Communion, mostly

Today I went to Sunday school, morning worship, Bible study (the sort usually held on Thursdays), and evening worship. It was a good day. At one point, I was sitting around my college president's dining room table talking about Barbies. (We'd gotten onto that subject by way of Wycliffe, which led to heresy, which led to executions, which led straight to Barbies. From there we discussed Legos.) I wonder if I can make sense of all the teaching. It was good, and there kept being connections, but I feel rather like a dog in a field full of rabbits. I track down one thought, and whoops! There goes another! Well, I can't catch it, and where's the one I was after??

In Sunday school we looked at Communion as described in I Corinthians 11. The Lord's Supper is not merely for our physical provision (though apparently in the early church, it was an actual meal). The what else is the issue. We dealt somewhat with consubstantion, transubstantiation, Real Presence, and strict symbolism views, but not with any sort of definitiveness. In defense of the strict symbolists, Christ is our Passover, and the Passover was a memorial. In offense against the strict symbolists, I refer one to the book of Hebrews. The Old Testament things: the temple, the firepans and dishes and sacrifices, are all types or symbols of the coming thing, which is Christ. The New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old. So it can legitimately be asked whether the Lord's Supper is a type or the thing itself.