Blog

How Early Christians Used Apostolic Letters in Liturgy So how do we know which books the early Christians used in the liturgy? As Valeriy Alikin of St. Petersburg Christian University explains,“Christians began to read apostolic epistles in their gatherings at the latest from the middle of the first century onwards.” At the end of his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul instructs,“I adjure you by the Lord that this letter be read to all the brethren”(5:27). And after the Council of …

Do We Want the Eucharist to Be True? I want first to address those who might still be unsure of whether to believe in the Eucharist. To them, I would ask (or you might ask), “Do you want the Eucharist to be true?” Since our desires don’t make something true or not, that question may seem irrelevant, but it isn’t. Faith involves the intellect and the will. It’s not just about knowing, for instance, that God must logically exist. It’s about the heart saying “yes” to him and desiring him. If we …

Filling in the Gaps about the Eucharist We read of Jesus instituting the Eucharist in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as well as in St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. John gives us something different, which is not surprising: John wrote his Gospel long after the other three, and he assumes you’ve read them already. His Gospel is meant as a sort of “gap-filler,” covering important moments in the life of Jesus that nobody else had written down yet. He offers us the “t …

Recognizing the Presence of Jesus in the EucharistThose of us who believe that the Eucharist is really Jesus have to examine our own hearts and lives, too.Some time ago, I met a man who had once worked for a Western intelligence agency. He was embedded in a majority-Muslim country, posing as a businessman. Given the lawlessness of parts of the country, he had to be driven across it in the dead of night to avoid bandits. As they were speeding across the desert at high speeds, with the headlights …

Understanding the Eucharist How can you tell if you have the right understanding—the biblical interpretation, Jesus’ interpretation—of the Eucharist? I’d suggest five things to look for: your beliefs should be strange,sacrificial,serious,sacramental, and shocking. First, as we’ve already seen, the proper Christian understanding of the Eucharist must be strange, and hard to accept. That’s how it was initially received, and Jesus did nothing to dispel this impression. Why, he was trying to p …