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Speaker 1: Life Audio. Thank you for listening to your Daily Bible Verse,

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Speaker 1: the podcast that examines one verse each day to learn

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Speaker 1: more about God and his will for our lives. I'm

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Speaker 1: your host, Kyle Norman. After a brief message of one

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Speaker 1: of our sponsors, we will continue with today's verse. Today's

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Speaker 1: verse can be found in First Corinthians, Chapter eleven, verse

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Speaker 1: twenty seven. Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the

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Speaker 1: cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, will be

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Speaker 1: guilty of sitting against the body and blood of the Lord.

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Speaker 1: Examine yourselves. The Lord's Supper, sometimes called Holy Union or

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Speaker 1: Holy Eucharist, is an important activity for the community of faith,

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Speaker 1: regardless of how your tradition practices it. Partaking in the

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Speaker 1: remembrance of Jesus's final meal with the disciples, it holds

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Speaker 1: before us the reality of our redemption, and because of this,

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Speaker 1: it's important that we engage in this celebration thoughtfully, prayerfully, faithfully.

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Speaker 1: We need to partake in bread and wine with a

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Speaker 1: full recognition of what exactly is taking place, Otherwise we

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Speaker 1: might be guilty of sinning against the body and blood

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Speaker 1: of the Lord. It is that serious. In Paul's first letter,

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Speaker 1: to the Corinthians. He addresses the church's manner of partaking

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Speaker 1: in the Lord's Supper. Paul charges the people with mishandling

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Speaker 1: this important practice. For the Corinthians. Holy communion took place

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Speaker 1: in the context of what was called the Agape meal.

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Speaker 1: People would gather for a feast, and the celebration of

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Speaker 1: communion was a central part of the evening. But the

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Speaker 1: problem was people engaged in this right in an individualist manner.

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Speaker 1: They would go to the Agape feast and eat to

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Speaker 1: their hearts content without recognizing anybody else. They would partake

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Speaker 1: in bread and wine without caring about other people joining them,

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Speaker 1: and so at the end of the evening they would

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Speaker 1: be full and they would feel spiritually satisfied, while other

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Speaker 1: people would be left starving or left wanting for the

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Speaker 1: bread and the wine. And so because of this practice,

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Speaker 1: this holy communion, which was designed to bring the church together,

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Speaker 1: ended up causing divisions amongst the Corinthians. And so Paul

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Speaker 1: says that when they came together, it wasn't actually the

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Speaker 1: Lord's Supper that they ate, It was just a feast

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Speaker 1: of their own gluttonous celebration. And then he says to them,

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Speaker 1: whoever eats this bread and drinks this cup in an

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Speaker 1: unworthy manner is guilty of sinning against the body and

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Speaker 1: blood of the Lord. You aren't just offending your brothers

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Speaker 1: and sisters in Christ, Paul says, you are offending Jesus

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Speaker 1: Christ himself. Now, eating and drinking in an unworthy manner

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Speaker 1: is more than just judging whether somebody should receive the

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Speaker 1: bread and wine or not. Church institutions love to create

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Speaker 1: rules around who was in and who's out. The true

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Speaker 1: matter of whether we eat or drink worthily, however, is

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Speaker 1: about where our hearts are focused. Do we participate in

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Speaker 1: the bread and wine with an eye only on ourselves?

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Speaker 1: Do we hold a critical spirit when we drink the

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Speaker 1: cup of offering from the Lord? Paul writes to the

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Speaker 1: Corinthians to remind them about the truth of what we

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Speaker 1: actually do when we partake in bread and wine. See fundamentally,

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Speaker 1: the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, holy communion Mass, whatever words

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Speaker 1: we use to describe it, it is about the action

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Speaker 1: of Jesus Us for us. Jesus took bread and gave it,

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Speaker 1: He took wine, blessed it and offered it. The bread

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Speaker 1: and the wine they are not about our own righteous deeds.

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Speaker 1: They are about the body and the blood of Jesus

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Speaker 1: given in love for us. Around the table of the Lord,

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Speaker 1: we are invited to experience the expression of God's gracest

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Speaker 1: forgiveness to us all. And the whole point of the

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Speaker 1: Last Supper was that Jesus was expressing the self giving

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Speaker 1: sacrifice in the most dramatic way possible. Just consider who

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Speaker 1: was at the table. We have the disciples who frequently

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Speaker 1: misunderstood what Jesus was about. James and John, for example,

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Speaker 1: previously asked Jesus to destroy a city when it didn't

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Speaker 1: receive them. We have Peter, who would end the night

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Speaker 1: by betraying Jesus three times and calling curses upon himself.

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Speaker 1: And then we have Judas. Sure is pretty clear Judas

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Speaker 1: is present at the washing of the feet and the

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Speaker 1: breaking of the bread. And to all these people Jesus

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Speaker 1: spoke about giving his body and blood for them. He

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Speaker 1: offered himself to the very people whom Jesus would have

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Speaker 1: every right to say, not for you and the Corinthians.

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Speaker 1: While Paul is under no delusion that the Corinthian community

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Speaker 1: is perfect in any way, the fact to eat and

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Speaker 1: drink in a worthy manner is to know that we

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Speaker 1: are unworthy of such a gift. There's an old prayer

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Speaker 1: written in fifteen forty eight, which is called the Prayer

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Speaker 1: of Humble Access. It begins, we do not presume to

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Speaker 1: come to this by table or merciful Lord, trusting in

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Speaker 1: your own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies,

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Speaker 1: we receive the bread and the wine as a gift.

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Speaker 1: The audacity of the Lord's supper is that Jesus offers

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Speaker 1: himself to us as the full expression of grace and love. Now,

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Speaker 1: whether your church recognizes the real presence of Jesus and

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Speaker 1: the bread and the wine, or whether you see the

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Speaker 1: act simply as a memorial, the truth remains. The spirit

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Speaker 1: in which we take the bread and the wine matters tremendously.

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Speaker 1: Communion is not to be done flippantly or without due

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Speaker 1: consideration and care. This is a central act of the church.

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Speaker 1: Christian tradition has long held that there is no stronger

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Speaker 1: act of worship than partaking in the bread and the wine.

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Speaker 1: Thomas A. Kempis describes the act of communion as quote,

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Speaker 1: this most high and most glorious sacrament that is the

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Speaker 1: health of the soul and body, and the medicine for

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Speaker 1: all spiritual sickness. The fact is, eating bread and drinking

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Speaker 1: wine does something in our lives because it unites us

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Speaker 1: with Jesus. We do it faithfully. And when we partake

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Speaker 1: in bread and wine faithfully in a worthy manner, and

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Speaker 1: when we are united with Jesus, well, then how can

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Speaker 1: we remain unchanged?