Is the bible enough and do you respect it when you dislike its use?

[Lamb]

Does an 18 month old participate in the communion table at your church? Why or why not?
My point with 1 Corinthians 12:13 and Galatians 3:27 was why should the same thinking not apply to baptism?
(This is just to clarify the intent of my earlier comments).

Just to set the record straight, before I get branded as being against whole household covenant theology (which I am not against).
I believe that the case for whole households being brought into the covenant, particularly the verse about one believing parent making the children clean, is scripturally irrefutable. One can only reject it by doing great harm to so much other scripture that an honest reader must accept that children and even infants are included in the New Covenant just as they were in the Old Covenant.

Where I remain, personally, unconvinced and believe that you may have done harm to scriptures like the ones I quoted is the assumption that sprinkling a baby is the one baptism and is the ritual required for entrance into the covenant. This is not the place to expound my beliefs or present the scriptures. I simply wanted to make it clear that I do not hate infants in the church.

In my church babies do not communicate with us that they understand that the bread and wine are Christ's real body and blood so they do not commune.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Does an 18 month old participate in the communion table at your church? Why or why not?
My point with 1 Corinthians 12:13 and Galatians 3:27 was why should the same thinking not apply to baptism?
(This is just to clarify the intent of my earlier comments).

Just to set the record straight, before I get branded as being against whole household covenant theology (which I am not against).
I believe that the case for whole households being brought into the covenant, particularly the verse about one believing parent making the children clean, is scripturally irrefutable. One can only reject it by doing great harm to so much other scripture that an honest reader must accept that children and even infants are included in the New Covenant just as they were in the Old Covenant.

Where I remain, personally, unconvinced and believe that you may have done harm to scriptures like the ones I quoted is the assumption that sprinkling a baby is the one baptism and is the ritual required for entrance into the covenant. This is not the place to expound my beliefs or present the scriptures. I simply wanted to make it clear that I do not hate infants in the church.

In the Roman Rite children usually do not receive their first communion until they are about eight years old. In the other rites of the Catholic Church some children receive first communion at the time of the baptism. The ancient practise was to baptise, confirm, and commune in one mass with the bishop presiding.

 

[Josiah]

Does an 18 month old participate in the communion table at your church? Why or why not?

LUTHERAN tradition is silence. Your issue is not mentioned once in our Confessions (on purpose!). Same with the issue of how to apply the water.

Lutheran custom/practice has been pretty much all over the map on this over the years, and still varies from parish to parish, denomination to denomination. Lutheranism is not dogmatic on all issues.

There is the issue with Communion about "judgement" and about "discerning the Body". No such limits are stated in reference to Baptism. The Bible says that recieving Communion "wrongly" (so it must be possible to receive it wrongly) made people sick in Corinth, for example. There is no statement about receiving Baptism wrongly results in anyone getting sick. There DOES seem to be a difference in this regard between these two Sacraments.



Pax Christi


Josiah

 

[MoreCoffee]

LUTHERAN tradition is silence. Your issue is not mentioned once in our Confessions (on purpose!). Same with the issue of how to apply the water.

Lutheran custom/practice has been pretty much all over the map on this over the years, and still varies from parish to parish, denomination to denomination. Lutheranism is not dogmatic on all issues.

There is the issue with Communion about "judgement" and about "discerning the Body". No such limits are stated in reference to Baptism. The Bible says that recieving Communion "wrongly" (so it must be possible to receive it wrongly) made people sick in Corinth, for example. There is no statement about receiving Baptism wrongly results in anyone getting sick. There DOES seem to be a difference in this regard between these two Sacraments.
Pax Christi
Josiah

Thanks for reducing the trailing blank lines in your posts it makes replying to them better.

I've often wondered about the warning in Paul's communion lessons for the Corinthians. The passage suggests sickness and death as judgements upon people partaking unworthily.

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgement against themselves. For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. 1Co 11:27-32​

The idea of judgement by means of sickness and death is a little vague. No specifics are given. For example the passage does not say "some have immediately died" because of unworthy partaking so we're left wondering if Christians who have chronic ill health may be under judgement or maybe their ill health is due to other factors that have nothing to do with unworthy partaking. The vagueness of the connection between partaking and sickness makes the passage an unspecific sort of thing. It's specific about self examination and discernment of the body [of Christ] but leaves open a lot of space for interpretation.