We have received a question about the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper. Our questioner suggested that we ought to only take the Lord’s Supper once each year, at the time of the Jewish Passover, because this was the time when Jesus instituted the memorial. He further discounted\u00a0Acts 20:7\u00a0as a proof text, suggesting that it simply refers to a common meal.<\/p>\n
In regards to the literal weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper, we can prove that\u00a0Acts 20:7\u00a0is a reference to the Lord’s Supper, and not a common meal because it refers to an occasion “when the disciples came together to break bread<\/em>,” and “Paul preached unto them<\/em>.” So, Paul joined them in an assembly that was specially designated for “breaking bread.” But, in\u00a0I Corinthians 11:20-22, in an epistle written earlier, Paul rebuked Christians for coming together and observing a common meal. They were absolutely missing the purpose of their assembling together. He commands them to do this eating of common meals in their own homes, not when they come together in their assemblies. (See also I Corinthians 11:33,34). Therefore, it is certain that when Paul assembled together with the church in Troas (Acts 20:7), it was for the Lord’s Supper, or else he would have been violating his own instructions that he wrote to the church in Corinth.<\/p>\n Also, we know that this was not <\/b>observed at the time of the Passover because\u00a0Acts 20:6\u00a0says Paul and his companions sailed from Philippi to Troas “after the days of unleavened bread<\/em>.” The days of unleavened bread were observed by the Jews for seven days during which the Passover (Exodus 12:15-20;\u00a013:3-7). So, Paul started his journey toward Troas about seven days after the Passover.\u00a0Acts 20:6\u00a0further states that it took them five days to get to Troas, and then they waited an additional seven days before this assembly took place. We conclude that this assembly “to break bread” was about three weeks or more after <\/b>the Passover.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Greg Gwin [edited] We have received a question about the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper. Our questioner suggested that we ought to only take the Lord’s Supper once each year, at the time of the Jewish Passover, because this was the time when Jesus instituted the memorial. He further discounted\u00a0Acts 20:7\u00a0as a proof…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[146],"class_list":["post-58382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-lords-supper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":67286,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/misconceptions-about-the-lords-supper\/","url_meta":{"origin":58382,"position":0},"title":"Misconceptions About the Lord’s Supper","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 2, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Osamagbe Lesley Egharevba via Unmasking Sophistry, Vol. 4, No. 2, April-June 2024 One of the acts of worship the New Testament church engaged in was the Lord's Supper. It is also called \"the breaking of bread\" (Acts 2:42; Acts 20:7), \"the Communion\" (I Corinthians 10:16), or \"the Lord's table\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/communion-300x200.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":727,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-acts-207-refer-to-a-common-meal\/","url_meta":{"origin":58382,"position":1},"title":"Does Acts 20:7 refer to a common meal?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 1, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Do you think that\u00a0Acts 20:7\u00a0was talking of a common meal? Why or why not? Answer: The text in question states, \"Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":65447,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-the-lords-supper-taken-only-once-a-year\/","url_meta":{"origin":58382,"position":2},"title":"Was the Lord’s Supper taken only once a year?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 6, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good day. A friend of mine told me that the breaking of bread in Acts 20:7 is not the Lord's Supper or Passover because it is only a breaking of bread without the grape juice as stated in the context. The breaking of bread is a celebration of Jesus'\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51913,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-isnt-the-lords-supper-taken-as-the-last-meal-of-the-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":58382,"position":3},"title":"Why isn’t the Lord’s Supper taken as the last meal of the day?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 14, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Why is the Lord's Supper taken early in the day on Sunday and not in the evening? After all, supper is something that is taken in the evening. Answer: In English, \"supper\" refers to the last mean of the day. The memorial in which we remember Christ's death is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2331,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-original-lords-supper-was-observed-at-night-and-it-wasnt-on-sunday\/","url_meta":{"origin":58382,"position":4},"title":"The original Lord’s Supper was observed at night and it wasn’t on Sunday","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 23, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: The original Lord's Supper was observed at\u00a0nighttime (Matthew 26:31), and it was not\u00a0observed on the first day of the week (Sunday), The practice of breaking bread was done on a\u00a0daily\u00a0basis from house to house, not on a weekly basis as in the churches of Christ. You find this information\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27384,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wasnt-wine-used-during-the-lords-supper\/","url_meta":{"origin":58382,"position":5},"title":"Wasn’t wine used during the Lord’s Supper?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I was thankful for the short piece on\u00a0Jesus not having long hair\u00a0and not being handsome. I wanted to correct you, though, in your interpretation of the commandment to observe Passover in Luke. It was wine, not grape juice. Nowhere can you find the Greek words written by Luke or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}