The only fair answer, in my opinion, is to simply mimic the explicit biblical teaching.

I Corinthians 11:24-26 – “… this do in remembrance of me. … this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.”

Remembrance and Proclamation happen during the eucharist. Any speculation about what else it accomplishes is fine, as long as it’s seen as extra-biblical and not confused with the teaching of scripture.

What else does the scripture explicitly teach about the eucharist? If I’ve missed something, fill me in.

As far as Luther’s hermeneutic of “this is my body,” … This is an unjustified wooden hermeneutic.

Pax,

Bradley

Help those of us who want a good answer to those who have the Lutheran/RCC view of the eucharist. What do you say is going on?

peace

MS

About Luther …. He said:

“Yes, it must be external so that it can be perceived and grasped by the sense and thus brought into the heart, just as the entire Gospel is an external, oral proclamation. In short, whatever God effects in us he does through such external ordinances.” *Martin Luther, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, trans. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Muhlenberg Press, 1959), 440.

For Luther, faith alone will not do, because although “faith alone makes the person worthy to receive the salutary, divine water profitably,” faith apart from the actual administration of the sacrament of baptism is nothing but a faith which is mustered up apart from the power of God’s grace and severed from God’s Word—and thus it is a human work. Luther considered the Anabaptists to be sects of the devil. “Here we come to a question by which the devil confuses the world through his sects, the question of infant Baptism.” *Luther, The Book of Concord, 442.

Lohse makes the judgment that although Luther “with his emphasis on the strict correlation of baptism and faith…gave new accent to traditional baptismal theology…on the whole [he] did not attack it.” *Bernhard Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development, trans. Roy A. Harrisville (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 1999), 303.

Lohse also recognizes that Luther appealed to “the concept of the sacrament as ‘effective in itself’ (ex opere operato)” in his defense of infant baptism. Ibid, 302.

While in different polemical contexts, Luther’s teaching on baptism had radically different emphases, his basic understanding of baptism never underwent a substantial change. *Mark D. Tranvik, “Luther on Baptism,” Harvesting Martin Luther’s Reflections on Theology, Ethics, and the Church, ed. Timothy J. Wengert (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004), 24.

I love to read Luther on many topics, but on the sacraments, he shows his true Roman Catholic roots.

Bradley

One source (Ron Rhoades?) said:

“The New Testament does not support a sacerdotal system of worship. As Martin Luther points out in The Private Mass and Consecration of Priests, the Holy Spirit has “in the New Testament diligently prevented the name sacerdos, priest or cleric, from being given even to an apostle or to various other offices.” In other words, the Bible never uses the word priest in relation to church leadership; rather, the Bible teaches the universal priesthood of all believers.”

Anyway, I was referring to Luther’s Christ centered Gospel as compared to Edwards’ endless speculations on Sovereignty.

Piper is aware that Lewis is not an inerrantist, for example. Other inerrantists are cited as unusable by serious Christians, but Lewis gets a pass. Inconsistent.

I can see where your coming from now. He does say some pretty crazy things almost just for shock value.

I’m not sure what you mean by “fanatical,” but I’m sure it doesn’t mean, “level-headed risk-taking” (and that you would agree we should take risks for the sake of the gospel, esp in missions).

Not sure why anyone would question C.S. Lewis’ faith. Praytell. (maybe you have in mind his inclusivism or purgatory ideas?)

Piper too logical? Not sure what the alternative would be … Illogical? More heart-spoken instead of head-spoken?

By the way … Did you know that Martin Luther taught sacerdotalism? I would take Edwards over Luther anyday. But that’s just me.

Thanks for entertaining my question,

Bradley

Under this type of logic, the failures of the current administration (assuming he believes the economic crisis, massive budget deficit, wiretapping, torture, response to Katrina, Abu Graib, Guantanamo, Walter Reed etc. represent failures of the Bush Administration) are a necessary price to pay for ensuring that we have a pro-life president.

For Piper, Taylor and many of my well-intentioned evangelical friends, abortion is the only issue with dealbreaker status, and therefore it automatically trumps the magnitude of all the other issues combined: the economy, foreign policy, energy, environment, healthcare, education, fiscal responsibility, immigration, gun control, death penalty, adoption reform etc.

Personally, I have tremendous respect for Dr. Piper, a fellow Wheaton alum and I’m certainly not saying that Obama has it right on all of the other issues (I disagree with him on capital punishment for example), but it seems that Piper fails to allow for the possibility that mature Christians of good conscience can disagree as to whether the issue of abortion should be granted dealbreaker status over and above the multitude of other issues that have biblical/moral dimensions to them.

2) Piper’s pastoral use of his Edwardsian view of the Sovereignty of God has led to some uses and pronouncements that seem very deficient in pastoral wisdom and compassion.

3) I think some of his teaching in the past intentionally bred fanatical applications, esp in regard to martyrdom.

4) I believe he is of two minds on C.S. Lewis and needs to make a clear statement in regard to whether Lewis is an orthodox teacher of the Gospel.

5) I sense a lot of God-centeredness at the expense of Christ-centeredness. Edwards over Luther.

6) Mark Dever once said in an interview, when asked for a brief summary statement on a variety of contemporary reformed men, that Piper was ruthlessly logical. I would agree, and I think that is the difference in the Piper we heard before his Romans study and the one we hear now.

I like Piper and have benefited from him a lot.

I find myself agreeing with him on most things though. Emotions are important and at the heart of godliness and faith, Christians should engaged the culture with God’s truth, the door to the local church should be about the size the door to the universal church, Calvinism, etc.

Michael … I get the sense that you find something dangerous about some of his teaching. Why don’t you tell us what about his teaching concerns you? His Calvinism? Certain political statements? What? I would love to hear.

In case I need to point it out, Brendt, if you don’t agree with Scott’s claim that Piper takes himself very seriously as a real argument against Piper’s actual teaching I’m with you. The problem is that the rebuttal to “X takes himself seriously” isn’t “Well that can’t be true because Y likes him.” The working rebuttal to that is the one tim provided. Wouldn’t we expect pastors to take themselves (and more importantly, Scripture) seriously?