st0o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Steven Timm) (09/04/90)
I'd like to share some thoughts from my personal devotion recently: I was thinking about what Christ meant when he said of the bread, "This is My body" In searching the context of I Corinthians 11 and 12 where Paul talks about this, I noticed the following: Paul is talking about contentions and factions in verses 18 and 19. Further on in 1 Cor 12:27 we see that "Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it (NASB)" We are, in a very literal sense what we eat. The real presence of the body of Christ in the communion service is not found so much within the bread as it is within the community of unified believers who sit around the Lord's Table. Christ said "do this in remembrance of Me." It's difficult to talk with ones mouth full, so perhaps if we were to partake of communion more frequently (than the 4 times a year that 7th-day Adventists do) we would have less time to dispute with each other. However, I sense that the more important remembrance is in the celebration of a communion of believers, one in the bonds of His love.