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To: daniel1212
Therefore they were effectually not recognizing the church which Christ bought with His own sinless shed blood (Acts 20:28) as actually being the body of Christ

This is a good point to bring out, and one to reinforce. The "not discerning the Lord's body" is not about the bread, the symbol of his flesh. It is about the unified assembly of saints, the local body of people of which He is the Head and Authority.

Thanks, Dan for emphasizing this.

151 posted on 04/23/2016 9:49:09 PM PDT by imardmd1 (Fiat Lux)
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To: imardmd1
This is a good point to bring out, and one to reinforce. The "not discerning the Lord's body" is not about the bread, the symbol of his flesh. It is about the unified assembly of saints, the local body of people of which He is the Head and Authority.

Glory to God, and which is simply contextual exegesis, and which focus on the church as the body of Christ proceeds into the next chapter. And which is characteristic of Paul ever since he was charged with persecuting Christ by persecuting His church then Paul. Moreover, considering the centrality and fundamental critical importance of the Cath Eucharist, then surely the practice and doctrine of the Catholic Eucharist with its NT priests would be clearly and often described in the life of the NT church, from Acts to Revelation, especially in the light of the many descriptions, teachings and exhortations and commendations and criticisms and solutions for problems which are given it. And with its descriptions of pastoral work.

But in the entire record of acts and life of the NT church, which are interpretive of the gospels, we have no manifest description of the Catholic Eucharist, the sober formal ritual administered by a sacerdotal class of clergy distinctively titled "priests." Breaking of bread is only mentioned 4 times in Acts, but as a communal meal eaten with gladness and singleness of heart, not a somber sacrifice for sins offered at the hands of priest. Likewise in the only other books in which it is described, which is only 1 Cor. and Jude, the latter simply calling it a "feast of charity."

But like the distinctive sacerdotal priesthood and so many other Cath beliefs, the Cath Eucharist is unseen in the life of the very church which she audaciously claims to be!

Meanwhile, I think even most evangelical churches, who contritely, somberly think of the Lord's death in taking part in the Lord's supper with a piece of bread and bit of grape juice, largely miss the depth of meaning in remembering the Lord's death by being manifestly treating the other faithful blood-bought saints as members of that body, which the communal breaking of bread signifies (not that I always treat the faithful as members for whom Christ died). And by likewise excluding those who by behavior "separate themselves [from the body], sensual, having not the Spirit," (Jude 19) or believers who will-fully walk in impenitent manifest sin, as described:

Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth... But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. (1 Corinthians 5:8,11) Though not being clearly manifest, by inference this commemorative feast may refer to the Lord's supper, though again, the body is the church: "purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover sacrificed for us."(v. 7)

162 posted on 04/24/2016 6:34:19 AM PDT by daniel1212 ( Turn to the Lord Jesus as a damned and destitute sinner+ trust Him to save you, then follow Him!)
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