Fascinating. No wonder you're such a close personal FRiend to the Roman Catholics in these discussions.
Does your "Baptist" church go along with that word-choice, too?
So now agreeing with Catholics has been elevated to some kind of Orthodox Presbyterian thoughtcrime.
The malignant machenoma is a terrible thing to watch in action.
You are so trapped by your theological hatred of Catholicism that you have lost grasp of common language.
The Greek noun eucharistÃa (εὐχαριστία) derives from eú- "good, well" + cháris "favor, grace". EucharistéŠ(εὐχαριστῶ) is the usual verb for "to thank" in the Septuagint and New Testament. It is found in the major texts concerning the Lord's Supper.
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks (eucharistéÅ), He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." (1 Corinthians 11:23-24)
And when He had taken a cup and given thanks (eucharistéÅ), He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And He said to them, "This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many." (Mark 14:23-24)
Golly. I guess I don’t think of Catholics as the definition of evil, so that any word they use is banned forever from “The Elect”! If that makes me a heretic, “Here I stand!”
Should I reject words like “grace” because Catholics use it?
Yes, I LIKE the word Eucharist. Thanksgiving. Not atoning, but thanksgiving for the atonement. Neither I nor any Catholic I’ve ever heard of would mistake what we do in OUR Baptist church - it isn’t ‘mine’ - for Mass.
For goodness sakes, MY Baptist church insists on using grape juice instead of wine! Let my Catholic FRiends - and yes, I consider a number of them to be FRiends, and I take joy in that - let them contemplate Mass with grape juice! (Mad Dawg, sorry about what just happened to your keyboard!)
Why the worry over giving thanks for the atonement?
Here is what Philip Schaff (well known and loved Catholic apologist - NOT!) wrote:
“The sacrament of the holy Supper was instituted by Christ under the most solemn circumstances, when he was about to offer himself a sacrifice for the salvation of the world. It is the feast of the thankful remembrance and appropriation of his atoning death, and of the living union of believers with him, and their communion among themselves. As the Passover kept in lively remembrance the miraculous deliverance from the land of bondage, and at the same time pointed forward to the Lamb of God; so the eucharist represents, seals, and applies the now accomplished redemption from sin and death until the end of time. Here the deepest mystery of Christianity is embodied ever anew, and the story of the cross reproduced before us. Here the miraculous feeding of the five thousand is spiritually perpetuated. Here Christ, who sits at the right hand of God, and is yet truly present in his church to the end of the world, gives his own body and blood, sacrificed for us, that is, his very self, his life and the virtue of his atoning death, as spiritual food, as the true bread from heaven, to all who, with due self-examination, come hungering and thirsting to the heavenly feast. The communion has therefore been always regarded as the inmost sanctuary of Christian worship.
In the apostolic period the eucharist was celebrated daily in connection with a simple meal of brotherly love (agape), in which the Christians, in communion with their common Redeemer, forgot all distinctions of rank, wealth, and culture, and felt themselves to be members of one family of God. But this childlike exhibition of brotherly unity became more and more difficult as the church increased, and led to all sorts of abuses, such as we find rebuked in the Corinthians by Paul. The lovefeasts, therefore, which indeed were no more enjoined by law than the community of goods at Jerusalem, were gradually severed from the eucharist, and in the course of the second and third centuries gradually disappeared.
The apostle requires the Christians to prepare themselves for the Lord’s Supper by self-examination, or earnest inquiry whether they have repentance and faith, without which they cannot receive the blessing from the sacrament, but rather provoke judgment from God. This caution gave rise to the appropriate custom of holding special preparatory exercises for the holy communion.
In the course of time this holy feast of love has become the subject of bitter controversy, like the sacrament of baptism and even the Person of Christ himself. Three conflicting theories—transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and spiritual presence of Christ-have been deduced from as many interpretations of the simple words of institution (”This is my body,” etc.), which could hardly have been misunderstood by the apostles in the personal presence of their Lord, and in remembrance of his warning against carnal misconception of his discourse on the eating of his flesh. The eucharistic controversies in the middle ages and during the sixteenth century are among the most unedifying and barren in the history of Christianity. And yet they cannot have been in vain. The different theories represent elements of truth which have become obscured or perverted by scholastic subtleties, but may be purified and combined. The Lord’s Supper is: (1) a commemorative ordinance, a memorial of Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross; (2) a feast of living union of believers with the Saviour, whereby they truly, that is spiritually and by faith, receive Christ, with all his benefits, and are nourished with his life unto life eternal; (3) a communion of believers with one another as members of the same mystical body of Christ; (4) a eucharist or thankoffering of our persons and services to Christ, who died for us that we might live for him.
Fortunately, the blessing of the holy communion does not depend upon the scholastic interpretation and understanding of the words of institution, but upon the promise of the Lord and upon childlike faith in him. And therefore, even now, Christians of different denominations and holding different opinions can unite around the table of their common Lord and Saviour, and feel one with him and in him.”
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc1.i.IX.v.html
In this link, Schaff discusses “The Eucharist” as practiced from 100 AD to 325 AD:
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc2.v.vii.xi.html
Don’t be scared. Give thanks for what God has done! THANKSGIVING!
PS - does that make November the month where America has a holiday for the Eucharist?