Matthew Henry in his commentary sees at least a hint from Paul in this text that the Lord's Supper should be celebrated frequently. In our next few meditations, we are going to see that there are many more hints and arguments that favor such a practice, and that the reasons often advanced against it tend not to be Biblically based but rather from traditions on the one hand ("we have always done it this way") and from assumptions on the other ("if we have the Supper every week, people will begin to take it for granted").
The first general reason we would advance for a frequent celebration of the Supper is the content of this series of meditations itself. Some of them have overlapped, it is true, or looked at the same issue from different perspectives. However, we are now in our 47th devotional, each one attempting to given reasons why believers ought to take the Lord's Supper. In several of the meditations already, we have seen that a frequent participation in the meal would enable a certain spiritual goal to be attained more readily. Here are some of the reasons we have seen, which we will expand upon in this context in the next few devotionals:
- We have seen the fullness of the message proclaimed at the Table. How could we adequately consider all the aspects of it if we only took the Supper monthly, bi-annually or once a year?
- The Table calls us to self-examination and this is a good thing - but again, how shall we examine ourselves thoroughly as we are required to do if we have relatively few occasions on which to do so?
- If at the Table there is a spiritual feeding by faith on Jesus as the sustenance our souls require to grow and thrive (pictured in eating a symbol of His body and and drinking an emblem of His blood), how shall we feed our bodies with physical food several times each day, but ration our souls to this spiritual nourishment but once a month or once a year? Matthew Henry says this in commenting on the passage above: Our bodily meals return often; we cannot maintain life and health without this. And it is fit that this spiritual diet should be taken often too!
- If each Lord's Day is to remind us of His resurrection from the dead, why would we not at the same time take the opportunity to remember His death? Isn't the message of the Gospel that of a crucified and risen Savior?
- If there is evidence in Scripture that the early church took the Supper frequently, why wouldn't we want to do the same as them in this regard?
- If our Lord, Jesus Christ meant this meal to be a reminder for us (and His words of institution, "do this in remembrance of Me" clearly show that this is true) and if He did this knowing how forgetful we can be of important spiritual truths (which is certainly the case) then why would we feel free to reduce the number of opportunities we have on which we can remember Him and His crucifixion?
- If at the Table we can have our perspective corrected concerning the future, the past, what we have been saved from, what it is that we are saved to, and our relationship with our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, surely we need that corrective more frequently, not less so?
- Finally, if eating this meal is a command, then we must obey it. In the light of all that we have mentioned above, a frequent obedience would seem more fitting.
So here are eight compelling reasons not just to take the Supper, but to do so frequently if the church is to derive all the benefit from it that was intended for her when the Lord so graciously instituted the meal. In the last few meditations of this series, we will look at some of them in more detail and also address the arguments most often used against frequent celebration of the Supper.