BonfireNerd04 said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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Counterpoint, Jesus lost a lot of followers because Jews are forbidden to eat human flesh by God Himself. So when he said that people must eat his flesh and crunch his bones, they all took him literally and peaced out. Only those that knew it was a parable (or a metaphor, or a symbol, or whatever non-literal word you want to use) stuck around, realizing that Jesus wasn't teaching sinful cannibalism.

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This.

Even for non-Jews: If the leader of your religion today asked you to eat his flesh and drink his blood, wouldn't you be grossed out by the demand?

If it seems normal, that's because the Catholic Church has spent 2000 years normalizing it.

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These two points have already been addressed multiple times but I will say again: The Gospel of John is the only Gospel is considered to not have parables. You can choose to view this part of John 6 as a parable, but I would argue that John goes out of his way to describe how those who couldn't accept the teaching walked away. There is no attempt here to "clarify" what was meant by Jesus' own words as to what is expected of us. The disciples who couldn't break past the human view of who Jesus and as such, placed human limitations on God were left to depart from Him.

To the second bolded item, I think you are limiting your view of the Eucharist to your understanding of the physical world just as the disciples in John 6 struggled. "A leader", a human, asking us to eat his flesh is asking you to practice cannibalism and you would be right to be grossed out. The Catholic churches teaching is that we are consuming the physical presence of God, not human flesh. If you don't accept that, fair enough. I don't think that makes you a bad Christian or a bad person. I understand, just as some of those disciples said about the teaching, "This is too hard". But at the very least, please don't misrepresent what Catholics believe to be happening during the Transubstantiation.

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It ties back perfectly with the Old Testament and the Passover. The Lamb's blood smeared over the door protected the household from the plagues, but it was only efficacious if the entire lamb was eaten. Jesus being the fulfillment of the Paschal lamb, also saves us from the plague of sin, if we but eat of his body and drink of his blood, like the Passover sacrifice.

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Why do you think that God picked lamb's blood as the sign of protection?

It's not because blood itself is magic. It's because the Egyptians worshiped sheep (along with other animals), and it was a serious crime there to harm one. Killing and eating the Passover lamb was a way for Israelites to prove their loyalty to God by disloyalty to Egypt.

BonfireNerd04 said:

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It ties back perfectly with the Old Testament and the Passover. The Lamb's blood smeared over the door protected the household from the plagues, but it was only efficacious if the entire lamb was eaten. Jesus being the fulfillment of the Paschal lamb, also saves us from the plague of sin, if we but eat of his body and drink of his blood, like the Passover sacrifice.

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Why do you think that God picked lamb's blood as the sign of protection?

It's not because blood itself is magic. It's because the Egyptians worshiped sheep (along with other animals), and it was a serious crime there to harm one. Killing and eating the Passover lamb was a way for Israelites to prove their loyalty to God by disloyalty to Egypt.

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I don't have any problem with any of that; I'm saying that the early Christians would have understood the callback to the paschal lamb in the context of eating his body and blood. The words used for eat are very explicit and vivd, Christ starts with "****o" in John 23 which means eat/consume, when the disciples are like "whoa we're supposed to eat your body and blood?" he changes the verb to "trogo" which means gnaw/crunch/rend/chew to really drive home the "yes, eat my body and blood".

This caused such a reaction in the early church the teaching had to be clarified as some early Christians were wondering if they were consuming literal body parts of the Lord.

FIDO95 said:

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BonfireNerd04 said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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Counterpoint, Jesus lost a lot of followers because Jews are forbidden to eat human flesh by God Himself. So when he said that people must eat his flesh and crunch his bones, they all took him literally and peaced out. Only those that knew it was a parable (or a metaphor, or a symbol, or whatever non-literal word you want to use) stuck around, realizing that Jesus wasn't teaching sinful cannibalism.

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This.

Even for non-Jews: If the leader of your religion today asked you to eat his flesh and drink his blood, wouldn't you be grossed out by the demand?

If it seems normal, that's because the Catholic Church has spent 2000 years normalizing it.

---

These two points have already been addressed multiple times but I will say again: The Gospel of John is the only Gospel is considered to not have parables. You can choose to view this part of John 6 as a parable, but I would argue that John goes out of his way to describe how those who couldn't accept the teaching walked away. There is no attempt here to "clarify" what was meant by Jesus' own words as to what is expected of us. The disciples who couldn't break past the human view of who Jesus and as such, placed human limitations on God were left to depart from Him.

To the second bolded item, I think you are limiting your view of the Eucharist to your understanding of the physical world just as the disciples in John 6 struggled. "A leader", a human, asking us to eat his flesh is asking you to practice cannibalism and you would be right to be grossed out. The Catholic churches teaching is that we are consuming the physical presence of God, not human flesh. If you don't accept that, fair enough. I don't think that makes you a bad Christian or a bad person. I understand, just as some of those disciples said about the teaching, "This is too hard". But at the very least, please don't misrepresent what Catholics believe to be happening during the Transubstantiation.

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Again, the literal meaning of his words is cannibalism. Everyone agrees that is not the correct interpretation. So it's some sort of parable/mystery/symbol/non-physical change. The whole argument is over the degree of abstraction not the fact of abstraction

BonfireNerd04 said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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TSJ said:

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Jesus lost a lot of followers when he reiterated that you have eat his flesh and drink his blood. It's pretty black and white.


That's the wild part, to think of all the miracles through out the Bible but your pastor is hung up on the Eucharist. No problem talking about a guy getting thrown overboard to stop a storm only to be eaten by a fish three days later to be spit out near the town he needed to testify to in the first place.

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Counterpoint, Jesus lost a lot of followers because Jews are forbidden to eat human flesh by God Himself. So when he said that people must eat his flesh and crunch his bones, they all took him literally and peaced out. Only those that knew it was a parable (or a metaphor, or a symbol, or whatever non-literal word you want to use) stuck around, realizing that Jesus wasn't teaching sinful cannibalism.

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This.

Even for non-Jews: If the leader of your religion today asked you to eat his flesh and drink his blood, wouldn't you be grossed out by the demand?

If it seems normal, that's because the Catholic Church has spent 2000 years normalizing it.

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To be fair. The real presence is not unique to the Roman Catholic Church. Rome is unique in that they probably take it too far with Transubstantiation but the concept of the real presence is pretty historical as a view point.

Bob Lee said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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FIDO95 said:

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BonfireNerd04 said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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Counterpoint, Jesus lost a lot of followers because Jews are forbidden to eat human flesh by God Himself. So when he said that people must eat his flesh and crunch his bones, they all took him literally and peaced out. Only those that knew it was a parable (or a metaphor, or a symbol, or whatever non-literal word you want to use) stuck around, realizing that Jesus wasn't teaching sinful cannibalism.

---

This.

Even for non-Jews: If the leader of your religion today asked you to eat his flesh and drink his blood, wouldn't you be grossed out by the demand?

If it seems normal, that's because the Catholic Church has spent 2000 years normalizing it.

---

These two points have already been addressed multiple times but I will say again: The Gospel of John is the only Gospel is considered to not have parables. You can choose to view this part of John 6 as a parable, but I would argue that John goes out of his way to describe how those who couldn't accept the teaching walked away. There is no attempt here to "clarify" what was meant by Jesus' own words as to what is expected of us. The disciples who couldn't break past the human view of who Jesus and as such, placed human limitations on God were left to depart from Him.

To the second bolded item, I think you are limiting your view of the Eucharist to your understanding of the physical world just as the disciples in John 6 struggled. "A leader", a human, asking us to eat his flesh is asking you to practice cannibalism and you would be right to be grossed out. The Catholic churches teaching is that we are consuming the physical presence of God, not human flesh. If you don't accept that, fair enough. I don't think that makes you a bad Christian or a bad person. I understand, just as some of those disciples said about the teaching, "This is too hard". But at the very least, please don't misrepresent what Catholics believe to be happening during the Transubstantiation.

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Again, the literal meaning of his words is cannibalism. Everyone agrees that is not the correct interpretation. So it's some sort of parable/mystery/symbol/non-physical change. The whole argument is over the degree of abstraction not the fact of abstraction

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That is not the literal meaning. Cannibalism is the desecration of a corpse the result of which is a diminishment of the flesh. Neither of those things happen when we consume His body, blood, soul, and divinity.

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The literal meaning of "eat my flesh and drink my blood" is human cannibalism. The literal interpretation is not Christian doctrine anywhere, and it was in fact used as a slur by early Christian detractors.

And yet we literally do those things and are not engaging in cannibalism. So how can that be possible?

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Bob Lee said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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FIDO95 said:

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BonfireNerd04 said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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Counterpoint, Jesus lost a lot of followers because Jews are forbidden to eat human flesh by God Himself. So when he said that people must eat his flesh and crunch his bones, they all took him literally and peaced out. Only those that knew it was a parable (or a metaphor, or a symbol, or whatever non-literal word you want to use) stuck around, realizing that Jesus wasn't teaching sinful cannibalism.

---

This.

Even for non-Jews: If the leader of your religion today asked you to eat his flesh and drink his blood, wouldn't you be grossed out by the demand?

If it seems normal, that's because the Catholic Church has spent 2000 years normalizing it.

---

These two points have already been addressed multiple times but I will say again: The Gospel of John is the only Gospel is considered to not have parables. You can choose to view this part of John 6 as a parable, but I would argue that John goes out of his way to describe how those who couldn't accept the teaching walked away. There is no attempt here to "clarify" what was meant by Jesus' own words as to what is expected of us. The disciples who couldn't break past the human view of who Jesus and as such, placed human limitations on God were left to depart from Him.

To the second bolded item, I think you are limiting your view of the Eucharist to your understanding of the physical world just as the disciples in John 6 struggled. "A leader", a human, asking us to eat his flesh is asking you to practice cannibalism and you would be right to be grossed out. The Catholic churches teaching is that we are consuming the physical presence of God, not human flesh. If you don't accept that, fair enough. I don't think that makes you a bad Christian or a bad person. I understand, just as some of those disciples said about the teaching, "This is too hard". But at the very least, please don't misrepresent what Catholics believe to be happening during the Transubstantiation.

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Again, the literal meaning of his words is cannibalism. Everyone agrees that is not the correct interpretation. So it's some sort of parable/mystery/symbol/non-physical change. The whole argument is over the degree of abstraction not the fact of abstraction

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That is not the literal meaning. Cannibalism is the desecration of a corpse the result of which is a diminishment of the flesh. Neither of those things happen when we consume His body, blood, soul, and divinity.

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The literal meaning of "eat my flesh and drink my blood" is human cannibalism. The literal interpretation is not Christian doctrine anywhere, and it was in fact used as a slur by early Christian detractors.

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What does "my flesh is true food" mean to you?

Bob Lee said:

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And yet we literally do those things and are not engaging in cannibalism. So how can that be possible?

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I think perhaps we should all be sticking to the strict definition of "literal" given the topic of conversation

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Bob Lee said:

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And yet we literally do those things and are not engaging in cannibalism. So how can that be possible?

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I think perhaps we should all be sticking to the strict definition of "literal" given the topic of conversation

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This is where avoiding trying to define the "what" is more beneficial than anything else.

The simple answer is we don't know the details of what happens in the Lord's Supper beyond what Jesus tells us.

Jesus says this "is" my Body and Blood and we say yes we agree with that. Trying to find a symbolic viewpoint in that seems to be stretching Scripture (and history).

It's also seems incorrect to try and get into the mechanics of exactly what is going on because that seems to exceed the bounds of Scripture.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Bob Lee said:

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And yet we literally do those things and are not engaging in cannibalism. So how can that be possible?

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I think perhaps we should all be sticking to the strict definition of "literal" given the topic of conversation

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I literally mean literally. We eat his flesh, but not some of his flesh. He is wholly present. Literally. His eyes, ears, flesh, blood, bones. All of Him who is miraculously present in the Eucharist, and that is very different from Cannibalism, but how does that mean we don't literally eat His flesh? Is Jesus LITERALLY of 2 natures? Aren't miracles acts of God strictly speaking?

Why would Jesus tell us not to engage in cannibalistic behavior literally, but only symbolically? Is that that much better? Does He tell us to perform other acts that are symbols of atrocious things?

I think saying "what he's saying is literally cannibalism, so we should only do cannibalism symbolically." is stranger than saying, "I think he literally wants us to eat Him, and it is not cannibalism".

You don't mean literally literally. During Jesus' entire life including after his resurrection, not a single person ate his human body or drank his human blood. That would have been literal. There is no other definition of literal.

Not even your church teaches what you are saying

Dies Irae said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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You don't mean literally literally. During Jesus' entire life including after his resurrection, not a single person ate his human body or drank his human blood. That would have been literal. There is no other definition of literal.

Not even your church teaches what you are saying

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What if I told you our church teaches that the Eucharist is Christ's body, blood, soul and divinity under the appearance of bread and wine

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I'd say, Amen!

Bob Lee said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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Bob Lee said:

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And yet we literally do those things and are not engaging in cannibalism. So how can that be possible?

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I think perhaps we should all be sticking to the strict definition of "literal" given the topic of conversation

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I literally mean literally. We eat his flesh, but not some of his flesh. He is wholly present. Literally. His eyes, ears, flesh, blood, bones. All of Him who is miraculously present in the Eucharist, and that is very different from Cannibalism, but how does that mean we don't literally eat His flesh? Is Jesus LITERALLY of 2 natures? Aren't miracles acts of God strictly speaking?

Why would Jesus tell us not to engage in cannibalistic behavior literally, but only symbolically? Is that that much better? Does He tell us to perform other acts that are symbols of atrocious things?

I think saying "what he's saying is literally cannibalism, so we should only do cannibalism symbolically." is stranger than saying, "I think he literally wants us to eat Him, and it is not cannibalism".

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Did the apostles engage in cannibalism when they ate what the Son of God told them was his flesh and his blood at the Last Supper?

Was Paul promoting cannibalism when in 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 he points to the Real Presence? "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread." Now ask yourself: What must the cup and the bread be to make possible this participation in the blood and body of Christ? The most obvious and logical answer is that the bread and cup of wine must really be the body and blood of Christ. So is Paul pro-cannibalism?

Can ordinary bread make people one in Christ's mystical body of the Church? When Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Passover, he made the it our salvation meal. This meal surpasses the Passover because it contains what it signifies. In fact, that is the definition of a sacrament. The bread is called the body of Christ because it contains that body. So the Eucharist contains our salvation and forgiveness because it contains our Savior Jesus Christ. He teaches us this Real Presence when he used the words "Do this in remembrance [or memory] of me."

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Now I feel like a pedant, but here we go. If someone says "drink my blood", bleeds into a cup, and hands it to you to drink, then that person is being literal. Anything else is not literal. If you tell someone to drink your blood and then hand them a glass of wine, you are, by the definition of all grammarians, not being literal. There is automatically a level of abstraction. If we can't even agree on that then there's no point to this argument. There is no other word in English that means "no abstraction at all", only the word "literal". Since no one drank the blood fresh from the veins of Jesus at any point from birth to ascension, I can definitively say that his disciples did not take this "literally"

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Not sure what else I could say. Maybe think about this. We adore the Eucharist. We worship the Eucharist. What are the implications of that if the Church does not teach that the Eucharist is literally, actually, truly, and in every sense God Himself?

Bob Lee said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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Now I feel like a pedant, but here we go. If someone says "drink my blood", bleeds into a cup, and hands it to you to drink, then that person is being literal. Anything else is not literal. If you tell someone to drink your blood and then hand them a glass of wine, you are, by the definition of all grammarians, not being literal. There is automatically a level of abstraction. If we can't even agree on that then there's no point to this argument. There is no other word in English that means "no abstraction at all", only the word "literal". Since no one drank the blood fresh from the veins of Jesus at any point from birth to ascension, I can definitively say that his disciples did not take this "literally"

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Not sure what else I could say. Maybe think about this. We adore the Eucharist. We worship the Eucharist. What are the implications of that if the Church does not teach that the Eucharist is literally, actually, truly, and in every sense God Himself?

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How can something by all observation be bread but at the same time be the body of the Christ? Welcome to 2000 years of Christian theology

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Bob Lee said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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Now I feel like a pedant, but here we go. If someone says "drink my blood", bleeds into a cup, and hands it to you to drink, then that person is being literal. Anything else is not literal. If you tell someone to drink your blood and then hand them a glass of wine, you are, by the definition of all grammarians, not being literal. There is automatically a level of abstraction. If we can't even agree on that then there's no point to this argument. There is no other word in English that means "no abstraction at all", only the word "literal". Since no one drank the blood fresh from the veins of Jesus at any point from birth to ascension, I can definitively say that his disciples did not take this "literally"

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Not sure what else I could say. Maybe think about this. We adore the Eucharist. We worship the Eucharist. What are the implications of that if the Church does not teach that the Eucharist is literally, actually, truly, and in every sense God Himself?

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How can something by all observation be bread but at the same time be the body of the Christ? Welcome to 2000 years of Christian theology

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It sounds like you're struggling with naturalism to some degree. Our sense perceptions are generally reliable, but they can be a hindrance or limitation on our ability to perceive what is true about a thing or not. The degree of abstraction as you put it doesn't speak to it's existence or the truth or realness of the thing. It's a description of our inability to perceive it. The reason I can know without a doubt that the Eucharist is Jesus' flesh is because He told us it is. It looks, feels, and tastes like bread, but it's not.

When I say it literally is the flesh of the living sacrifice, I'm saying it's truly substantively Jesus Christ, and not bread at all. We can't rely on our sense perceptions to reveal the truth about the Eucharist. We have to rely on our Faith in Jesus.

Bob Lee said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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Bob Lee said:

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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Now I feel like a pedant, but here we go. If someone says "drink my blood", bleeds into a cup, and hands it to you to drink, then that person is being literal. Anything else is not literal. If you tell someone to drink your blood and then hand them a glass of wine, you are, by the definition of all grammarians, not being literal. There is automatically a level of abstraction. If we can't even agree on that then there's no point to this argument. There is no other word in English that means "no abstraction at all", only the word "literal". Since no one drank the blood fresh from the veins of Jesus at any point from birth to ascension, I can definitively say that his disciples did not take this "literally"

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Not sure what else I could say. Maybe think about this. We adore the Eucharist. We worship the Eucharist. What are the implications of that if the Church does not teach that the Eucharist is literally, actually, truly, and in every sense God Himself?

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How can something by all observation be bread but at the same time be the body of the Christ? Welcome to 2000 years of Christian theology

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It sounds like you're struggling with naturalism to some degree. Our sense perceptions are generally reliable, but they can be a hindrance or limitation on our ability to perceive what is true about a thing or not. The degree of abstraction as you put it doesn't speak to it's existence or the truth or realness of the thing. It's a description of our inability to perceive it. The reason I can know without a doubt that the Eucharist is Jesus' flesh is because He told us it is. It looks, feels, and tastes like bread, but it's not.

When I say it literally is the flesh of the living sacrifice, I'm saying it's truly substantively Jesus Christ, and not bread at all. We can't rely on our sense perceptions to reveal the truth about the Eucharist. We have to rely on our Faith in Jesus.

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I agree with everything you just said

Zobel said:

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Heard a great quote that seems relevant to this. Literal and material aren't synonyms.

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The lord of spirits feels relevant to every thread on R&P.

I would also add it's why typology is so important in properly understanding scripture. Jesus is our new Passover lamb. One of the requirements under the Passover in the OT was they had to literally eat the lamb, not symbolically or anything else. Maybe I don't understand transubstantiation fully, just like I don't understand the Trinity fully, but they are mysteries beyond my comprehension. I recognize my limits as a human, but if we believe Jesus is who He said He was, I have zero issue believing the bread and wine truly become the Body and Blood of Christ under the appearances of bread and wine. The God who creates ex-nihilo can do this even if my pea brain can't fully understand. Sometimes we lead ourselves into error trying to rationalize sacred mysteries.

The charge of cannibalism isn't new. It goes back to the first century when Romans and Jews were accusing and persecuting the Christians because of this accusation. The understanding of what cannibalism truly involves vs the Eucharist is lacking IMO to make this accusation. It's too simplistic.

This may have been covered, but I thought I would add a question posed to me at one of the RCIA classes, "If you eat the body and drink the blood of Christ- do you poop Jesus out?"

Interestingly enough- no! The instant the host touches your mouth, Christ spirit becomes one with yours. Just don't drop Jesus.

Is this a fair representation of the Catholic and Orthodox understanding? Your statement makes it seem as though it starts as both physically and spiritually the body and blood, though retaining all the physical characteristics of bread and wine. Then as soon as it enters the digestive tract, it ceases to be physically the body and blood and converts to just spiritual. Is this correct?

GQaggie said:

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Is this a fair representation of the Catholic and Orthodox understanding? Your statement makes it seem as though it starts as both physically and spiritually the body and blood, though retaining all the physical characteristics of bread and wine. Then as soon as it enters the digestive tract, it ceases to be physically the body and blood and converts to just spiritual. Is this correct?

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Once the recipient swallows, it's no longer the Real Presence.

PabloSerna said:

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This may have been covered, but I thought I would add a question posed to me at one of the RCIA classes, "If you eat the body and drink the blood of Christ- do you poop Jesus out?"

Interestingly enough- no! The instant the host touches your mouth, Christ spirit becomes one with yours. Just don't drop Jesus.

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"The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist."

CCC 1377

I think it takes a little longer than that but agree of course with your assessment that we don't poop Him out.

I believe that sensors are available now that one can swallow and will transmit (or record?) as the sensor passes through the digestive tract.

Let's assume that one takes communion and simultaneously swallows a sensor. For those that believe in transubstantiation, what do you believe that the sensor would show happening to the wine and bread as it passes through the digestive process?

How would it affect your belief in transubstantiation if the sensor showed that the bread and wine remained bread and wine throughout, or would it affect your belief at all?

agpetz said:

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I was raised Catholic (i.e., my parents made me go to church and CCD growing up), took a very long break from any sort of religion for about 20 years, and now find myself going to a Baptist church in east Tennessee with my family. This post is not about that though...

In past sermons, the pastor at the Baptist Church has made mention to how it isn't important to dwell on or argue the differences between various faiths. Last week he talked about first, second, and third level issues (i.e., core tenants of faith and lesser issues). That all seems fine with me.

However, yesterday, on one of the seemingly random days that the "elements" were taken (in very convenient packages that have the wafer on top and grape juice in the bottom which I find odd given my experience with communion) he talked about how the elements were a symbol...and then went on to say that some believe that the bread and wine are actually Jesus' flesh and blood which he said was "weird". I was taken aback by this comment...and find it interesting that of all the things in the bible, water into wine, walking on water, healing of the sick, coming back from the dead....that the idea of Transubstantiation is the weird thing.

I did some research on the subject to remind myself of why Catholics believe this and came across this research: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/05/transubstantiation-eucharist-u-s-catholics/ which basically found that most Catholics don't even believe in it.

Why can't people have and talk about their own faiths without disparaging others? How do Catholics reconcile their lack of belief in what is a pretty core tenet of Catholicism?

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To answer the 2nd to last question...

I think its a matter of truth. Is the catholic view of transubstantiation true or it is just a symbol? If I am driven to understand God in truth and what He desires, how must I view certain things? Who's right? Are the consequences for getting it wrong? If 2 things that contradict each other cannot be true in the same way at the same time. Is truth in our worship a thing we should consider?

JN 4:23 But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.

Does the Bible give us a precedent on speaking to another's faith?

Gal 2:11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. 13 The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, "If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?

2 Tim 2:24 The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, 25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,

2 Tim 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;

• If the protestant view of communion is true and it's just a symbol, then all protestants, if they love Jesus and Catholics, should loving correct them on this topic so their worship may be in truth.
• If the Catholic view of communion is true, then all Catholics, if they love Jesus and protestants, should loving correct them on this topic so their worship may be in truth.

My personal opinion as a protestant is that communion is a worship moment of remembrance of what Christ has done.

1 Cor. 11:23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me." 25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."

If someone believes they are going to heaven because they took communion or if they believe people cannot be saved who haven't taken communion are big time errors of correction.

A person simply believing the it becomes Jesus body and blood, while I do not see a Biblical precedent for believing this, I don't think it's a major area of concern. It's a good teachable moment when it comes to Biblical interpretation but not what I would consider an essential issue like the doctrine of salvation, deity of Christ, etc.

To summarize:
God wants us to worship in truth personally and He wants us to share truth with others. This topic should help us wrestle with the scriptures. The most loving thing we can do it teach in a way that brings others to an understanding of truth. It's okay to disagree with others.

In the essentials - Unity
In the non-essentials - liberty
In all things - love

Quote:

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If someone believes they are going to heaven because they took communion or if they believe people cannot be saved who haven't taken communion are big time errors of correction.

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Agree completely

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A person simply believing the it becomes Jesus body and blood, while I do not see a Biblical precedent for believing this, I don't think it's a major area of concern. It's a good teachable moment when it comes to Biblical interpretation but not what I would consider an essential issue like the doctrine of salvation, deity of Christ, etc.

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I don't understand where biblical interpretation comes into this. There are some practices that clearly predate the existence of any NT scripture. After all, Paul wrote the first NT scriptures, and there were practicing Christians before he ever converted. Some things have just been around since the very beginning of the faith. Baptism and Communion definitely fall in that category. As such, later texts of these practices can only be descriptive and not proscriptive. They can only describe how things are already done, not how to start doing them. Someone taught these practices to Paul before he ever wrote a word