To keep others from His love (part four).

This is the letter I wrote to a church concerning their practice of communion:

Dear Pastor,

I attended your service on Sunday, July 16 as a visitor and was thankful for your preaching. You taught very well of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am close with many people in your congregation and their love for the Lord brings me great joy. It is also good that your church takes communion seriously and desires to protect those who would take it from eating and drinking condemnation upon their own heads, yet, I do not find the qualifications issued forth in the interview sheet entitled "Visitor Participation in the Lord's Supper" in scripture.

Thus, as I meditated upon your message of grace, I became greatly troubled over how I had been pulled aside to be interviewed on the issue of communion. I was told to avoid taking communion for lack of church membership though my conscience and faith says I may do so. The biblical qualifications for taking communion are a heart that is grounded in Christ and self-examined to determine personal worthiness according to the word and one's own conscience. The scriptures tell us in Romans 10:9-13 that,

"...if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. ¹¹As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." ¹²For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, ¹³for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.""

Also in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32 we read,

"...whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. ²⁹For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. ³⁰That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. ³¹But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. ³²When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world."

With such a clear description of salvation and communion laid out, denying communion on grounds of baptism, church membership and a public proclamation of faith rings of taking people back to Mount Sinai (though public proclamations should be encouraged and baptism taught). Communion is not meant to determine who the sheep and the goats are but to have fellowship with our Savior and remember His love for us apart from our works of righteousness. Thus, I can find no where in Scripture where it is given to an elder to bind a person's conscience when we are told that whatever is not from faith is of sin. Your teaching was so good on Sunday that I have no doubt people should be able to make a well-informed decision about communion every Sunday. God alone judges the heart and allows for a personal choice.

Jesus offered Judas, His betrayer, communion. He was willing to share with the "son of perdition." He did not withhold the bread from the man who planted the kiss of death on His cheek. Scripturally, how do you get from Christ sharing the meal with His betrayer to a system of denying the meal to those who mirror Romans 10 and 1 Corinthians 11? Is it wise to deny communion when Jesus Christ Himself did not prohibit Judas? It is a burden of the law for one to add works of righteousness upon a foundation of grace that alone gives former enemies of God the right to partake in Christ's communion. Thus, we must "examine ourselves" based upon the scripture. If one is not a believer, has not reconciled with a brother or sister, or is living in unrepentant sin then they should be encouraged to refrain, yet even Judas could have refused the bread though it was offered to him. Again, it is not the elder's responsibility to determine the sincerity of a person's heart and so approve or deny the meal for God judges the heart.

Lastly, Satan is called the Father of Lies and his name means "tempter" and "deceiver." We must understand that a slave to such a swindler could easily fake sincerity in his/her interview or qualifications and thus penetrate the visible church. That person (a wolf in sheep's clothing) would be allowed by your policy to take the Lord's Supper because of three works (baptism, public proclamation of faith and church membership) and those who have been cleansed by the renewing of their minds would not be for lack of works. That is why partaking in the Lord's supper must be an act of faith, grounded in the word and ultimately informed by one's conscience.

Thank you very much for allowing me to write to you, Pastor. Again, I greatly appreciated the preaching of the word and the hospitality of your congregants. The Lord has obviously put His blessing upon the work that it has pleased Him to allow all of you to partake in. May we all continue sharing the good news of the resurrected Lord!

Your brother in Christ,
Evan Bryan

To keep others from His love (part two).

According to many churches there are three basic requirements that a believer must meet to take communion. These are enforced to different degrees within separate congregations. I grabbed the form that labeled these qualifications from one church that tried to deny my participation in the Lord's Supper. It is transcribed below. I am currently working on a letter to send to that church and will post it as installment four of this series when I send it:

Visitor Participation in the Lord's Supper

The elders _____ have the responsibility to supervise participation at the Lord's Table. If you are visiting us today and wish to partake, we must, as much as possible, be assured of your biblical church membership, of your proper profession of faith, and your godly walk. To that end, are you able to answer yes to the following questions:

1. Have you been baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (as an infant or an adult)?
2. Have you publicly professed your faith in Christ alone for your salvation in agreement with the articles of the Christian faith as outlined in the Apostles' Creed?
3. Are you a member in good standing of a Protestant congregation that bears the marks of a true church, that is, a local church wherein governing elders insure that:
a. the pure doctrine of the gospel is preached;
b. the pure administration of the sacraments as instituted by Christ are maintained;
c. and church discipline is exercised.

If you are able to affirm these things sincerely, then we welcome you to the table and ask that you print your name below, along with the name of your church and its location.

If you profess faith in Jesus but are disconnected from his church because you have not been baptized and/or received as a member of a true church, or if you are unsure, please abstain and speak with Pastor Brown or an elder after the service to discuss your relationship to Christ's church.

To keep others from His love (part three).

Though I have many disagreements over the church policy given in part two of this series, I will articulated only a few of them for now.

The governmental system of many churches is corrupt and Catholic in conduct. It places burdens of the law upon people and lacks grace. Elders have no authority that Jesus Himself did not use but claim to by their actions. For instance, whereas elders may seek to deny a person communion, Jesus GAVE Judas (the person He said would betray Him) the bread and wine. Jesus SHARED in communion with Judas (the son of perdition)! He did not WITHHOLD the cup from the man who planted the kiss of death on His cheek in the Garden of Gethsemane! The man was allowed by the Lord to eat and drink condemnation upon his own head!

Thus, as I understand it, we "examine ourselves" based upon the scripture and "eat and drink condemnation upon our own heads" if we eat the meal in an unworthy manner (as Judas did). It is a matter of one's own conscience. Nowhere does it say that it is the elders responsibility to determine the sincerity of a person's heart and so approve or deny them the meal. Read the passage from 1 Corinthians 11 for yourself:

The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, ²⁴and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." ²⁵In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." ²⁶For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

²⁷Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. ²⁹For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. ³⁰That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. ³¹But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. ³²When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.

As for examining others for communion it is important to remember that Satan is called the Father of Lies and his name means "tempter" and "deceiver." Who are we to think that a slave to such a swindler could not easily fake sincerity in his/her oaths of membership and thus penetrate the visible church? That person (a wolf in sheep's clothing) would be allowed to take the Lord's Supper and I would not, though I am a believer who simply, by my conscience, does not agree with membership. Yet, Jesus will build His church and even the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it! He has broken Satan's power.

Lastly, according to Romans 14:23, "everything that does not come from faith is sin." How ironic then, that in the very act of "protecting" those who would take the meal in an unworthy manner, some are encouraged to deny their own conscience! By my faith, I am clean and worthy before God to remember His sacrifice for me and eat the Supper. If you trust in the righteousness of Christ alone to save you from your sins and have a repentant heart then the meal is for you, as well.

To keep others from His love (part one).

I had a watershed moment in my life as a Christian today and what it means to be denied worship. For years I have supported organizations that provide for the persecuted church around the world. My favorite and probably most well known is Voice of the Martyrs. I actually got to visit their U.S. headquarters in Bartlesville, OK and meet their director, Tom White. He's the author of God's Missiles Over Cuba. My aunt who worked there introduced me to the man. It was quite an experience meeting someone who had been tortured in a Cuban prison camp for years simply for dropping Christian literature on the island. It is horrible that he was persecuted by non-Christians for his beliefs. How much worse is it when Christians try to deny the worship of other Christians?


I visited a church today and was told that I should not take the Lord's Supper because I am not a member of any church. I didn't obey the request and simply said that, according to my conscience, it would be wrong not to partake in the Lord's Supper and that regardless of what they believed I would take it anyway. To wit, I was told that I should, "respect the desires of the church" and refrain. What about their respect towards my conscience? Had I bowed to their pressure I would be sinning by doing something I thought to be wrong! I could only reply that I could not obey unbiblical desires of any church. The wine never tasted so sweet!

I'm reminded of the movie "Chariots of Fire" when Eric Liddell (a Christian running in the 1924 Olympics) is told by many of England's most powerful and influential men to run the qualifying heat for the 100 meter dash on a Sunday. He believed that doing so would be against God's law of resting on the Sabbath. When Liddell refuses these men, Lord Cadogen spits, "Don't be impertinent, Liddell," to which Liddell retorts, "The impertinence lies, sir, with those who seek to influence a man to deny his beliefs!"

As the situation is resolved and upon this vein, the Duke of Sutherland says to Lord Birkenhead, "The "lad", as you call him, is a true man of principles and a true athlete. His speed is a mere extension of his life, its force. We sought to sever his running from himself."

"For his country's sake, yes," responds Lord Birkenhead.

The Duke's final response is, "No sake is worth that, least of all a guilty national pride."

I find that, among many churches, the "pride" is not guilty so much as it is arrogant. It is similar to national pride yet infinitely more grotesque. Does it not serve to divide God's universal children? It reveals a gross split from the life of grace that Christ teaches and the life of works that is preached. To tell a man how to worship is to deny the condition of his heart and make him a liar. Christ changes us by writing His law upon the flesh of our own hearts and makes a broken and contrite heart an inward reality for those who love Him. Thus, obeying the law written on stone at Mount Sinai does not save; trusting in Christ who obeyed that law and gives us His obedience by coding it into us does.

It is so important that the gift the founding fathers gave us was the ability to live according to our own conscience in liberty, free from oppression. It is so easy for us to oppress! As for myself, my conscience is directed by the Holy Scriptures and I will spit in the face of any man-made institution that desires to add to or subtract from the principles upon which Christ builds His children.

I was shocked and incredibly angry from all of this but the Lord redeemed the experience and made it very good. I am blessed to be able to worship according to my own conscience as taught in the scriptures. The Lord's Supper is something amazing, for I am able to physically enjoy my relationship with the God of the universe. I have never truly appreciated the gift until today when others tried to strip it from me. Ultimately (learning from those who have been persecuted to the point of death), had they been successful, it would not have mattered. We feed on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God and the Spirit of the Lord is with us wherever we go. As Romans 8:31-38 says:

If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Is church membership a sign of one's salvation?

I have many personal and biblical problems with church membership. I have ultimately come to see it as a way for elders to dominate and define the life of the body of believers who subject themselves to their "rule" and "authority." The result of this in my experience has been an attitude of arrogance on the part of those who have been appointed as over-shepherds as they see themselves as bearers of "the keys of the kingdom" (a convenient biblical misinterpretation) and are thus able to "bind and loose" the conscience of believers. Yet, Christ refused to do the same as we can see at the last supper when He gave to Judas His "body and blood." In the vein of Romans 14, I cannot subject myself to such a system and have thus received a letter, transcribed below, from a congregation I left a year and a half ago. I was a member then and have since asked them to erase my name from the rolls. Here is the letter:

Dear Evan:

We miss you here at Harvest and your expression of love to our Lord and fellow men among us. The purpose of this letter is to urge you to seriously consider your church membership status in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. As you know, it has been more than two years since you left Harvest and started attending New Live PCA, Escondido. During this time we have urged you to enter into full fellowship at New Life PCA where we could make the appropriate transfer or issue you a letter of standing. Although we have discussed this very important matter with you on several occasions, it appears that you are no closer to joining New life PCA than the last time we discussed the matter.

In Hebrews 10:24-25 we read, "And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near." This verse shows us that there is more to this than just attending a church. We are to give careful consideration and forethought to how we will stimulate others to love and good deeds when we meet with our brother and sisters in Christ in order that we might encourage them in their faith and you in your faith. This can only be done when one is committed to a local fellowship and the people in it. Scripture knows of no lone-ranger Christians. All of the Epistles are written to churches or to pastors of churches. In Revelation, Christ speaks directly to His churches -- not just to individuals. Christ loves His church! If we are to be Christ-like, we should too!

Do you want ot be in God's will? Then please be active in and join a local church (e.g. New Life PCA). Certain things in Scripture are clear. When we refuse to obey God in even the most fundamental of areas, we should not expect Him to bless us or guide our way in other less clear areas. Evan, we are afraid that this is where you are right now.

The elders of Harvest have determined to consider your membership status at the June 2009 session meeting. At that time, if we hvae determined that you still have proceeded no further in seeking to join New Life PCA (or another Bible-believing church), we will erase your name from the membership rolls. Evan, we love you and only want to see God's best for you, which we know to be faithful service in Christ's Church in submission to Christ's undershpherds.