Dear Interested Reader,
I write this article to help you in your quest for simple, New Testament Christianity, an essential part of which is scriptural, God-pleasing worship!
The Cup –
What I would first encourage you to do is look through the scriptures where we are told how to commune. It is always cup, never cups. There was no sign of individual cups until 1898 when Rev. J. G. Thomas invented the first set. G. C. Brewer in his autobiography, “40 Years on the Firing Line,” makes this admission: “I think I was the first preacher (Church of Christ) to advocate the use of the individual communion cups, and the first church in the state of Tennessee that adopted it was the church for which I was preaching, the Central Church of Christ, Chattanooga Tennessee.” This occurred in 1914; how can something so recent be called apostolic? I know of people alive today who witnessed the first time individual cups were ever used by the Lord’s Church in the observance of communion. How are they different from instrumental music? One innovation is just as sinful as the other.
Q. Does it make any difference how we observe the communion?
A. Jesus says yes. “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Vain worship means useless worship, good for nothing.
A. The Apostle Paul says yes. In 1 Corinthians 11 the Bible says that the churches of Corinth had perverted the communion by turning it into a common meal, no discerning the Lord’s Body. Because they did this it was no longer the Lord’s Supper that they were partaking of (1 Cor. 11:20) Christ said, “This do in remembrance of me.” When we change it, it can no longer be called the Lord’s Supper.
A. Logic and common sense say yes. The word communion means “joint participation.” We are communing or participating jointly, eating and drinking with one another and with Christ. Individual cups and loaves destroy that concept of joint participation.
Q. Is the word “Cup” making reference only to the contents?
A. Experts of the Greek Language say no. Thayer, Bullinger, Vine, Ardnt and Gingrich and others all agree that the word poterion, translated cup, means a “drinking vessel”.
A. Jesus says no, “Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you’.” (Luke 22:20) Now earlier Jesus said that the fruit of the vine (grape juice) represented the Blood. He then says that the Cup containing the grape juice represents the New Testament. The Apostle Paul said the same thing in 1 Corinthians 11:25.
Q. Jesus said in Luke 22:17, “Take this (the Cup) and divide it among yourselves…” doesn’t this give the authority to divide it into individual cups?
A. Jesus explains what He meant.
He Commands them to divide it – Luke 22:17, “Take this (the Cup) and divide it among yourselves…”
He tells them How to divide it – Matthew 26:27, “Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it (the Cup), all of you.” (NKJV)
They do as they were told – Mark 14:23, “And He took the cup, and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them: and they all drank of it (the Cup).”
The Loaf –
The initial reasoning for why we ought to use one loaf is the same as with the cup. Jesus only used one, it is clear from the text, so we should use one in order to comply with his command to “do this.” Like the individual cups it was not until recent years that men, particularly the Lord’s Church ever started using individual loaves.
There are a number of problems with individual loaves-
1. The bread must be unleavened, just as the grape juice must be unfermented, as the supper was being observed during the Feast of Unleavened Bread all leaven, in or out of food or drink, would have been purged from the house. Are the crackers often used as “individual loaves” unleavened?
2. The word translated bread or loaf in the Gospel and Pauline accounts means specifically one loaf. Artos is the Greek word meaning a loaf, if it were referring to more than one it would be an entirely different word.
3. It destroys the entire picture symbolized in the bread. Jesus said “this is my body.” The loaf represents the Body, the body is the Church: One Church , one body, one loaf. In the Old Testament there were twelve loaves, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel , that were on the showbread table in the temple. (Lev. 24:4-6) Today we are one tribe represented by one loaf. “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? We being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread.” (1 Cor. 10:16-17)