Comments on: Whine, wine and juice

By: Tim Reed

Tim Reed — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:48:04 +0000

I’ve never met the guy that did this, but I have met some of his family. They are… very tradition oriented, and not in a good way.

When people like this finally leave a church the minister is relieved.

The really hilarious part is that they left for a church that only does quarterly communions.

By: Josh S

Josh S — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 17:37:44 +0000

Someone needs to come up with a more retarded reason to leave a church, because I can’t think of one. :roll:

By: Christian

Christian — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 15:19:00 +0000

I find that often people like that are looking for something to get offended over. Maybe somebody did something that they felt they couldn’t say anything about but something as public and corporate as communion gave them what they needed. There’s a hundred different reasons, but people that just leave because of something like that probably were never really a part of that congregation.

There are others who may get upset over such things (probably for the reasons mentioned in your post) who remain and either fight for what they believe, or concede for the sake of the body.

My personal opinion (held since I was in High School and which would probably upset a lot of people) is that people who leave churches because there are problems or concerns are cowards. They are often also complainers and I have no respect for them.

By: Tim Reed

Tim Reed — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:12:49 +0000

I didn’t mean the timing of communion. I was thinking more along the lines of a recent incident in a church nearby here where a family left a church because they began to serve communion from the back rather than the front.

By: Christian

Christian — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 04:21:13 +0000

Parts of our tradition do come from Scripture itself. Weekly communion. That’s all I got. Point taken.

I still want to know about the grape juice though.

By: Tim Reed

Tim Reed — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 04:07:13 +0000

I don’t want to miss the larger point that often Restoration churches act like parts of their tradition come from scripture itself. For example, the moving of pulpits, the specific way communion is done, dare I say… worship songs.

Onto this specific issue. Communion and baptism are remarkably similar in that they have the same basic components. The first being the question of what is exactly going on (ie symbolisim v. actual) and the second being mode (immersion/sprinking/pouring v. wine/grape juice).

On the first question our movement has been pretty consistent with scripture (this is me cringing as Presbies, Lutherans, Catholics and EOs get out the knives). On the second question we have been faithful in regards to baptism when it comes to the example of the early church, but not with communion.

By: Christian

Christian — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 02:06:20 +0000

Is there any historical (biblical or otherwise) reference to grape juice at the time of Christ? I don’t care if churches use wine (although I doubt the early church used some of the stuff today’s ecumenical churches use. That’s some nasty stuff. I’m sure they have some argument as to the taste of the wine reflecting something about the death of Christ. Have you ever tasted your own blood? Like when you cut a finger and tried to get it to stop bleeding? It doesn’t taste all nasty like some of that stuff they use. And I think some churches use white wine. What’s that all about?) I digress.

I suppose the difference between baptism and communion would be that we believe in baptismal regeneration (don’t want to mess that up) but not in transubstantiation (wine, from the grape, grape juice, from the grape) therefore some of us still concede so as to provide no stumbling blocks for our brothers (alcoholics or morally driven teetotalers).

So back to my first question. Did they even drink grape juice in the Greco-Roman world at the time of Christ?