FELLOWSHIP AND THE LORD'S SUPPER
FELLOWSHIP AND THE LORD’S SUPPER
Reading, Revised by F.E.R.
1 Corinthians 11: 23 - 34 What I feel so very much in connection with us as saints gathered in assembly is, that we realise but little the terms upon which the Lord is pleased to be with us there, and I am sure if we were really at home with Him our meetings would be much happier.
FER I think that partly arises from the fact that a great many look upon the mere coming together as the assembly.
RSS What is the contrast, in your mind, between a meeting and the assembly?
FER Well, I look upon a meeting as being in itself an occasion in connection with our life down here.
RSS Such as this, for instance, that occupies us now?
FER Yes, but that is not the idea of the assembly. In the assembly, for the time being, saints leave the life here; the true idea of the assembly is association with Christ.
JP Because the assembly as such has no sort of connection with the responsible life in flesh here.
FER Not in its own proper character; and to enter into the idea of the assembly you must for the time being leave the life here, because in assembly you realise association with Christ, and that is in His life.
RSS When you come to that practically there is a good deal of difficulty, because, perhaps, you come to the Supper on the Lord’s day morning distracted by things here. Take sisters, for instance, with the [p. 265] care of the household, it is hard to leave all this kind of thing at once.
FER I have an impression that it is there that the grace of Christ comes in to help.
PH And we reach the assembly through the Supper?
FER I think the Supper is introductory in the assembly; the Supper rallies the saints, and they come together in assembly to eat the Supper; it is what is immediately before us in coming together, but as introductory to the assembly.
RSS When you say it is there where the grace of Christ comes in to help us, is it after we come into the meeting that grace comes in?
FER I do not know when, but I think grace does come in to relieve people of every kind of pressure; that is the end for which the service of the Priest is effective.
JC So that we might be free for the time to leave everything.
FER Yes.
WM You are speaking of the assembly now in its normal character; but as a matter of fact a good many are received into fellowship with us who only look at things in connection with fellowship in flesh and blood down here.
FER But then you may in a sense have fellowship, and never come together.
JC That is, to eat the Supper?
JSA I rather thought the idea was on this wise: in the first chapter we are called into the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and that we come together outside of our various positions and circumstances in life here with the Supper before us, and in that Supper we are carried by the death of Christ outside of everything here.
FER What I mean is this, that fellowship may exist even if we never come together, and thus the [p. 266] fact of our coming together does not in that way affect the question of fellowship. The fellowship subsists anyway.
WHC Do you get that in chapter 10?
FER Yes, there is no coming together in chapter 10, but there is the insistence on fellowship, and the obligations of fellowship.
WM I suppose the point is that one should not compromise the other.
FER Yes, the point is fellowship; and there are obligations in connection with it, and you have to accept the obligations.
RSS Do you draw a distinction between fellowship and association?
FER A great deal; we have not fellowship with Christ; we have association with Christ.
JC Fellowship is with one another.
FER That is christian fellowship.
JC Then we must not connect anything that would dishonour Christ with fellowship.
FER Fellowship is a question of faithfulness to one another, according to a certain bond, like partners in a business.
OO'B Do you understand that 1 John 1 applies simply to the apostles, where he says, “truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ”?
FER I do not think there can be doubt about that, “truly our fellowship”, that is, the apostles’ fellowship; I believe it is in connection with the testimony, and limited in that sense.
RSS How were they brought into that fellowship, and we not?
FER They were sent of Christ to introduce christianity into the world.
WHC So they had a special place.
EA Does not the apostle John speak of it here as proper christian privilege?
FER [p. 267] I do not think that is the thought in it; it is in connection with their communications.
WHC Does not the Lord Himself give the apostles a very special place in His prayer in John 17?
FER Undoubtedly.
WM And the saints “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship”.
FER Quite so.
JC Then we are to have fellowship with them.
FER They had their own distinctive place in connection with the testimony, but they had nothing to keep to themselves, and they communicated what they knew that others might have fellowship with them.
OO'B What I do not understand is that if we are called into fellowship with them, and they had fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, why we do not share that.
FER We have part with them in all they have communicated; it is in that sense we have fellowship with them.
JP The only limit is the things they write, “these things write we unto you”.
FER Quite so.
RSS Does fellowship not presuppose the presence of that which is contrary and adverse?
FER Always; and it is in that sense protective.
RSS Then is it that the apostles had fellowship with the Father and the Son, and that that is the fellowship referred to, and then they communicate to us?
FER Quite so; you must recognise the special place the apostles had in connection with their testimony. Who else could take that ground, “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you”? The apostles are marked off in that sense by Christ.
EA What is the difference between fellowship in that passage and the fellowship in 1 Corinthians 1?
FER None whatever in the word itself; [p. 268] the difference is in the connection. It is not in 1 Corinthians fellowship with His Son; it is the fellowship of His Son.
EA What is the simple thought of the word ‘fellowship’?
FER Participation in common.
RSS Where we get that John and James were partners in the fishing, it is the same word.
FER Whatever profits accrued to the fishing they shared in common.
WHC Would it be right to say that in the Lord’s teaching and ways He had before Him the fitting of His disciples for this great work?
FER Quite so, they were to have a special place; for instance, they, not we, are in the foundation of the holy city.
WHC No, we are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
FER Quite so, their names are in the foundation, but none other than the apostles of the Lamb. You must accord them the peculiar place which they had as being used of God to lay the foundations of christianity.
JSA I think you get it clearly brought out in chapter 2 of this epistle, where we find that the things were communicated to them, and they in turn communicated the things in words which the Holy Spirit teacheth.
RSS In connection with Mr. A’s question I would like to be clear as to the difference between fellowship with His Son, and the fellowship of His Son.
FER We have fellowship with one another; if we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship one with another.
EA I do not understand why all christians have not fellowship with the Father and the Son. Have we not community of thought with the Father and [p. 269] the Son?
FER I do not think that is the thought of fellowship. Fellowship with one another depends on being in the light as God is in the light; it is proper to all christians. The verse brings out what is proper christian fellowship. Jews could not have fellowship with christians, nor christians with Jews.
WM And I suppose it would hardly do to bring in the Father and the Son as partners with us.
FER I do not think the apostles would do that, but they realised the peculiar place which they had in connection with the Father and Son in the promulgation of the testimony.
LTF Would the fellowship of His Son indicate the character of christian fellowship?
FER Yes.
RSS Mr. A. was just now speaking of community of thought with the Father and the Son; is not that a different thing from fellowship. Have we not that?
FER Fellowship undoubtedly means participation in common. They that eat of the sacrifices have fellowship with the altar; it is evidently not community of thought there.
JC Is it not helpful to see that on account of the difficulties and opposition around there must be a fellowship?
FER That is what the table means, fellowship. In the Supper it is common participation of the cup and the bread. Thus we are bound together by the death of Christ; it has become our common bond. “We being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread”. The death of Christ is that which binds all christians together, and there is the setting forth of it in the Supper.
RSS What you were speaking about last night in John 10, “I ... know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so I know the Father”. That is not fellowship, but that is intimacy, community of thought, which is quite different [p. 270] from fellowship.
FER It is not the idea of fellowship at all.
EA Would you kindly state the difference between the fellowship of the apostles with the Father and the Son, and the fellowship that we speak of that is proper to all christians?
FER Well, I think the fellowship of christians connects itself with three thoughts: one is of the Lord, another is of His death, and the third is of the Spirit. I think that is common christian fellowship.
EA And what would be the fellowship of the apostles with the Father and the Son?
FER That lay in the promulgation of the testimony; the Father sent the Son and the Son came for the Father’s will; and the Son sent the apostles as the Father had sent Him. The testimony was the special bond.
AHP Do you think the difficulty has been that we have used those words which only apply to the apostles?
FER If anyone will take the trouble to read the first four verses of John’s epistle he will see that they are an introduction, in which the apostle shows his title to address us. Then it goes on to say, “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you”.
WM And he begins with the lowest point.
FER In the first chapter he touches fellowship; in the second chapter he recognises distinction of christian growth; in chapter 3 he brings out our place before the Father; in chapter 4, the truth of what God is toward us in our place down here; in chapter 5 he introduces the three witnesses, and there it is we come to eternal life in God’s Son.
WB Would you include the apostles that were called after the twelve with these?
FER I would not, because John speaks of that which we have seen and looked upon and handled; that would not go beyond the twelve.
[p. 271] JP The last verse of chapter 15 of the gospel gives the idea of the distinctive place of the apostles, “because ye have been with me from the beginning”.
FER In the first four chapters of his epistle John gives you their witness, and in chapter 5 he is compelled to hand you over to the witness of the Spirit.
L In chapter 1: 6 it says, “If we say that we have fellowship with him”.
FER That is saying, “If we say we have it”. It does not say we have it.
L Then in verse 7, “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another”.
FER The pretension is that you have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness. The truth is that we walk in the light, and have fellowship with one another.
JC If everything was in accord there would not be occasion of fellowship.
FER I have said sometimes, though people do not quite like it, that there will be no fellowship in heaven; fellowship is, I think, in a scene of contrariety.
WHC It is a great help in that way.
FER It is a question of what the idea of Scripture in the expression is; it is not the mere meaning of the word.
RSS But there will be community of thought and heart in heaven.
FER Heaven is filled with love and intelligence.
RSS Where do you get the thought of intelligence in that connection?
FER I think intelligence follows on love. “For we know in part ... but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away”. We shall know as we have been known.
WE Was not that the case with Mary of Bethany?
FER I think so.
WM He that loves knows God.
[p. 272] FER Yes.
RSS I think you said that chapter 10 brings forward the thought of separation and exclusion?
FER That is the principle of chapter 10, the apostle is putting fellowship in contradistinction to sacramentalism. Depend upon it, christians go in more or less for sacramentalism.
JP Would you say in chapter 10 we get the moral fitting to come together in chapter 11?
FER Undoubtedly. The true ground of the assembly is fellowship, but you cannot get in sacramentalism the idea of fellowship. In sacramentalism you are in danger of idolatry; you can have sacramentalism and every kind of worldliness; that is what the apostle saw with the Corinthians. They were in danger of going on in sacramentalism with unjudged flesh, and that led to idolatry. High church people and Roman Catholics have sacramentalism, which is bound to maintain priest-craft. The next step is, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play”. Israel did that in the absence of Moses; that pictures christendom at the present day.
AHP How would that apply to those who are outside of it?
FER It does not exactly apply to us, because we have got back to fellowship.
WHC The death of Christ, which is the foundation of fellowship, would exclude all that?
FER Yes. The beginning of the christian course is that you are buried with Christ in death; then the Supper is your own act and deed; I had no hand in my baptism, it was not my responsibility; but undoubtedly if I partake of the bread and wine in the Supper it is my own act, and on that the apostle takes up the Corinthians — “The cup of blessing which we bless”. He does not say the water in which we were baptised, though that is symbolic. We have got away from sacramentalism, for in sacramentalism the priest blesses the cup, but in fellowship we bless it.
[p. 273] EA What is the simple force of the word, “The cup of blessing which we bless?” Is it the sense of giving thanks?
FER I think so; it is in the sense of eulogy.
WM What do you see in the bread distinct from the cup?
FER The cup comes first here, “The cup of blessing which we bless”; and so afterwards, “Ye cannot drink the Lord’s cup and the cup of demons”. The cup is put first.
EZ Why does he put the cup first?
FER Because the thought in this chapter is of God, and in the next of Christ; I think the thought of the cup brings God in. It is the New Testament in the blood of Christ; the body shuts man out.
WM Because Christ died to that condition?
FER Yes, we “are become dead to the law by the body of Christ”. On the other hand, the cup of blessing sets forth the New Testament.
JP And the more we apprehend its true character, the more heartily we shall eulogise it.
FER It is the cup of blessing because it brings God in; it does not say the bread of blessing; the new covenant presents God’s disposition.
WM There is the teaching of His love in it.
RSS Then a covenant commits a person.
FER It makes evident His disposition.
GW Then in the cup you do not see the removal of the first order of things.
FER No, that is seen more in the bread.
JP It is the new covenant, you cannot make old things out of new in that way.
FER It is a different covenant, not simply a new covenant.
WM That is why you say in chapter 10 it is God brought in, and in chapter 11, Christ.
FER I think so.
JP I think we have practically lost the truth in [p. 274] chapter to by thinking the table was the moment we were together on Lord’s day morning.
FER The fact is, there is no such thing as ‘the table’; it is only a term that has been employed by brethren; the Lord’s table simply has reference to the bread, “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table and of the table of devils”. The reference is plainly to the bread, as distinct from the cup.
JSA It is what you eat, and not the place you are at.
FER Exactly.
WM You may as well emphasise the cup as the table.
FER Just as in the previous passage; only it is not treated here as fellowship, it is said, “ye cannot partake”.
LWB We often use the expression, ‘They have taken their place at the Lord’s table’. Is that correct?
FER I would rather say, ‘They have taken their place in the fellowship of the Lord’s table’. That would mean they had left sacramentalism and had come into christian fellowship. It must be remembered that sacramentalism is not in principle christianity.
WHC Fellowship is common to all christians.
FER It is proper for them, but you could not say that all christians were in the fellowship of the table. I think it is God’s mind for them. Sacramentalism is certainly not the fellowship of the Lord’s table.
RSS But you would say that all christians are connected with the Lord’s table.
FER It is God’s mind about them.
WB Would verse 21 be sacramentalism?
FER No, I think sacramentalism is contemplated in the early part of the chapter, but I could not say that sacramentalism is the cup of devils. The apostle first brings in as warning the thought of sacramentalism,
[p. 275] then he touches the question of fellowship, and, after the thought of fellowship, goes on to press the obligation of it, that is, the obligation to one another. If you accept that we are one bread and one body, we have an obligation to one another, and that shuts out any recognition of idolatry.
WB I meant verse 7.
FER You can see the position very distinctly in the case of Israel. They had sacraments, that is, baptism and spiritual food and spiritual drink — things that were symbolic; but while they had that, they sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play; there was unjudged flesh, giving themselves up to pleasure in the absence of Moses. That was idolatry.
PHF I am not clear on the table; I understood you to say there was no table.
FER I only said the chapter did not speak of ‘the table’; some one spoke of fellowship at the table. The expression in the chapter is, “ye cannot partake of the Lord’s table” — it really means to partake of the bread.
PHF Is not the term ‘the table’ used in ‘the Lord’s table’?
FER What does the Lord’s table mean as employed in this chapter? It is in distinction from the cup.
PHF It is what you partake of.
AHP I think that we have been confused in our minds as to the table; we have looked at the table on the Lord’s day morning as being the Lord’s table.
FER What is set before us is, I have no doubt, the cup of the Lord and the table of the Lord; but the cup of the Lord is the wine, and the table of the Lord is the bread. It is what is on the table, not the table itself.
RSS What is set forth in the Lord’s table?
FER It brings in the thought of fellowship, and [p. 276] of the bond of fellowship.
RSS Is the bond of fellowship the death of Christ?
FER Yes, “We being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread”.
JC If you found a christian separate from everything who was not remembering the Lord, would you say that he was in fellowship?
FER I could not speak of a converted Quaker who refuses the Supper as having part in christian fellowship. I would not deny his christianity, but he refuses the fellowship of the death of Christ.
WE How does he refuse it?
FER Because he does not take the Lord’s supper.
WHC He makes nothing of it.
FER It is spiritualised away.
GW Does not the loaf represent the Lord’s body?
FER Yes.
JC Is a soul that you desire to see at the table in fellowship before they come to break bread if clear of everything that is dishonouring to the Lord’s name?
FER I think a person is formally in fellowship as having actually broken bread. Then you can take them up on the ground of having participated in the death of Christ. That is the way the apostle takes up the Corinthians.
WM There is sometimes the case of an ordinary christian, not formally with us, who would ask the privilege of breaking bread; have you any thought as to this?
FER I have no difficulty about it; but you would have to raise the question as to what he is connected with because he may be connected with things with which you could not possibly have fellowship.
WM I am supposing all to be right.
FER Yes, but he might be connected with some system where there was the maintenance of error. In that case you could not have fellowship with him.
LTF Suppose he [p. 277] were a Methodist?
FER I would not mind that.
OO'B That has been a difficulty; you might find a godly soul who desires to come and break bread with us, and you put before him some of these things, and he says, ‘I will be very glad to break bread with you’; but I do not know the system today that does not tolerate the errors that perhaps you think of.
FER This makes a very great difficulty.
JC Would you not feel the responsibility of putting that before him?
FER I think it would be better.
JSA And if he did break bread you would have strong grounds to speak to him about that.
FER He has become amenable to discipline, because he has committed himself by fellowship.
RSS And we should be careful not to let people unwittingly commit themselves. We naturally feel that we are not able to break bread with so-and-so, but we should consider them.
FER That is the point.
WM And I suppose both sides should be watched, because otherwise we might be a very narrow sectarian party.
FER Now the point that comes out at the close of the chapter is, that if you get two or three people, say among the Corinthians, eating idol sacrifices, they committed not only themselves, but the whole body. It is not a question of the whole company so committing themselves, but if there were among them some who ate the idol sacrifices, they compromised the entire body.
WM This is not the body in its privileges, but as a company.
FER It is the saints collectively in their responsibility.
JP That is an important remark you have made.
FER I speak of it because the obligation of fellowship involves that what you do compromises the [p. 278] entire body and not only yourself. Everybody has to take that to heart.
JC It would give each one a sense of responsibility, and care for one another.
FER And you would be careful not to do anything to compromise fellowship.
JA Even if any one takes a turn in chapel, the whole company is compromised.
FER Exactly.
AHP That is the point I want to get at, where any among us commit themselves in going on through the week with that which is really contrary to what we are going on with.
FER I think people have to look to it that they do not commit themselves to anything that is inconsistent with the death of Christ.
RSS If, when we compromise ourselves and others in that way, there was real exercise on the part of the one who did it, there would be no need for discipline.
FER It is not a question of discipline, but of faithfulness. We are under obligation to be true to the bond of fellowship.
WM Do you think that in our individual service we might compromise the fellowship?
FER It is exceedingly possible. If you recognise anything in your service which is inconsistent with the death of Christ, you are compromising fellowship. I feel shut off from the churches, even be they evangelical, from the fact that I do not think the congregations are in the fellowship of the death of Christ. Their idea of christianity is that it is a system, more or less, for this world. I do not see that they are in the fellowship of the death of Christ.
WE Is that because they recognise the first man?
FER Yes, and if they look upon christianity as a system of religion for this world, they have lost its character entirely. Christ has died to the course of [p. 279] things here, and we are in the fellowship of His death. The only path for the christian is to “go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach”.
JP What struck me in your remark a moment ago was its giving full scope to what you said at the outset; the difference between the meeting and the assembly. I think in many ways we have been damaged by not seeing it, and have sometimes thought the assembly was only the local company.
FER It is very important, in connection with it, to see that before you can have any religion in the world according to God you must have a city. You get the idea of it in a city and a cathedral. The idea of a city in England is a cathedral town. There are many large towns which are not cities because they have no cathedral.
JP I see the enemy evidently knows that, because, in the corruption of the church, there is a city, Rome.
FER Rome was a city not simply because it was a centre of imperial power, but also of idolatry. I was thinking of the city in connection with the last chapter of Hebrews where it says we have no continuing city. You must have Jerusalem and the temple before you can have religion for earth. What marks the moment is that we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come; and therefore you can have no religion for earth.
JP London would not do.
FER The only city at the present time, if there be a city, is Babylon.
JSA Therefore we have to turn to the heavenly Jerusalem.
WM When christianity was first established there was administration in connection with the house of God. I mean in connection with bishops and deacons.
FER I doubt it; there was a provision of the Holy Spirit. I do not think it was human appointment, simply the recognition on the part of the apostles [p. 280] of men who were qualified by the Holy Spirit. They spoke of appointing men “over this business”, but the men appointed were full of the Holy Spirit. The only administration was spiritual administration; that was the Holy Spirit; the laying on of hands expressed fellowship merely.
RSS Could we not go on a little to the eleventh chapter?
FER Yes, but I think this question of fellowship is an exceedingly important point.
WE What will help us to be faithful to the bond?
FER The sense that Christ has died; it has given a different complexion to everything on earth. He does not live in it; He came into it, but He has died to it. His coming into it gave for the moment a sort of sanction to the earth, but I have now to face the fact that He has died, and we have died with Him.
RSS That is He got no place.
FER He left the fold. For the moment He sanctioned the fold, but He went out of it. Now what christendom has done is to set up the fold again.
JNH You mean you accept death to the best possible thing down here.
FER Yes, the best possible thing. Judaism was in a sense of God, but Christ came into the fold, and has passed out of it; that is our place. We are in the fellowship of His death, and have to test everything by that; the reason that so many go on with worldly christianity is that it is a system for earth, but as such it is not of God.
RSS I suppose we understand that christianity is connected with Christ, and He is outside of this scene.
FER The house of God has become a great house and obnoxious to God, and hence comes under His judgment. You get in the Revelation, “I will spue thee out of my mouth”; it is obnoxious [p. 281] to Christ.
RSS I think you have spoken of chapter 10, as we were mentioning it, as ‘exclusion’, and chapter 11 as ‘seclusion’.
FER I do not object to the thought of exclusion or exclusive. The christian properly excludes all that has been excluded by the death of Christ.
TR Is that what is meant by being called to the fellowship of His Son?
FER No, that is rather an aspect of our common bond. God’s Son is our Lord.
JP “With all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord”.
JSA The practical result is that you must exclude a great deal which is ordinarily known as christianity.
FER You have to exclude everything which has been excluded by the death of Christ, and that goes a long way. “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world”. In the burning of the red heifer, in Numbers 19, everything, from the cedar wood and the scarlet to the hyssop, was cast into the burning.
G.W. What does that mean?
FER Everything of the world, from the most dignified down to the meanest, from the cedar-wood to the hyssop; it was all cast into the burning.
WM You have spoken of the Lord’s supper as a sort of rallying point for the assembly.
FER Yes, it is so here evidently, in chapter 11, verse 20. You gather from that verse that the ostensible purpose of coming together was to eat the Lord’s supper. The verse was a reproach to the Corinthians, for they were not doing this; they were taking their own supper.
WM Would it be too much detail to ask this question: Is the person who gives thanks for the bread and the wine doing it because the Lord did it, or as a matter of convenience [p. 282] for ourselves?
FER He gives thanks simply as the mouthpiece of the meeting.
WM And is the putting of the bread into the broken shape, for convenience?
FER Yes, the Lord gave them the bread and the wine; no one can take His place. It is what the Lord has put into our hands.
EA The one who breaks bread ought to be conscious in his own soul that the Lord has led him to do it.
FER I think he ought to have liberty to do it. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.
JC That liberty would be that the very simplest one amongst us might break the bread.
FER But I think the person himself ought to have liberty. A man might be held back from doing it by some lack of liberty.
TR You mean we ought to be conscious of liberty.
FER You sometimes feel hampered, and you ought not to do it unless you have liberty.
JSA I think Mr. Stoney used to say it was having simple faith before the Lord, and then you have liberty.
WHC Is there any thought of suitability, that it is better for an old brother to do it?
FER Not a bit. There is neither young nor old in the assembly. If a young brother gave thanks in about six words, I would be just as happy as if an old brother got up and gave thanks.
RSS It is not the higher part of the meeting. Is it not rather a service to the saints?
FER The fact is that in doing it a man sometimes has to sacrifice himself.
GW There is no significance, as I understand it, in the breaking the loaf.
FER None; it is only for convenience. You break the bread for convenience, and in the same way you pour out the cup. It is [p. 283] all simple.
RSS Does not the more blessed part of the meeting come properly after the breaking of bread?
FER The Supper is introductory to the assembly; and that is the reason for finishing all that is formal at first. Passing round the bread and the cup and the box are so far formal; you cannot help this, but it is a great thing to be free of it, so that you may be prepared for the assembly in its proper character.
LWB Do you think the proper time for passing the box is after the breaking of bread?
FER The box properly connects itself with the Supper.
RSS Is the first part of the meeting what you do, and the last part what the Lord does?
FER Yes. It is the cup we bless and the bread we break. The Lord never does that again. And then the presence of Christ is realised; He has His place and we are conscious of Him as Head.
WM A good many people have feared that the introduction of such a material thing as passing the box might hinder.
FER But are not the bread and the wine material?
WM I have seen the box put under the table.
FER And the bread and wine, too?
WM Oh, no.
FER Well, the bread and the wine are as material as the box.
WHC Some have an idea that a hymn should be sung before the collection.
FER I do not think so. If the Supper is over, it is over. If you get hymns and thanksgiving after, it is worship in connection with Christ as the Minister of the sanctuary. He leads the praises.
JC Is there any scripture to warrant the principle we go on? Would it do to take the collection first?
FER I would not like to. I think you come together to eat the Lord’s supper, not to pass the box around. That is only incidental.
WHC I suppose they did nothing at all at the beginning.
FER We do it because grace leads us to be upright, and at the same time to consider the needs of others. But that is secondary to the Supper. I could not give the box the first place; that would grate on everybody’s feelings.
RSS Would Hebrews 13 come in there: “But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased”?
FER Yes, in principle.
Ques Are we kings and priests in the assembly?
FER I think properly we are priests in the assembly; I do not know about kings. We are risen with Christ, and quickened with Him, and therefore we are priests.
GW Would you be disturbed if in a meeting for breaking of bread there should not first be a hymn sung?
FER No. I suppose it is that I am not very sensitive, but I am not disturbed by many things that disturb others. You have to take things as they are. It is not much good for a person to have an ideal of a meeting in his mind and to be vexed because things do not come up to that.
GW What I was thinking of was this: It seems to me that there was no prescribed order, and that it was not incumbent that anything should be done first. Suppose the bread was broken without a word having been said in the meeting.
FER I would not like that. You have to allow a certain latitude for people’s spirits to quiet. They often come out of a great deal of pressure, and there must be allowance for them, because things have to be done [p. 285] in fellowship.
GW I meant in the sense of there being no order laid down.
FER I think the spiritual man knows when the time has come for breaking bread.
PH “Tarry one for another”.
FER Yes.
RSS If that were appreciated there would be no difficulty.
JNH Speaking of the collection on the Lord’s day morning, I would like to ask how you connect that with 1 Corinthians 16; the collection for the saints.
FER That was not exactly the local collection. It was for the poor saints at Jerusalem.