The True Christian’s Faith and Experience #014 Chapter 09, Second half

Session #014 is devoted to the last half of chapter 9 on the true Christian’s faith and experience concerning the Lord’s Supper. The first half (covered in episode #13) dealt with the true Christian’s faith and experience of the true spiritual baptism ordained by Christ.What does it mean to eat the Lord’s flesh and drink his blood and partake at his supper? Friends have understood there to have been a historical confusion between two different things. One is having a physical meal in commemoration of Christ, (a physical meal but also a representation and a symbol of something greater); the other is the actual partaking of something which is much more profound and spiritually necessary, that is, feeding on the true spiritual food, the bread that comes down from heaven. Because of this confusion, some Christians believe the bread and wine change (transubstantiate) into the body and blood of Christ. Others believe those foods are symbols. But they themselves are still hungry for the true living bread that comes down from heaven and feeds the soul. They put off the coming of Christ (the Bread of Life) to the future, and are ignorant of the true manner of Christ’s coming. The true Christian witnesses eternal life abiding in himself. The Christian in name only, proclaims a physical bread and supper but he is a stranger to the true bread that comes down from heaven. He prides himself in his worldly academic knowledge and rejects the revelation that is necessary for obtaining true spiritual knowledge. He still hungers for the true spiritual food.  References:The True Christian’s Faith and Experience Briefly Declared.  The quote in our introduction is from Matthew 1:1-4, New International Version.A complete list of our podcasts,  organized into topics, is available on our website.We will be publishing video interviews with Conservative Friends on YouTube.  See our YouTube channel.  The first interview is with Susan Smith. To learn more about Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative) of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), please visit  ohioyearlymeeting.org. Those interested in exploring the distinctives of Conservative Friends waiting worship should consider checking out our many Zoom Online Worship opportunities during the week here. All are welcome! We also have several Zoom study groups.  Check out the Online Study and Discussion Groups on our website.   Advices read in these podcasts can be found on page 29 in our Book Of Discipline.We welcome feedback on this and any of our other podcast episodes.   Contact us through our website.