Taking His Communion

[Kimberly Fowler]

What does “taking the communion unworthily” mean?

Ironically, I think most Christians think they already know the answer to this; and most believe it means to check the condition of their heart (if there is sin on their heart) before taking the Lord’s communion; but I want to bring something before you that I believe the Lord has shown me about this question and the scriptures from where it originates.
It comes from the scriptures in 1 Corinthians 11:27-29

27″ Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks from the cup in an unworthy manner will be held responsible for the Lord’s body and blood. 28 A person must examine himself and then eat the bread and drink from the cup, 29 because whoever eats and drinks without recognizing the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.”

While I do believe that a large part of the communion is about relationship with Christ, I believe a lot of Christians are pulling this scripture out of the framework of scriptures and chapters surrounding it and missing a very important message in the context of this.
Before we go into that part, let’s start with the first part of taking communion which is our relationship with Christ, because that IS an integral part of communion.

In 1Corinthians 10: 1-6, it states:
“Now I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the fact that all of our ancestors who left Egypt were under the cloud. They all went through the sea, 2 and they all were immersed into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that went with them. That rock was the Messiah. 5 But God wasn’t pleased with most of those people, and so they were struck down in the wilderness.
6 Now their experiences serve as examples for us so that we won’t set our hearts on evil as they did.”

Now although the Old Testament is a shadow of what comes in the New Testament, the Bible states the Israelites were taking a type of communion of which was Christ but they had set their hearts on evil, and states that they served as an example (and a warning) for us, so we do examine our hearts to make sure we are remaining in fellowship with God and check if we are straying away from Him. (He never abandons us but we, in our willfulness and selfish desires, can stray from intimacy with Him.) And in 1Corinthians chapter 10, part of the chapter is warning the Corinthians to check their hearts and guard their hearts from idolatry. And then in chapter 10, Paul brings up the subject of communion in verse 16, and this is where it not only speaks of our relationship with Christ in taking communion, but it speaks of the other part of communion which I believe we are missing that is a very important part of the heart of Christ:

16 “The cup of blessing that we bless is our fellowship in the blood of the Messiah, isn’t it? The bread that we break is our fellowship in the body of the Messiah, isn’t it? 17 Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, because all of us eat from the same loaf.”

Did you notice the scripture tied the loaf and the body of the Messiah to the relationship of the people eating the loaf to a relationship as one body? This part of the scripture is linking the physical body of Christ which was sacrificed for us as the bread but we become the spiritual part of His body by partaking of the bread! What I am trying to point out is that according to many scriptures throughout the Bible, we are referenced as “the body” of Christ, and this is a needed reminder when we start to read the next chapter of 1 Corinthians.
In 1 Cor. 11:17, Paul again brings up communion, but he is chastising the Corinthians about the communion they are taking.

17 “Now I am not praising you in giving you the following instructions. When you gather, it is not for the better but for the worse. 18 For in the first place, I hear that when you gather as a church there are divisions among you, and I partly believe it. …20 When you gather in the same place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. 21 For as you eat, each of you rushes to eat his own supper, and one person goes hungry while another gets drunk. 22 You have homes in which to eat and drink, don’t you? Or do you despise God’s church and humiliate those who have nothing?”

He is displeased that that there are divisions within the church and the church is taking communion here without thought of his fellow brother or sister in Christ (the fellowship of the spiritual body).
And the next several verses of chapter 11 deal with communion and that famous scripture of taking the communion unworthily; but before I go into that, I want to skip to the next chapter of 1 Corinthians which actually ties the previous chapter and the message to the following chapters.
1Corinthians 12 starts out talking about varieties of spiritual gifts, but in verse 7, it says something which is interesting:

7 “To each person has been given the ability to manifest the Spirit for the common good.”

One would think that a spiritual gift would be all about our own relationship with Christ to further our individual walk with intimacy with Him, yet the verse here says it is for “the common good”, for the body as a whole unit! And then right after the verses about spiritual gifts, the next several verses speak of the church as a whole as a single body, the body of Christ!

12 “For just as the body is one and yet has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, form a single body, so it is with the Messiah. 13 For by one Spirit all of us—Jews and Greeks, slaves and free—were baptized into one body and were all privileged to drink from one Spirit…
27 Now you are the Messiah’s body and individual parts of it.”

So chapter 12 is talking about spiritual gifts and the body as a whole not just as an individual…I want to skip now to chapter 14 to show something VERY interesting! We are taught that being a Christian is all about relationship with God, so one would think that a spiritual gift that increased that individual relationship would be high on God’s heart.

Look at this in chapter 14 verse 1:

“…keep on desiring spiritual gifts, especially the ability to prophesy. 2 For the person who speaks in a foreign language is not actually speaking to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands him, because he is talking about secrets by the Spirit. 3 But the person who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding, encouragement, and comfort. 4 The person who speaks in a foreign language builds himself up, but the person who prophesies builds up the church.”

This is really strange to me. If one is talking in spiritual tongues, the Bible says they are “speaking to God”! So one would think that would be the most important gift of all…you are TALKING TO GOD!!!

But look at verse 5:
5 “Now I wish that all of you could speak in foreign languages, but especially that you could prophesy. The person who prophesies is more important than the person who speaks in a foreign language, unless he interprets it so that the church may be built up.”

Now, I want to start going backwards to chapter 13, the famous chapter on love!

1 “If I speak in the languages of humans and angels but have no love, I have become a reverberating gong or a clashing cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can understand all secrets and every form of knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains but have no love, I am nothing. 3 Even if I give away everything that I have and sacrifice myself, but have no love, I gain nothing.”

This IS the message we are missing in communion…not just love for God but love for each other. Lets go backward once more back to chapter 11 and reread the verse and context about taking communion unworthily.

20 “When you gather in the same place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. 21 For as you eat, each of you rushes to eat his own supper, and one person goes hungry while another gets drunk. 22 You have homes in which to eat and drink, don’t you? Or do you despise God’s church and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I praise you? I will not praise you for this!
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you—how the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took a loaf of bread, 24 gave thanks for it, and broke it in pieces, saying, “This is my body that is for you. Keep doing this in memory of me.” 25 He did the same with the cup after the supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. As often as you drink from it, keep doing this in memory of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink from this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
27 Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks from the cup in an unworthy manner will be held responsible for the Lord’s body and blood. 28 A person must examine himself and then eat the bread and drink from the cup, 29 because whoever eats and drinks without recognizing the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.”

Paul was chastising the Corinthians in this passage, not necessarily because they did not have a heart for God, but because they had no thought or heart for fellow members of the body of Christ. They were not operating out of love for each other!
As I was meditating on this, I took communion with Christ (being alone at home), and something I have done for a many years is to picture myself with Christ and to picture Him and I sharing communion. And many times He will take over the picture and I will actually see Him in the spirit, breaking a piece of bread (or rather pulling it apart from the loaf) and handing it to me and I take of that piece and then pull apart a piece of my portion and hand it back to Him; that way we are “sharing” it together. And He, in the heart vision, usually has a goblet with wine in it and He first takes a drink then passes it to me to let me drink from His cup. I have taken lately to dipping my bread in His cup and eating it that way (and still drinking from His cup later). So today when I got my bread to eat it, I started to dip it in His cup which I have been doing lately, and abruptly, He put out His hand and stopped me. I wasn’t expecting that! (The picturing is usually started by my mind/heart, but many times, Jesus takes over the “picturing” and it becomes a mini spiritual vision) So in this mini vision, I was startled that Jesus was not letting me dip my bread in His cup, so I looked at Him questioningly. He then took His own piece of bread and dipped it in His cup, then held it to my mouth to let me take my bite, and as I took it, I heard Him in my spirit, say, “Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh…” in a very tender intimate voice. (That is what Adam said when he received Eve from God). I knew Jesus was letting me know I was His body and the great love which He has for His body.
God so loved the WORLD that He gave His Son, and for love, Christ died for us and for the sins of the world. When we take covenant, we are not just to remember that He died for us alone (although that is important to know that if we were alone on Earth, God would still have died for us as an individual…we are THAT important), but as the body of Christ, we must also have the heart of Christ which is love for OTHERS as well as love for the Father. The Bible says…”because whoever eats and drinks without recognizing the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.”
Loving God with all your, heart, soul, and mind, is the most important thing, and secondly, to love others as yourself, and on these two things hang all the law and the prophets. That is to say that everything in the entire Word is summed up in love…love for God first and foremost, then love for others. That is our communion with Christ!

[Sherry Mohr]

Awesome, awesome revelation of His Word. Very well written and easy to comprehend. Thank you very much, Kimberly; I appreciate you posting this. I am blessed by it. God bless you.

I LOVE YOU!

[Kimberly Fowler]

Thank you, Sherry, for responding. I was actually hoping  it made sense to others as it hopped back and forth with scripture. I wasn’t going to write the post about communion even though God was giving me the understanding of part of it, but then I heard in my spirit the command to write it for others. So I was glad it did not sound rambling but gave the connotation that was meant by it. Glad to hear from you. I pray for you and Jon when God brings you to my heart.  I would have responded earlier to your reply but I was away from home and could not remember my password to login to respond. LOL

 

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