How important is communion and can I take it at home?

[Kingsdaughter]

Greetings my dear brothers and sisters on bibleforums! I hope you are all doing well and growing in Lord. I have a question for you guys. My church has "communion" the first Sunday of every month, but I missed the last "communion". Can I take it at home? if so, how can I do it and how important is it to take communion.

[tim_from_pa]

Communion is Passover. The communal cup and so-called "last supper" is really Passover but was Christianized as communion. In other words, Christ's death is the fulfillment of the Passover, and the feasts of the Lord are still in effect (they are shadows of things to come) and should be observed by Christians as well as Jews.

Yes, you can have communion in your home and is most blessed there. Jews keep the Passover in their homes as well. Due to the "Gentilization" of the bible and Jewish customs have made communion some esoteric, clergical thing where we must first "confess our sins" and take only in church. I feel sorry for people bound by such traditions of men and fallacies.

Communion is thanking the Lord for what he has already done. The only criteria is to DISCERN the meaning of it, as none of us are worthy to take it. Rather we are warned against taking it in an unworthy manner. That is the ACTION of taking it, not the worthiness of the partaker as we are all unworthy. When the bible warns us not to take in an unworthy manner, it is describing the manner of that partaking. Not the "partaker". If you discern the Lord's body, then you partake in a worthy manner. I'd have no problem with taking communion with the county murderer if he was cognicent enough to understand what the Lord has done for him.

[Kingsdaughter]

Communion is Passover. The communal cup and so-called "last supper" is really Passover but was Christianized as communion. In other words, Christ's death is the fulfillment of the Passover, and the feasts of the Lord are still in effect (they are shadows of things to come) and should be observed by Christians as well as Jews.

Yes, you can have communion in your home and is most blessed there. Jews keep the Passover in their homes as well. Due to the "Gentilization" of the bible and Jewish customs have made communion some esoteric, clergical thing where we must first "confess our sins" and take only in church. I feel sorry for people bound by such traditions of men and fallacies.

Communion is thanking the Lord for what he has already done. The only criteria is to DISCERN the meaning of it, as none of us are worthy to take it. Rather we are warned against taking it in an unworthy manner. That is the ACTION of taking it, not the worthiness of the partaker as we are all unworthy. When the bible warns us not to take in an unworthy manner, it is describing the manner of that partaking. Not the "partaker". If you discern the Lord's body, then you partake in a worthy manner. I'd have no problem with taking communion with the county murderer if he was cognicent enough to understand what the Lord has done for him.

Thank you for your response Tim. Yes, the Passover. I have some questions for you. If communion is thanking the Lord for what he has already done, then should I not have communion every day? Is the bible specific on the kind of bread and drink I should use if I do it at home?and how often is the passover?

I understand what you mean by "discern" the meaning of it and I believe I do. There was a time I took communion in an unworthy manner in the church I grew up in. Communion was more of a religious act that I would do because I was supposed to,intellectually, I knew what Christ had done on the cross, but my mind(outside of Sunday morning service) and heart were far from God. Now... I want to do all things that are pleasing to Him

[Dani H]

Yes, you can take it at home. But, more importantly it's to be done with other believers. Doesn't have to be in a church building necessarily but definitely as part of fellowship.

[chad]

I have taken communion at different churches, and they all used a different kind of bread and wine. The bread and wine are just symbols of Jesus body and the cup (blood of the covenant), so I don’t think there is any specific bread or wine that is required.

I don’t think it matters if you miss one communion, as most churches observe communion more than once a year.

[Br. Barnabas]

It depends on what church you go to and what you believe about communion. Communion is about community (thus communion, communing with other believers). You should ask your church if a deacon can bring you communion in your home, because if you go to a church the has a higher (more traditional view of communion) usually the bread and wine has to be blessed by a minister of the church. Many Methodist, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran churches allow their deacons to give communion to those who have missed the communion due to sickness.

Other Protestant churches usually take a lower view of communion, usually only offering it every quarter (some I have heard of only offering it once or twice a year). These churches if you miss the communion then they will most likely not bring it to your house. They would most likely frown on you taking it by yourself in your home or with those in your household.

Almost every church wants/allows ministers to serve communion because they are the representatives of Christ in the church and are held to a higher standard by
Christ, because they are the shepherds of the church.

You should ask your church about their beliefs on communion and if you can take it in your home by yourself or if they can serve it to you in your home since you missed church when it was offered. You would not want to inadvertently violate your church's beliefs on the subject or possibly offend others in your church or your ministers. If you have become a member of your local church and submitted yourself to their spiritual authority you should check with them before trying to take communion in your own home without their blessing.

[tim_from_pa]

Thank you for your response Tim. Yes, the Passover. I have some questions for you. If communion is thanking the Lord for what he has already done, then should I not have communion every day? Is the bible specific on the kind of bread and drink I should use if I do it at home?and how often is the passover?

You already do --- you eat of his bread and drink of His Word. It's fellowship with the risen Savior, spiritually speaking. You can save the physical representations for the appointed times --- not needed to do all the time. It is done once a year at Passover and to be Scriptural, use unleavened bread. In other words, the Passover (aka Communion) is the literal fulfillment in Christ of that which was foreshadowed by the events in Egypt and that night the death angel passed over those who applied the blood to their door posts and lintels. And as the Jews remember that night with their Passover meal, likewise Christians can take the communion, as it is called, to remember the Savior on that night. BTW, the early Christians seemed to celebrate Christ's death and resurrection at Passover and did not have days like "Good Friday" and "Easter" as we recognize it today. They just celebrated it as one event at the feast days. That was added later when Gentiles introduced their own calendar instead of the one the Lord used in the bible, to which he set all the prophetic feasts at their appointed times.