
- That's right.
And you touch on the main issue.
There is a pattern or there is not a pattern.
And if there's a pattern, and of course I think most people
would have to acknowledge that there is a pattern
because they believe in using unleavened bread.
They believe in using grape juice or fruit of the vine
as the drink element.
So therefore they're acknowledging that there is a pattern,
but if there is a pattern there can be no doubt,
can there, that Jesus actually use one drinking vessel
when he shared the fruit of the vine
with his disciples gathered there?
- Yeah, I think that's correct.
There can be no doubt,
and you're not going to find ...
I don't know that I've ever had anybody tell me
that Jesus used individual cups
or that he even used more than one cup.
You know, I brought along a little book today.
This is a this is a commentary
published with The Gospel Advocate Company.
Now, many of you people in The Church of Christ
are familiar with the Gospel Advocate commentary.
This is the volume of Mark.
And it was written by C.E.W. Dorris.
And I just want to read you what he says
about verse 23, Mark 14:23.
"And he took the cup.
"A cup.
"There's one."
Now see he understood that.
"A cup is one, not two nor a dozen."
So when the bible says that he took a cup,
he didn't take two.
He didn't take a dozen.
He took a cup.
And he blessed that cup, and he drank from it.
He gave it to the disciples, and said drink ye all of it
or as some translations say drink ye all from it,
which is what they did and which is what we do today.
And it's not ...
I want to say this.
You know, it's not that we're trying to be different,
and it's not that we want to create a controversy.
We just simply believe that that's what Jesus did.
And and I believe he took a loaf.
I don't think he took twelve loaves.
He took a loaf.
And you know ...
- The Greek word indicates that doesn't it?
- Yes, it does.
And you know there's great significance in that fact
because the loaf, the one loaf represented the one body.
And we all are partakers of that one body.
So you know when the loaf is passed,
we all partake of that loaf.
Now in many churches today there are individual crackers,
I guess you would say, and there are little individual cups
that people drink from.
That's not in the spirit, nor is it in harmony
with the pattern that Jesus set.
- And people will respond, well true enough,
but all of this is incidental,
that you're making mountains out of molehills,
that what is really important is just simply
that we remember Jesus.
How do you answer that?
I answer that by saying, you know, if it is incidental,
what about the time of observance?
Is that incidental?
Do we have to do it on the first day of the week
just because Acts 20 and 7 says
upon the first day of the week
when the disciples came together
to break bread Paul preached to them?
Is that incidental?
Is it incidental that that day is named?
Is it incidental that Jesus took a loaf of unleavened bread
and didn't take steak?
Is it incidental that he took a cup containing
fruit of the vine and not root beer or something like that?
You know, people have gone that far by the way.
Some religious people have gone that far.
They have communion on Tuesday night, Thursday night.
They do use Coca-Cola.
Said there's nothing wrong with using Coca-Cola.
Could use water.
So if we're going to violate the pattern in any particular,
we can violate it in every particular, it seems to me.
- And we're seeing such a departure today
beyond even the issues that were talking about.
As you say, in so many things in worship
and in the work of the church
because there's just no respect for a Bible pattern,
but, you know, back to the significance
of these things that Jesus used.
It's not just a matter of well he used one cup
and so we use one cup, although that's authority enough,
but Jesus actually gave symbolic significance
to a congregation coming together
and communing together out of that vessel
when he said this cup is The New Testament in my blood.
And there's some ...
You know, there's a lot of confusion there.
First of all, what he means
when he says this cup is The New Testament,
and then confusion over the two statements,
and I believe he made two statements
that this is my blood in The New Testament
and this is The New Testament in my blood.
What did Jesus mean when he said
this cup is The New Testament?
What's that referring to and how is that distinct
from what he said about the fruit of the vine?
- You know, I think that's a great question,
and I think many people misunderstand what Jesus,
not only what he said, but what he meant but what he said.
Many people make fun of the idea,
and I've been there when they really made fun of the idea
that a literal container represented anything
or that, and other people would make fun of the idea
that fruit of the vine or grape juice represents anything.
And Jesus said this cup containing wine,
which was an emblem of blood is rendered
by the shedding of my blood, an emblem of The New Testament.
Now, The New Testament, of course,
was ratified by the blood of Christ.
And what we have when we observe The Lord's Supper
is a cup containing fruit of the vine.
And this cup containing fruit of the vine
represents The New Testament in my blood.
Now, he didn't say an empty cup
represented The New Testament.
It doesn't, and we don't believe it does,
nor do we teach it does,
but we do believe that a cup of containing wine
or fruit of the vine is an emblem of The New Testament.
The blood or the fruit of the vine is an emblem
of the blood of Christ.
And what Jesus said is hard to erase.
He didn't say this fruit of the vine is The New Testament.
He didn't say this grape juice.
He said this cup is The New Testament in my blood.
And the greek lexicographers all say
this cup containing wine, an emblem of The New Testament
is rendered by the shedding of my blood,
rather an emblem of The New Testament.
And so we believe that The New Testament
was ratified with the blood of Christ.
And there's a picture of that in the communion.
And you know to deny that picture is one thing.
To destroy that picture is another thing.
And to substitute something
that totally destroys the picture is another thing.
I ask you what does a tray of individual cups,
what's it an emblem of?
- That's right.
- How does it in any way represent the new covenant
or the blood of Jesus Christ, either one?
It's not like we want to be different.
It's not like we want to create an argument.
It's just as though we believe what Jesus said is important,
what the Apostle Paul reported
to the Corinthians is important.
If it's not, why did Paul correct
the way they were eating The Lord's Supper?
They were way off base over there in Corinth
in the way they observe The Lord's Supper.
And I have to be honest with you my friend,
I believe people are off base today.
I really do.
I think they've left The New Testament pattern
for something that is a substitute.
- And as you say, it destroys the picture
and the very idea of individual communion
that's really a contradiction.
It's an oxymoron to speak of individual communion.
It is a joint participation,
and it's a beautiful, wonderful picture
when a congregation of God's people come together
and share the loaf of unleavened bread,
share the cup of blessing as Paul referred to it
in 1st Corinthians 7 and 10.
- You know that's a powerful point.
It really is a powerful point.
The communion was never intended to be something
we can get over with as quick as we can.
It was not intended to be expedited in a way
that won't take too long to observe it.
It served a purpose.
It was a reminder of what Jesus had done for us
when he shed his blood on the cross.
And it's a reminder of the New Covenant scriptures
under which we live today
and to which we're accountable today.
And that's a lesson everybody needs
to get every Lord's Day.
And the bread, which we break ...
Notice that we break.
The bread which we break ...
Now nobody breaks it for you.
You break the bread.
You participate by taking a piece of that bread.
Is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
And you know, the people to whom Paul was writing,
I believe were familiar with that.
What they were not familiar with was the oneness
that should exist in the congregation and in the church.
And he uses that one bread that everybody partakes off,
he used that as an example to show them,
they ought to be one in Christ.
They weren't arguing about whether there was just one loaf.
They knew that.
They practiced that every Lord's day.
What they were arguing about and what they were divided over
was the oneness they had in Christ.
And yet today, instead of that, we're divided over
whether the one bread means anything or not.
Why can't we just have an individual bread for everybody
or a dozen loaves for everybody?
Well one reason is it violates the pattern.
It violates the picture that Paul wanted to teach.
- You've debated this subject all across the country
for years and years, going all the way back
to the 1960s, I suppose.
And these are arguments that you've heard come up
again and again and again.
One would be, well the Bible speaks of Jesus
taking the cup, but when the word cup is used
it's what we call an autonomy,
and he's referring to the fruit of the vine,
and not the container.
How do you answer that?
- Well, you know autonomy is really
a rather simple figure of speech
that we all use from time to time
when we name one thing to suggest another,
but, you see, the thing we name is there.
It's there.
You know, you name something that exists
and then you suggest something else.
When you say drink the cup,
you know, you're actually saying drink what's in the cup.
You don't drink the container itself.
You don't consume the container itself.
You consume what's in it.
And so when Jesus took a cup,
all lexicographers, all Greek dictionaries,
to my knowledge, say that was a literal cup.
It's from the Greek word potérion.
It's one cup.
It was a cup.
He took that.
Now in that cup there was fruit of the vine.
And so when he said drink the cup, he used this figure,
essentially meaning drink what this cup contains.
Now, what it contains, never becomes the cup.
The fruit of the vine never becomes the cup.
The fruit of the vine is in the cup.
We drink the cup by drinking what it contains.
What it contains is the fruit of the vine.
And so to argue that the cup is the fruit of the vine
not only violates what the scripture says,
it destroys the concept of an autonomy.
- It's really amazing how what we accept and acknowledge
in everyday language, it's so simple and so apparent,
but all of a sudden it becomes muddy when we move it
into a religious context or you know well ...
- Well, you know take raising a baby on a bottle.
Do you raise a baby on an empty bottle?
Do you say the bottle is the milk?
No, we no better than that.
We know that if you raise a baby on the bottle,
if a baby takes a bottle and drinks the bottle,
what does the baby do?
The baby drinks the milk in the bottle.
The milk never becomes the bottle.
Jesus took a cup.
It contained the fruit of the vine.
He gave it to the disciples, said drink ye all of it
or drink ye all from it.
And the Bible says that's what they did.
- And what if there was an S at the end of the word cup?
- That's an interesting question.
- But, there's not.
- Yeah, what if it said he took the cups,
and somebody said I want you to prove to me
that it's alright to have a tray of individual cups.
Wouldn't you go to that scripture?
Wouldn't you go and read, well the Bible says right here
he took the cups, but you see it said never said that,
but when it says he took the cup,
people will argue in some unreasonable fashion
why that doesn't mean what it says.
- But, someone will say in Luke chapter 22,
his account, in verse 17
he took the cup and gave thanks and said
take this and divide it among yourselves,
and that's one of the main scriptures
that I hear people referred to try to justify
dividing the fruit of the vine in individual cups.
- Now, that true, and that's so easily answered
and understood if you'll just think about it.
The question is this:
we know that Jesus took a cup, and we know that he gave
that cup that contained the fruit of the vine
to his disciples and said drink ye all of it
or all of you drink from it.
How did they divide it?
That's how they divided.
They divided it by drinking from it.
They divided the contents of that cup
by drinking from that cup.
And so when he told them take this
and divide it among yourselves.
It was passed from one person to another.
Each person drank from it, and that's how they divided it.
- The very Greek word, to drink of it, means out of.
- That's right.
Drink ye out of.
- Yeah, it's a commandment.
And again Jesus, when he instituted The Lord's Supper,
said this do in remembrance of me.
We have just under two minutes left,
but another, you know, common reply is
well, how in the world did thousands of people
in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost share a cup?
We read of the church multiplying it by thousands at a time,
particular near Jerusalem.
How could they have possibly used
one loaf and one cup as they communed?
- You know that's been an argument that people have used.
And the amazing thing about the argument:
it is designed to prove what Jesus said
didn't mean what he said.
It's designed to prove that what Jesus
and the 12 disciples did, we can't do today.
That's essentially what it is.
First of all, I would answer that by pointing out
that even though there were thousands
of people present on the day of Pentecost,
there's not any evidence whatsoever
that they all assembled in one congregation
and observed The Lord's Supper.
We know first of all there were people there
from every nation under heaven,
and they all went back home.
Those people from every nation under heaven left the city.
We also know that according to ancient history,
they generally met from house to house.
They met in house churches,
rather than in one large building.
One of the major reasons for that
was because of the animosity that existed
between the Jewish people
and those who had obeyed the gospel.
They were all Jews at that time,
and many of those Jews were considered turncoats
simply because they'd accepted Christ,
even though the Jewish people had put him to death.
So, what has to be proven first?
What has to be proven first is that the 3,000
on Pentecost all met in one church
or in one assembly or in one congregation.
You can't do that.
There's no way you can do that.
And so, obviously, the argument falls right there.
We do know that churches did assemble every Lord's day,
and we know that there were various congregations
throughout that area.
The churches multiplied, the Bible says.
And the Christians multiplied.
So, actually here's what has to happen.
To prove that everybody, on the day of Pentecost,
had to drink out of one cup, you've got to find everybody
on the day of Pentecost in one assembly of the church.
Now if you can find that, then you might have an argument,
but you can't find it.
It's just simply not there.
What you can find ...
Now here's what you can find.
You can find that each congregation of the Lord's people
gathered to observe The Lord's Supper
every first day of the week.
You can find exactly how Jesus instituted the supper
and how the Apostle Paul delivered it
to the Corinthian congregation.
He reiterated exactly what Christ said.
Now, that would have been an ideal time for Paul
to have said, you know the Lord said,
as they were eating, he took the cup.
He could have filled in there and said
except in the Lord's congregation, but he didn't do that.
And so we have to accept not only what Jesus did,
but what he said and what Paul said.
- And we're out of time, but that brings up the idea
that communion is a congregational practice,
and some people say well you'd have to have one cup
for all of the world, but the whole world
is not commanded to come together and commune.
Congregations come together to commune.
That's the example we have in Acts 20 and 7.
And Jesus gave a pattern that we can
and we should follow today.
And it's not a matter of being difficult
or obstinate or just trying to be different.
It's a matter of simply maintaining the practice
that Jesus established 2,000 years ago.
And we contend that ought to be done
and we hope our viewers will stop
and get some serious Bible study
to this very important issue.
- That's true.
- Ronnie thank you very much for joining us today.
- It's good to be here.
- I'll be back in just a moment.
- The Psalmist said, "Through Thy precepts,
"I get understanding."
The Bible is the revelation of God to man
and you simply can't live for God until you know something
about the Word of God
and you may say, "Well, I want to read
"and study the Bible, but I don't know where to begin.
"I feel overwhelmed" or "I don't understand the Bible."
I want to offer you a wonderful way
to get acquainted with the scriptures.
You'll learn about some of the most basic
and foundational teachings of God's Word
and you'll get a better handle on how to read
and approach and study the Bible as a whole.
Won't you get in touch with us today
and ask to be enrolled in the Bible Correspondence Course.
It won't cost you a penny and we'll mail the lessons
to your home and you take your time to read and study
through the lessons,
I think you'll be surprised how much you'll learn.
I hope you've enjoyed today's discussion
with Brother Ronnie Wade on the scriptural pattern
for the observance of The Lord's Supper.
And, if you would like to go back
and further study this subject, study it on a deeper level,
we'll be happy to send you some printed material
free of any cost whatsoever.
Just get in touch with us,
and let us know that you would like some material
to study and read over concerning the original pattern
for The Lord's Supper.
We'll be happy to send that along on its way.
It's an important subject.
It's a subject that's worthy of your time
and your consideration because the Apostle Paul
enjoined upon us in 1st Corinthians 11 verse 2
that we are to keep the ordinances
as they were delivered unto us.
So we hope to hear from you today.
Thank you for taking your time to watch the program.
I hope that you benefit each week from Let the Bible Speak,
and that you plan to join me back here, the Lord willing,
for another study next time.
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