Author : Keith Sharp
Radical Restoration or Vain Worship?
F. LaGard Smith’s popular book Radical Restoration gave impetus to the “house church” movement as a way to return to the New Testament pattern for the church. No doubt Brother Smith is a brilliant writer, but the idea of making the place of worship the center piece of returning to true New Testament Christianity is disturbingly shallow. No principle of true worship is more basic than the fact that where we worship is unimportant (John 4:19-24).
Among other innovative ideas, Brother Smith advises a revision of how brethren have observed the Lord’s Supper. Would the implementation of these proposals lead to a radical restoration of the Lord’s Supper as revealed in the New Testament or to vain worship?
“A Memorial Within a Meal”?
Brother Smith advocates:
… perhaps the most universally-overlooked feature of the Lord’s Supper as practiced in the primitive church is that – from all appearances – it was observed in conjunction with a fellowship meal. That is, a normal ordinary meal with the usual variety of food (128)
In the first place, the Scriptures never use the term “fellowship” to describe a common meal. The New Testament uses the word “fellowship” to describe communion with God in Christ (1 John 1:3,7), communion with saints in Christ (1 John 1:3), communion with the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 10:16), sharing in suffering for Christ (2 Corinthians 1:6-7), partnership in the work and worship of the Lord in His church (Acts 2:42; 2 Corinthians 8:23), partnership in financing the Lord’s work (Acts 2:42; 1 Timothy 6:18), partnership in the gospel by support of a preacher (Philippians 1:5; 4:15), and distributing to the necessity of the saints (Romans 12:13; 2 Corinthians 8:4; 9:13). We must use biblical words in scriptural ways (1 Peter 4:11). Common meals are no more fellowship than sprinkling is baptism. Such “language of Ashdod” (Nehemiah 13:23-24) indicates unscriptural, denominational attitudes. To pervert a scriptural word to an unscriptural use to justify one’s practice is to teach and practice error.
Furthermore, rather astonishingly, Brother Smith appeals to a passage to support a practice which that very text plainly forbids! It is most definitely true that the church in Corinth was eating a common meal in connection with the Lord’s Supper (1 Corinthians 11:17-34). In fact, they had turned the Lord’s Supper into a common meal and brought division into the church (verses 17-21). Did the inspired apostle simply command them to separate the Lord’s Supper from the common meal (“his own supper,” verse 21), as institutional brethren contend? Did he just instruct them to quit the divisive practices? No, he told them to eat their own meals at home (verses 22,34) and to eat the Lord’s Supper when they came together as the church (verses 18,23-33). He not only separated the common meals (not “fellowship” meals) from the Lord’s Supper, he taught them that the two meals belonged to separate realms. The only meal the church is to come together to eat is the Lord’s Supper. Common meals are a function of the home.
“Was the ‘Last Supper’ a Passover Meal?”
Brother Smith questions whether or not the Lord’s Supper was instituted in connection with the Passover (279-282). If Christ did not begin the Lord’s Supper in connection with the Passover meal, there is no conclusive scriptural proof that the use of leavened bread for the Lord’s Supper is sinful.
The Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) all plainly teach that the Lord’s Supper was instituted in connection with the Passover (Matthew 26:1-2,17-20,26-29; Mark 14:1,12,15-16,22-25; Luke 22:1,7-8,13-20). John does not record the institution of the Lord’s Supper, but begins his narrative of the Last Supper by stating, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1). This statement of time is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not Jesus and His disciples were eating the Passover, for the time element is applied, not to the supper, but to when the Lord loved His disciples and how long that continued. The difficulty arises with John 18:28 and 19:14, which record events the next day, when Christ was crucified.
“Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium, and it was early morning. But they themselves did not go into the Praetorium, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover” (John 18:28).
“Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, ‘Behold your King!’” (John 19:14)
Brother Daniel H. King, in his commentary on John (Truth Commentaries The Gospel of John), spends almost seven pages discussing this problem (pages 263-269). One simple explanation he records both harmonizes John and the Synoptic Gospels and eliminates other objections.
The Pharisees had determined Nisan 1, and therefore the day of the Passover meal (Nisan 15), one day earlier than the Sadducees. The two parties had compromised by making an exception and having two consecutive days for the Passover slaughter and the following Passover meal in that particular year. Therefore, the Pharisees and with them Jesus and his disciples, held their celebration one day earlier than the Sadducees (King. 266).
This would also explain shops being open that evening (John 19:27-29).
The suggestion that the bread for the Lord’s Supper could be leavened is blasphemous. Leaven represents sin (1 Corinthians 5:9). To use leavened bread for the Lord’s Supper would be to represent the Son of God as sinful.
Conclusion
The approval of leavened bread for the memorial supper harmonizes with the view that the Lord’s Supper is part of a common meal. Paul specifically forbade this. There is “the Lord’s Supper” (1 Corinthians 11:20), and there is “your own supper” (1 Corinthians 11:21). We eat the Lord’s Supper to remember Jesus suffering for us (1 Corinthians 11:23-29). We eat our own suppers because we are hungry (verse 21). We are to eat the Lord’s Supper in the first day of the week assembly of the church, so we “proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:18-20, 26; Acts 20:7). Our own supper is a function of the home (1 Corinthians 11:22,34).
Neither of these meals is for fellowship with the church. We eat our own supper because we are hungry. In the Lord’s Supper we have fellowship with Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16).
It is good to share our own suppers with others in our homes as expressions of hospitality (Acts 2:46, New American Standard Bible; Romans 12:13; Hebrews 13:2; 1 Peter 4:9).
The local church may come together to worship in the home of some of its members (e.g., Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians16:19; Colossians 4:15; Philemon verse 2), or it may meet some place else of its own choosing (e.g., Acts 2:46; 20:7-8), because where we worship is unimportant (John 4:19-24).
Brother Smith is proposing vain worship rather than radical restoration.
