Wine at Passover? At Communion?

The debate over this rages on.

Was first-century wine really alcoholic?  

Was it only 3-5%?

Did Jesus at Cana really turn water into that much wine, as we know it today?  

Modern-day views opposing the use of alcohol tend to get mixed up in the uncertain history of the usage of wine and alcohol in the first century.
 
Recently I considered again an argument that in the Upper Room, there would have been no leaven at all, according to God's command, and thus no fermented wine, either.  Fermented wine is basically the product of leavening from yeast, just like bread.  This would mean that the church shouldn't be using wine for Communion today, if Jesus didn't.  Here are my thoughts:

 
1. The OT doesn’t apply to wine the requirement to remove leaven.
The speed of Israel leaving Egypt at Passover is the best example.  Exodus 12:34 refers only to bread, not wine.  So when God establishes the feast of unleavened bread (the name is significant), He says 3 times don’t have leaven in your bread, and only once says, “No leaven at all,” without mentioning bread (Ex. 13:3-8).  God wanted Israel to replicate the Passover experience of having to eat bread unleavened each year.  They wouldn’t have had any wine, as slaves, probably.  

Exodus 12:15 is the most specific instruction on this I found, and refers to eating bread, or eating, only.  There is a whole separate group of words for drinking, and terms for fermented and unfermented wine, and none of them are used for this feast, or Passover, anywhere.  It applied to bread because that’s all they had to eat on the way out of Egypt.  It makes sense to apply this to any food in later celebrations, but applying it to wine isn’t warranted by the text, or by common parlance (we don’t speak of wine being leavened).  The point isn’t to avoid consuming any food product with yeast, leavened or fermented, but to remove leaven and use none in your baking/eating of food for 7 days.

 

2. Jews from Exodus to Jesus didn’t consider wine to be leavened, or not kosher, and they still don’t.
https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/508672/jewish/Why-is-it-permitted-to-drink-wine-on-Passover-when-it-is-fermented-with-yeast.htm

3. I could not find anywhere in the Pentateuch (only a quick search!) a requirement that wine be offered as a sacrifice at Passover, so I was wrong about that this morning.  That there is a call for a drink offering at most other feasts may be a point in your favor.  The use of it at Seders appears to be a later tradition that Jesus used to establish Communion, just as He attended the feast of Hanukkah, an extra-biblical tradition, to teach the people.  Asserting that a practice is a tradition, and thus unwarranted, is a false inference.

 
4. The NT church used fermented wine in communion – 1 Cor. 11:21.
This refutes the argument that we only use the elements we do because of tradition.  Why did the NT church change to wine in Paul’s day (probably at his direction – he was in Corinth establishing the church a long time – Acts 18:11), if Jesus didn’t use it?
 
I see this and Ex 12:15 as the strongest arguments against this assertion.  I don’t think the scientific fact that the fermentation of wine and the leavening of bread are an extremely similar process, should trump the above.

Singing a Stern Psalm

This Psalm* is darker, in a minor key, kind of brooding and stern. What are we doing singing this kind of song in worship?

The book of Psalms gives us more moods to sing than just positive and encouraging, and we should use them. There is certainly a time to sing about nations rejecting our God and our Lord Jesus, these days. And the mood that brings is lament or stern resolution, not bounce and cheer. We should weep with those who weep in our singing together.

This can be tricky to engage with in worship. It takes some preparation. We don’t mentally veg out and just let the music float us down stream. One reason we have a printed bulletin is so you can look ahead a step or two and prepare for what is coming. Changing emotional gears can be a little abrupt sometimes. If it takes a verse or so to get into the new mood sometimes, that’s fine. 

The key is this:  are you singing the Word of God?  Is the Word driving the words?  Are we understanding and responding appropriately with our emotions to the Word of God as we sing?

No response at all or a deadpan is not appropriate. An artificial insistence on personal happiness isn’t appropriate, either.

Sing the Psalms with your whole heart and voice.

1/12/15

* Psalm 2 in the Cantus Christi, tune POURQUOI FONT BRUIT, from Strasbourg, 1539

Pay Attention

Jeremiah calls us to fear God, pointing out that Israel does not tremble before Him. Isaiah says God looks with favor on those who tremble at His Word. Our liturgical housekeeping is up to the Scripture reading, which I am convinced is the most important thing that happens in the worship service. More important than communion, more than the sermon, is hearing and receiving God’s Word with open heart. In many churches today, you can go through a whole service with only a few verses read. We read a lot of Scripture on purpose. We stand to show the importance of what we are hearing. Like many other churches, we conclude the reading by saying, “The Word of the Lord” “Thanks be to God.” This is a helpful custom that reminds us of the importance of what we just heard, and that cultivates gratitude in us for having the Bible available to hear and read in English.

God sent John the Baptist to speak God’s Words to prepare God’s people for the advent, the coming of Jesus. Some listened. Some did not. Ignoring someone who is talking to you is highly disrespectful. Doing other things while they speak to you is also rude. How much more so when God is speaking to us. Our attitude to God’s Word says much for whether we fear Him or take Him lightly.

12/3/12

What's a Tithe?

Last week, our motivation for giving: gratitude for grace.

This week, the amount of giving: in the OT we see the tithe or tenth set forth.
When Paul says that each one should decide in his heart what to give, many see that tithe requirement set aside. 1 Cor 9:13-14 shows otherwise. Paul remembers in vs 13 that the OT tithe went partly to the temple to support the priests’ service, and he applies this in vs 14 to the NT situation: church offerings are in part to support those preaching. If the pattern of who gives to who is the same, why would the amount change? The OT tithe went for ministering priests, as well as the poor, so some giving may go to missionaries or charities outside the local church. But since the church ideally should be overseeing missionaries and charities, the lion’s share of our tithe should go to the local church. Less than 25% of American evangelicals tithe. Let us bring the full tithe into the storehouse, in thanksgiving to God.

11/11/12

Why Give?

Let us consider the offering in the worship service - our giving to God monetarily.

First, our Motivation for giving: gratitude for grace. It’s easy to reduce the church offering to a tit for tat. You give me a church service, and I’ll give you a check. This is not our motivation. We are returning to God thanks for what He has done in our lives. We do this not to “make it up” to God, like we ever could, but because our whole life is God-ward, God-oriented. We face God all the time. Children, you receive from your parents and give back to them. This is a close relationship. God is even closer. He gives us a breath, and we return thanks. Ingratitude corrupts and even destroys these relationships. We are quicker to see our needs than we are to see our abundance. We complain before we count blessings. Let us cultivate gratitude in our hearts for "every good and perfect gift... from the Father of lights" (James 1:17).

11/4/12

Pray for Your People

2 Chronicles 20:5-7a

"Then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the LORD, before the new court, and said: “O LORD God of our fathers, are You not God in heaven, and do You not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations, and in Your hand is there not power and might, so that no one is able to withstand You? 7 Are You not our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel, and gave it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever?"

Let us consider "the long prayer" in the worship service, the prayers of the church. Traditionally on certain holidays our president will call the nation to thanksgiving, some have called us to repentance and fasting. We see Jehoshaphat do that in our text. It is important that God’s people hear their leaders interceding for them. Fathers need to pray out loud in the presence of their children, for their children. Husbands, pray for your wives. Pastors for their churches. Princes for their people. So most often the prayer of the church in our worship service is spoken by the worship leader, an elder. But it is also fitting for members to take a turn leading us in prayer. Congress invites various clergy to open its sessions with prayer. Fathers should give their children training and time to lead the family in prayer. When we pray all together it is an expression of our unity in the Lord Jesus, in whose name we pray.

This aspect of worship works against our sinful tendencies to neglect prayer, to neglect leading in prayer, practicing prayer. To neglect praying for your church family, your nation, and to be mindful of the communion of saints together in all you do.

This reminds us of our need to confess our sins.

10/28/12

Praying for the World

1 Timothy 2:1-4

"Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

We consider next the prayers of the church, or the pastoral prayer. God wants His people praying for and giving thanks for all kinds of men. We are to intercede as the church, for the church, and for the world. We are to give thanks, also. There are 4 categories of prayer, and by the time we come in our worship service to the prayers of the church we have already covered the first 2, adoration and confession. Here we give thanks and intercede for various situations. This is one area where worship and world meet in the service. The offering is another. How the Word applies to us, in the sermon, is another. Confessing our wrongs in the past week. We don’t try to shut out the world mentally when we worship God. We hold the world up to God, asking Him to have mercy and bless His creation.

Let us confess our sins of despising the world, or chasing after it, instead of interceding for the people God has made.

10/21/12

Professing the Faith

Psalm 40:9-10

    I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness 

          In the great assembly; 

          Indeed, I do not restrain my lips, 

          O LORD, You Yourself know. 

    10      I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; 

          I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation; 

          I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth 

          From the great assembly. 

Romans 10:9 - "if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."

Last week we considered raising our hands in worship. This week, our confession of faith. This is a response to God’s Word, with words of the church that summarize God’s Word.

Worship is like a ceremonial conversation. When you’re discussing things with a friend, one way to listen closely is to paraphrase back to them what you hear them say. That is what we do, here, with the help of the historic church. Through her creeds and catechisms the church teaches us what the whole Bible says. After hearing a portion of Scripture, we speak to God, “Your Word reveals God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. I believe that is You, that You are real, that that description is You.”

It is important that we practice professing our faith. Saying what we believe. It is training for evangelism, and for discipling our children. God’s baptized people are supposed to do this. There need not be a one-time profession of faith that is more decisive, that makes you KNOW you’re saved. Faith is sustained, more than it is a one-time thing. So every week we express our faith together, to practice doing so every day in our work, school, family life, community involvement, wherever God puts us.

When we sin, we contradict our profession of faith. And we must confess where we have failed and sinned.

10/14/12

Lifting Hands in Worship

Ps 134:2 says, “Lift up your hands in the sanctuary.”

1 Tim 2:8 “I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands”

Why do we raise our hands in worship again? First let’s talk liturgical housekeeping, and then confession of sin.

Most of our songs are prayers to God, and so we have chosen to lift our hands at a couple points of the worship service in particular, usually sung responses to the Word or at the end of the service. The point is to pick a time in the service to deliberately do this all together, like we kneel at confession. Ps 95 says to kneel before the Lord in worship. It doesn’t say exactly when – we’ve chosen confession time to kneel. We’ve chosen sung responses as a time to deliberately, all together raise our hands. We don’t confine hand-raising or kneeling to these times.  Some people lift their hands when a hymn is moving them. That’s great. We shouldn’t be bothered during worship when people do something Scripture directly says, like kneeling during some other part of the worship service, or lifting their hands when we pray.

As for confession of sin, We ought to be able to hold up holy hands that didn’t hit our sister last week, that refrained from sexual temptation last night. Did we use our hands to work hard all week, or did our hands play 20 hours of x-box? Lifting hands to God is a great opportunity to connect life to worship, and to reinforce that there ought to be no incongruity in this. Of course, if we are going to lift holy hands, then before the confession we can say: "we will lift holy hands in a few minutes. What were those hands doing this week? Let's confess our sins so that we can truly lift holy hands.

10/7/12

Coming Closer

After confession, we are consecrated to God. In the sacrificial picture, this is an ascension to God. So we stand up, and starting last week, we often say we lift up our hearts to God. We come nearer, though we have already come. It is like children being called in for dinner, but then being sent to wash their hands. Once you’ve washed, okay, NOW you can come. We always sing after hearing our sins are forgiven, as a way to celebrate, and express our gratitude to God, and it is a picture of ascent. Heb 13:15 says we offer a sacrifice of praise to God, now.

After we sing, we read God’s Word responsively. We stand to read God’s Word at this point, out of reverence and to give better attention. Please remember to love your church family by not moving in and out of the room when God’s Word is read, unless there is a fire or a medical emergency. Help each other pay close attention to the Word. If you find yourself at the back door heading for your seat, it’s best to wait until we are singing before returning. That’s the least distracting time for most.

9/9/12

Conse - what??

We are up to the 3^rd of 5 C’s in our worship service. Call, confession, consecration.

Consecration is the hardest of the 5 C’s to understand. We get call, confession, communion and commission. But consecration? What is this?

The basic progression of a service is laid out in Leviticus 9 with three different kinds of sacrifices: sin, whole (or burnt), and peace offerings.

Consecration is the whole sacrifice that is completely burned up and goes up in smoke to God. The whole animal was burned up on the altar. Leviticus 1 describes it. The focus is on the cutting and arranging of the animal pieces on the altar. We should see the animal sacrifice as fulfilled in Christ. He offered Himself completely to God.

And, if we are united with Christ and follow Him, we need to see ourselves as this whole burnt offering ascending to God. The knife that cuts us up is the word of God, as Heb 4:12 says, piercing to divide not only joints and marrow, but also soul and spirit. That doesn’t mean soul and spirit are different, but that the Word of God distinguishes our good thoughts and intentions from the bad.

That’s the sacrificial and theological angle on consecration. We’ll look at more of the practical stuff in future weeks.

Declaring pardon

In our liturgical housekeeping, we move on to the assurance of pardon.

We rise from kneeling. We are raised from a posture of shame and humility, because forgiveness raises us from the status of guilty to innocent.

A declaration of pardon is like that of a wedding pronouncment. Pronouncing someone man and wife doesn’t make it real. The vows make the wedding real. The pastor’s job, his office, is to declare it real, having witnessed it. Same for forgiveness of sins. Declaration is an act of faith that you are truly repenting of your sins.

Declaration is part of the office of the minister. God gave His elders who rule the church the keys to open the kingdom to the repentant. That’s what this declaration of pardon is. The pastor doesn’t get you forgiven by saying words, but it is his office to say the words, to represent Christ to you and forgive you through the body, face and voice of his officer. Every week at this point in the service you should come to trial before the judge, confess your crimes, and then hear Jesus the judge, not condemn, but pardon you through His officer the elder leading worship. We have been forgiven once for all at the cross. And we need to experience that forgiveness anew every week.

8/26/12

Let us kneel

Psalm 95:6-8

What we do with our bodies matters. Our physical gestures express our inward attitudes, and contribute toward establishing and fostering them. So, just as we lift holy hands to the Lord, and stand in reverence for God’s Word when it is read, we also kneel in humble confession. We want to be a humble and penitent people before God. We humble ourselves in our posture, kneeling before God.

When the Scriptures tell of God’s people praying to Him, they are usually kneeling. Solomon, Daniel, Jesus in Gethsemane, and the New Testament church are just a few examples, besides the Psalmist calling us to worship saying, "Let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD our Maker" - Ps 95:6.

This reminds us to confess our sins

8/19/12

On Corporate Confession of Sin

Daniel 9:8
"O Lord, to us belongs shame of face, to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against You."
The liturgical housekeeping piece fits well in the service today, as the quick reminder of why we worship as we do is about the confession of sin. Daniel confessed the sin of Israel, and included himself. In the same way, our confession of sin is corporate and personal. All together, we are not aiming for an emotional breast-beating session. This is more like a confession of faith that we are sinners.

The words we use are either the best from church history, or written by the worship leader and often relates to the sermon text, where that convicts us in a certain direction. This is one way the worship leader shepherds the congregation – it’s quite a thing to hand someone a confession of sin for them to pray to God, and for my part it is one of the most difficult things I do each week.

After the corporate reading, we also take time silently to confess our sins. Each of us brings to mind our own sins and confesses them. Like the rest of worship, this is the example for us to follow the rest of the week in our relationship to God. We don’t wait until Sunday to confess our sins, just like we don’t wait until Sunday to pray, read the Bible, or enjoy fellowship with God. If we find that we are only confessing sin at church, there is probably something amiss in our relationship with the Lord.

8/12/12

Our Sin Offering

Gospel confession in worship

There is a pattern of sacrifice in OT: first sin, whole ascension, and peace offerings. We do not sacrifice animals anymore, but the pattern still holds. The sin sacrifice, where the focus is on the blood poured out, and the body is brought outside the camp. This focuses on the death of Christ for our sin. So we confess our sin and appeal to the cross. The blood makes atonement, and this part of the service is all about atonement. This keeps the service gospel centered, even if the sermon doesn’t mention the atonement of Christ. There must be death for our sin, so Christ’s blood is displayed. He is the sacrificial lamb. We have died with Him, buried with Him in baptism Rom 6 says. So we come to God under the covering and protection of Christ’s blood.

7/22/12

Confessing our sins in church

Next is our call to confession -

There is a verse in Psalm 66:18 that I often use in our prayer of confession: “If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.” We need to deal with our sin daily. Our tendency is to avoid it, ignore it, minimize it, shift the blame for it, cherish it in a corner of our hearts instead of renounce it and let Christ kill it. Robert Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral made a conscious decision to never mention sin when he led worship. That is the opposite of what we need to do. Parents need to lead their children to confess their sins. Parents and adults need to be led to confess their sins themselves often. This confession in the worship service is training for all of us, when we see sin, or someone else points it out. Will we get all huffy and stalk off to find new friends, a different church, that won’t meddle in our lives? Or will we let God do His sanctifying work through His people and through the Church?

7/22/12

Opening with Prayer

Today a brief look at the opening prayer in the worship service, sometimes called the invocation. This is also a response to God’s Call to worship Him. We can pray before or after we sing, it doesn’t matter much. The point is to exalt and magnify God with our words, and ask Him to be present for our blessing as we worship Him. If you know the ACTS acronym for worship – adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, you’ll notice that the worship service follows this pattern. We adore God in response to His call to worship Him. We confess to Him. In the consecration section we offer prayers of thanksgiving and petition.

            Some are bothered by asking God to be present, invoking His presence, when He is already everywhere. This might be a problem if we didn’t see so often in Scripture God’s promise to bless or be with or to save someone, and then they turn around and ask for that very thing. Abraham believes God and then asks how he will know for sure, Gen 15:6-8. God promises Moses He will go with Israel in the desert, and Moses then asks that God go with Israel in the desert. God promises David to build him a house, and David asks God to do what He promised. God speaks words of greeting and blessing to us in the call to worship and greeting, and we petition Him to be with us and to bless us.

Next week, the confession of sin

Let us ascend with the saints to draw near and worship the risen Lord, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

7/1/12

On Church Music

We’ve covered through the greeting so far, so we are up to the opening hymn or Psalm. Again, what’s happening in each section of worship, is God doing something, and we are responding with singing or prayer or reading. Singing is a response to God’s activity in our hearts. We sing Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, as Col 3:16 says. In each service we sing about half Psalms, half hymns and 1-2 other songs. Many churches today bring into their worship music the Christian music entertainment industry. The idea is that we should sing in church what is on the radio now. We take a different view, that we should sift the best music from all of church history and use that. This is what we do with our doctrine, too. We don’t mean to exclude the contemporary, it just hasn’t had the perspective of years to objectively evaluate it. As modern people, we have a hard time with this. We want the new, the emotional, the authentic, especially when we are responding to God in praise and worship. Using old songs seems so artificial – this isn’t me singing – why can’t I be me? The choice here is not between faking it with old music and being real with modern music. The choice is letting modern music shape us, or letting the best of the church’s musical history shape us. We need the humility to let our forefathers shape our praise. And the church we belong to shapes our praise, too. When we sing, we are not just individuals who happen to be in the same room. The music is chosen for us and we sing it together.

Next week, the opening prayer

6/24/12

Greet One Another

We’ve covered through the opening sentences, so we are up to the greeting. Instead of simply saying good morning, the greeting in the worship service is a declaration of intent to bless, by God, and we accept that intent and respond to it. We often use the beginning of a NT Letter, where greetings to the church abound. The greeting is also a greeting between worship leader and congregation. The leader intends to lead you in worship, in the presence and blessing of the Lord. The people accept this intent and this person to do it. Greetings like this aren’t just for worship. Boaz and many others greet people in the Lord at work or in letters. To name the Lord in greeting someone is an easy way to define your relationship with them by God’s presence.

6/10/12

Wash, rinse, repeat

After the call to worship, we have a few verses of Scripture we speak. This is the beginning of our response to God’s call to worship.

Imitation

We need His help to respond, and speaking His Words back to Him is a way to do this.

Repetition

We use the same verses or prayers of confession, or songs in response from week to week.

Participation

We speak these together or responsively. Importance of active engagement in worship service, not passively letting the preacher do his thing. This is a good pattern not only for worship as the church, but also for family devotions. These 3 elements are all needed. Imitation, repetition, participation.

5/27/12