Did Jesus guard the communion table?

Girl, you have got MORE PATIENCE than JOB, dealing with these people (Calvinists). Bravo! 🙂 Thank you for the research you are doing!

Hmmm… In my church, it is REQUESTED, but not an issue, (I don’t think) that those who don’t confess Christ as Savior don’t participate in The Lord’s table. Like those who might go to church during holidays (Christmas, Easter). Is this a problem?

I do have a lot of patience and I am willing to read, listen to and pour over their material. I feel that it is very important to understand their position because I do not want to misrepresent it.

Gillian, it is a tradition that it was only believers that are to take communion, because only believers (it is thought) were at the first Lord’s Supper that Jesus initiated. Even the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that Judas had left before the Lord’s Supper so that he did not partake. I did not research on this issue many years ago and I presented the evidence at a conference for apologetic ministries and ex-JWs. I showed them that Judas was not only still there with Jesus and the disciples after the Lord’s Supper, but that he was commanded to eat and drink and that all of the disciples partook. I gave all the Scriptures and their eyes popped open as they had never seen this before. I never thought I would have to use the same information about Judas with a Calvinist. The training I had for 16 years working with Jehovah’s Witnesses has come in handy in helping Calvinists see some of their blind spots. The fact is that tradition blinds us. We are never told to keep people away from Communion but tradition says Communion is only for Christians even though Jesus died for all. The facts about Judas blow that tradition out of the water. But many people have been raised with the tradition and people do not easily change. In India, many pastors do not take communion even though they are pastors. They have been taught that if they have an addiction (many of them struggle with an addiction to tobacco) they are taught that they do not qualify to take communion. I find this practice so sad in that Jesus died for us as even as we were sinners so that we can come to Him just as we are. To keep people away from the sign of God’s covenant with us because they feel they are unworthy is just not right. If Jesus died for Judas and called Himself the friend of Judas, and Judas was commanded to take the first Lord’s meal, how can we tell people they cannot partake? I can’t say how close we are to crossing the line where the Corinthians had crossed and they were sinning against the Lord’s sacrifice. What I can say is that we are to proclaim that Jesus died for everyone and each are invited to partake of what He did on their behalf.

I should add that the information about Judas has changed the way our own church handles communion. We no longer tell people that it is for believers alone. We say that if they would like to celebrate with us the sacrifice of Jesus, they are welcome to participate.

No argument there. (re: Communion). Is this something I should bring up to my pastor? If so, how? Maybe just ask about Judas and communion. That way, I leave it to Pastor Jim to do the investigating. Thing about JW’s and communion is that they don’t even partake. Something about the New Covenant only for the ‘anointed class’, or something to that effect. I LOVE what you said about J.W.’s and Calvinists, though. Sadly, there IS common ground there. Both are COUNTERFEITS of the TRUE Christ, but Calvinism is SOOO close that you would almost need a microscope to see the difference. They have all the bedrock theology in place, ( Trinity, deity of Christ, resurrection). It’s like the perfect clone, but, the Calvinist version of Jesus is what you might call a STEPFORD Christ. The body is there but the personality and HEART are missing. While the J.W. Jesus is NOT God, the Calvinist Christ is a god who doesn’t love everyone. That’s almost worse. The JW. Christ CAN’T save anyone, but the Calvinist Christ WON’T save everyone. The J.W. Christ might be ineffectual, but the Calvinist Jesus is cold. He does almost, if not MORE, harm than the Watchtower. Many J.W.’s have gone from the watchtower to Christ, but what happens to those who leave the Calvinist Christ? Tom MacGovern is a Calvinist. I talked to him a few years ago on facebook. All was going well until I mentioned 2 Peter 3:9 and he replied, “I hate when that verse is ‘MISinterpreted’. It only applies to the ‘elect’. ” In BOTH cases (J.W.’s and Calvinists) there is doctrinal confusion and, when push comes to shove, a tragic lack of LOVE. Foolish question time (and with this, I’ll close) but is it easier to talk to a JW or a Calvinist? 😮 I’m gonna email my pastor and ask about Judas and Communion. Thanks, again, for your help and patience. I’m jealous. My blood pressure would be on MARS already.

Hi Cheryl 🙂 Last things first.. I posed the issue to my pastor as a question, related to Judas and genuinely expressed confusion on the matter, which I kinda am. So he said he would deal with the the issue during the week. This weekend’s been a bit nuts, with the Annual General Meeting. So I’ll find out what goes from there. Pastor Jim is a good guy. Like you said, it’s more an issue of tradition. :/ Okay, confession time. I have to admit that, when it comes to Calvinists, I view them the same way I used to view JWs. I avoid them like poison Oak. I have to learn how to talk to them with the same love I would share for JWs. But with JW’s, their god is soooo off that it’s like we’re talking about two different people. With the Calvinist, it’s like someone defaming a friend of mine, and I just lash out! i.e. “Who are YOU to say that you are better than anyone else?! How is it LOVE to save only one of your children from a burning building when there are two kids in the house?!” I LOSE it. So it’s good that Tom McGovern is willing to at least hear you out. If you email him, feel free to share those verses of BIBLICAL Election. Esp. Re: Messiah. It dawns on me, though, that there are similarities between Calvinists and JW’s, in their double mindedness. Or, at the VERY least, confused. In the Watchtower, God will save ONLY JW’s. In Calvinism, Christ came to save ONLY the (Calvinist) ‘elect’. There is EXCLUSIVISM in both groups. I mean, any good parent would not play favors. If they buy one child school clothes, they buy both children school clothes. And both in the same store. They don’t go to Old Navy for one child and then a Salvation Army Thrift store for the other. Love of NO kind saves ONE child from drowning while letting the other kid go under. Giving the ‘non elect’ the best job, best house in the best neighborhood isn’t worth a hill of beans when the end result is eternal torment. AT GOD’S HAND. How is that even JUST, let alone LOVING. At the end of my new chapter on Unconditional Election, I wrote, Dear Calvinist; If God does NOT love the whole world, then how do you know He loves YOU? Thanks for listening, Joanna

Gillian, You said: With the Calvinist, it’s like someone defaming a friend of mine, and I just lash out! I do understand this and I can feel the same. But perhaps I want to try to see it through God’s eyes, for He knows their hearts. They genuinely believe that they have found the truth on the issue of the Sovereignty of God and they feel that nonCalvinists are defaming the Sovereign God of the universe. And God….He is patiently waiting to give His truth to those who want truth more than they want to be right…and those who want to please Him more than they want to be in the favoured class. Paul even said that he would give up his salvation for his brethren if he could. This is the heart of Jesus, a heart of surrender and sacrifice. We come close to the heart of God when we too can love those who are following a false system, and we are willing to give up our own right to be right, so that we can let them off the hook sometimes so they can have their dignity. No one likes to have truth thrown at them as if it is a weapon and a badge of honor. I want to continually check my heart so that I can have at least a small amount of God’s patience who does not smoke any of us who have wrong notions of who He is. If He was not patient with me, I think I would have been smoked a long time ago, save for His amazing patience and grace. Sometimes I truly think that God allows disagreements on doctrine so that some of us can learn patience and sacrificial love and others can learn to set aside their pride and learn humility, and that all of us will desire the unity of the body in both spirit and truth. There has to be a balance and the valley of trouble and sorrow is the best place to learn the fruit of the Spirit. I think I am rambling now myself! What I am trying to say is that if there is an area where I might be wrong, I want God’s truth as much as I want God’s truth to be given to those who have been deceived by error. I want to love truth and embrace it without setting aside dignity and respect for my brother or sister in the Lord. And if they are not my brother or sister in the Lord yet, I want to model Jesus for them in a very small way that I am able. I am a peace maker at heart and I want to see the Church end our time on this earth fulfilling Jesus’ prayer that we may be one even as He is one with the Father. Our unity is so important and if we will practice love in everything we do and remember that our enemy is not our brother or sister in Christ, but spiritual enemies in the heavens, we will be one step closer to seeing Jesus’ prayer fulfilled in our lifetime. I do not believe that it is an impossibility. What is impossible with man is possible with God. So while I contend earnestly for the truth of the inspired Scriptures, I want to contend with patience and love for those who have been fed something that is not truth, just as I sincerely wish that someone would do for me if I was in error. I want to fulfill the law of love as far as I am capable and with God’s enabling me to be obedient. As far as the question you wrote about how a Calvinist would know that God loves them…there are many Calvinists who have felt doubt at times, troubling doubt, whether they are of the elect or not. Calvin taught that God has allowed some of the reprobate to receive enough of the spirit to be convinced they are believers when they are not and this is all the more to judge them. So they know that there will be false believers and many have been plagued with doubt at one time or another because of this doctrine. So what do we do? We preach the true gospel of God’s love for all and that Jesus loved Judas so much that He was even a friend to Judas and died for him. If Jesus’ love was that great toward someone who was an enemy, how much more can we be sure of His love for us? He will not deceive us. He truly wants us all to be saved and to come to know Him.

TOTALLY AGREED! 🙂 Even as I work on that project, I have to remember that the Calvinist, like the JW is deceived by false doctrine, and try to deal with the issues with QUESTIONS rather than an IN YOU FACE screech-fest. I wouldn’t want that done to me, so I have to remember how to approach even my writing with a less cranky attitude. With two exceptions (turning over the tables of the money changers/ His rant against the Scribes, Pharisees as HYPOCRITES) . Tactful He was NOT. 😀 Most of the time, though, Jesus met people where they were. He knew the human heart. I’m guessing He may have even prayed to the Father for patience with the Pharisees, on one of the times the Bible says Jesus went off to a solitary place to pray. Long story short ( ’bout time, huh? 😉 ) I do have to watch my attitude that I don’t do the right things with the wrong attitude, which will do as much harm as giving them wrong doctrine. At the very least, it won’t do any good. SO, I need to pray and count to 100… backward if that will help. Because I don’t want to be ‘smoked’ 😀 so I won’t ‘smoke’ others. I’m so glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. I have read the same thing (Re: Doubts) in Dave’s book. Sproul and even Calvin talked about their ‘doubts’ about being one of the ‘elect’. Now, even ASSUMING that there is a modicum of truth to the Calvinist version of ‘Election’, I can’t help but wonder… when Barak Obama was referred to as ‘President Elect’, the Democratic party didn’t just grab him out of his home and say, “Buddy, you’re gonna run for president of the United States’. Didn’t he have to decide to run for the office? In the most basic way possible, the late Adrian Rogers said, “Who are the ‘elect’? Whosoever WILL.” (See John 7:17) As always, thanks for listening. ~Joanna~

Joanna, You are right about Jesus’ attitude. He did turn over tables in His Father’s house and He called the Pharisees white-washed tombs and other names. He had an advantage, though, because He could see who they were on the inside that they were keeping hidden from others. I think the best way for us to act and react is that all of us need mercy and grace. We will be judged with the mercy and grace that we show to others so it doesn’t hurt to have a little extra past what we ourselves need from others. And it is a pleasure to listen. I am very passionate on the subject of the Sovereignty of God and Calvinism. It has my attention.

Hi Cheryl; 😀 First things first…the name confusion. Gillian is my online name. My middle name. But most of the time, and with most people I’m Joanna. Sorry about that. And you’re quite right about approach and ATTITUDE which will determine how we respond to people caught in any deception. There, but for the Grace of God, go I. I just have to learn to operate brain and heart before engaging tongue. Not easy with some. With the word ‘Sovereignty’ as devout Calvinists use it, to me, it’s like that reflex hammer doctors used to use. As soon as he/she hits that nerve, the knee reacts. It doesn’t wonder if it should or shouldn’t, it just does. A suitable analogy, when kicking leg and a loosened tongue can do the same sort of damage. Thankfully, I now know what that word means and what questions I can possibly ask, to make the Calvinist think. First, there’s the matter of training, what Josephine March (Little Women) called, “My tongue. My abominable tongue!” Joanna GILLIAN.

Joanna, Thanks for clearing up the confusion for me on your name. So Joanna it is at this place because here we are just Christian brethren so real names will do just fine. The thing for me about Calvinist buzz words, they are things that push me to understand what they mean, and then they are words that I can use to help a Calvinist understand me. Sometimes I will substitute a word that has a clearer meaning and sometimes I just use what they have already set up in their mind. Either way, I believe that God wants us to dialog and to understand each other so that we can hold fast to what is true and to set aside that which is a lie. It is a pattern we should have all our lives because none of us is likely to be 100% correct on everything here on this earth. But in the essentials we can be united and show love and grace in areas that we disagree so that we can be united there too. Grace covers over a lot of sticky issues when we set our minds to love Jesus more than we dislike our brothers who push Calvinism. I know they are so often arrogant towards nonCalvinists (their humility seems to be only towards God) but my desire to have patience is because if I can’t influence them for good, then maybe, just maybe I can learn from them how better to share the true balance Sovereignty of God!

I’ve said it before and I will say it again; You’ve got the patience of Job. 🙂 I will try. Thankfully, today’s post op follow up (Breast Health Care center) gives me nearly a clean bill of health. Three radiation treatments and all should be well and I’ll be back to work in August. THAT said, I will be spending my recuperation time finish up and polishing up my project and posting it to my blog. I plan to use that time wisely.

FINISHING up. OY, these sites need an Edit button. 😮

Yes, an Edit button would be good. If I knew how to add it. 😉