Well good morning friends and welcome to the 4th of September on Let's Talk here on Radio Pulpit. I'm your host Rocky Stevenson, pastor of Benoni Bible Church. And what a joy it is once more to enter into Memorable Monday, our segment for Let's Talk. And what a joy it is once more to think about the early church. and in particular today we're going to be looking at the Eucharist which is the Lord's Supper or the Communion and we think about this in the context of around 200 AD to 300 AD and we're going to be looking at some of the significance of the liturgy that is the order of service and the challenges that they faced and we're going to really get some lessons from this, but then also think about the way that that should impact us as we think about this in our day here in 2023. And in the annals of early church and Christian worship, the Eucharist, a sacred meal commemorating the Lord's supper, or the Lord's last supper with his disciples, held such a central place and historical records from around 200 AD provide glimpses into that practice just as we gather today the early believers just as we assemble today and at Benoni Bible Church we have the Lord's Supper every second week and we enjoy that with one another the early believers were united in a heartfelt prayers during and really drawing near to one another and taking part in the breaking of bread and the wine symbolizing Christ's body that was broken for us and the blood. Tertullian, who was one of the early Christian writers and early church fathers in a sense, he mentioned how believers would pray and give thanks and consume the elements in a spirit of unity. It's a wonderful thing to just think about the way that the church did this right in its earliest times remembering the fact that the Lord Jesus is coming again and the fact that Jesus died for their sins. There's really two elements that you do remember. You celebrate the fact that Jesus died for us and that he rose again and then you also are remembering that Jesus, the same Jesus, is coming again and that we are commemorating not just his death but we are also celebrating his life. In the early church they had such a reverence for the Eucharist and that extended to the principles of also inclusion and exclusion. because they would include only those that were baptized into the service. And usually this service took around three hours. So some people know a bit about long church services, this service took about three hours. We can see in the early documents like the Didache, a first century Christian document, that they were instructed to only allow baptized believers to partake in this service and not just in the actual bread and the wine and the passing out of the elements but this was the whole service the prayers as well that only included those that were baptized members and so this was specifically for a regenerate as best as what they could tell a regenerate membership and so it was a whole separate service sometimes this would be done even after the other normal church services and this practice then rooted in the Apostles teachings was about self-examination as well as sanctity and Ignatius of Antioch an early church father also emphasized the need of unity and the importance of partaking worthily and so if you think about even just the length of a service like this much of the Lord's Day would be given to to the worship of the Lord in various ways. And three hours was not a difficult thing to have as the Christians would engage in the Lord's Supper in that way. And often a meal would be part of what they would do during this time. Members would actually bring their own portions of bread and wine. So that's unlike what we would do at Benoni Bible Church. The church itself supplies with the wine in little small glasses and bread or rather let's say matzos or little wafers that we would break up into smaller pieces. But in the early church, They would come and they would bring their own bread and their own wine and that would really symbolize even the shared table as well as the shared faith. And so that was even part of the service, the fact that they would bring their own and that they would share with one another. And these long and participatory services allowed for deep reflection, for worship, for unity amongst believers. And this would often be more than just a small wafer and a small sip of wine, but this would actually be a whole meal. Justin Martyr, an early apologist, describe the gathering, noting the time dedicated to the Scriptures and the reading of the Scriptures, but then also the preaching, prayers, and as well as then the Eucharist. So you would probably find that in an early church service, if the Eucharist was to take place that day, they would dismiss those that were not baptized believers in that church. And then they would take part of this together as a body of Christ. If we think about even the emergence of the liturgy and the agape meal that took place here, when we talk about the agape meal, this was the way in which this morphed into more of a time of feasting even, and eating together, and being around the table, not just in taking part in the Lord's Supper. And around the 200 AD mark, the early church began to adopt structural liturgical practices, bringing order to their worship. And the structural approach then included the Eucharist's celebration, where prayers, readings and communion were interwoven together. And additionally, then the agape meal or the love feast, as it has become known in English, the love feast, the agape is obviously that Greek word for that godly love, agape love. But there was an agape meal, was this integral part of their gatherings. They would take part in a communal meal. inspired by the Last Supper, and emphasizing fellowship and charity than often they would share with one another. Tertullian's writings mention the agape meal and the significance that it held in fostering unity and in sharing. But in many of the historical accounts from men like Hippolytus, they offer profound insight into the early church's Eucharistic practices as well as the apostolic tradition. And when he writes in his book called the Apostolic Tradition, Hippolytus documents the liturgical structure of the Eucharist. But the agape meal actually became something that started to be abused inside of the early church. And so that practice like other practices ceased and it stopped being practiced. I've seen that it's sometimes been helpful in the past to have something like a fellowship meal on Sundays. We used to do that when I was the pastor in Middleburg at Middleburg Baptist Church. in Pumalanga we would once a month on a Sunday just assemble together after the church service and everybody would bring and share and we would take part in a meal like that and often times you find such unity is garnered in eating together and being together. You think of some of the most amazing teachings that we have in the Word of God always were surrounding times of meals and eating together and So we've enjoyed that before even at Middleburg Baptist and that was something like the agape meal or the love meal that the early church would take part in. I don't think it's necessarily wrong even for the church today in our day to take part in fellowship, warm fellowship with one another, eating with one another. But we do know that the agape meal was actually somewhat abused and we see that Paul even challenges some of that thinking in the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 where he talks about don't you have homes that you should go and eat in? Don't you have places where you should go and eat but now you want to come and turn the house of the Lord into disorder and ill repute? And so the agape meal was something that was a special meal with the people of God in the early church. But it surrounded even the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper. It's a joy for us to read of some of these accounts like the apostolic tradition by Hippolyte. Hippolytus you could always actually find some of his stuff even online it probably find it for free I'm not actually I've seen some of his stuff in some of my history books but you probably be able to find it for free because of the age of of documents like this and it's always a joy to get a bit of a snapshot into the worship during that era and what is a wonder when you look at church history is here we are in 2023 and we are still the church is still in existence Jesus is still busy building his church And as we journey through history, and as we look at the practices of the early church, we're reminded of the profound gospel message that echoes through the Eucharist. Just as they partook in the bread and the wine, symbolizing Christ's sacrifice, we too partake in the forgiveness and the redemption that is offered through the death and the resurrection of Jesus. We are still the same church of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is still the head of the church. And those believers that took part in 200 AD in the Lord's Supper, recognizing that they as individuals were brought into this one body under the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ by His death on the cross and His resurrection, we are part of that very same body. And that's what's exciting about this. This practice invites us to remember the Lord Jesus' sacrifice. and to anticipate the fact that Jesus is coming again soon and we live in unity with our fellow believers so even though we do it differently in a sense the church supplies the meal and we don't bring the meal every time and we we have it in our service time and there may be unbelievers present and we would always remind them that this is for believers alone the early church would often have the separate so it is that we take part in the same practice the same ordinance of the Lord's Supper And you can go and read, for example, what Paul says about this in 1 Corinthians 11 verse 23 to 26. And there the Apostle Paul embraces the significance of the Lord's Supper. He says, For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. There's almost nothing more favorite to me than our every second Sunday when we have the Lord's Supper. I almost wish we had it every week. In fact, during the COVID time, we would do it as a church almost every single week at one point, just reminding ourselves of the fact that we exist as a congregation because of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the fact that he is ascended on high. He's seated at the right hand of the majesty on high and God is still on his throne. And so he has all things in his hands and we would remind ourselves of this. But the Apostle Paul reminds us of this. When you drink this bread, when you eat this bread, when you drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. And the Lord Jesus is coming again soon. So as we conclude about this enlightening exploration on the early church's Eucharistic practice, let's continue to really press forward. and continue to uphold this rich legacy of unity and reverence and this gospel-centered worship that we saw in the early church which we still see today as the church takes part in the Lord's Supper. What a joy it is for us to be the Lord's people who assemble on the Lord's Day to do the Lord's work and to continue to take part in the Lord's Supper. May the Lord bless you as you think about these marvelous thoughts Here we are, 2023, still taking part in that which the early church in 200 AD were taking part. What a marvel that is for us to think on. May the Lord bless you. Amen.