More thoughts from my seminary class via iTunes…
I’ve been in the section dealing with persecution of the early church. It came from the Jews and it came from the Romans. It’s challenging to me personally to hear about so many people who died for their faith. We have a rich spiritual history.
The professor alludes to the fact that some of the persecution from the Romans began because they didn’t understand this new sect of Judaism. They were fearful of it because these Christians often met early in the morning or late at night. Because outsiders were not allowed to participate (or sometimes witness) The Lords Supper, Romans accused Christians of actually participating in Cannibalistic rituals. Obviously, a verse about drinking blood and eating flesh wouldn’t have the symbolic meaning to somebody that didn’t understand what Jesus was talking about. And these services would often include the holy kiss greeting, so there were those that accused these Christians of including weird sex games. They used this as ammo to persecute the early church.
Obviously, the accusations were way off base, but I cannot help but think that some of it was due to the closed-door, secret system. In some ways, churches today still have these closed systems. We create budgets behind closed doors and people don’t really know where their money goes. We have insider terminology and engage in behaviors that would be normal to those that grew up in church but would be strange to those that don’t have a religious background.
While we shouldn’t stop celebrating the Lord’s supper, I think it’s wise to be mindful that there are always outsiders watching. Let’s face it…there are parts of our faith that are just weird, and we should do our best to explain them when possible.
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