Coronavirus & Spirituality ~ Home Church Guidance (Part -7)

Churches, synagogues, mosques, shrines, and temples, have been among the institutions shut down due to the fear of spreading the coronavirus. What could families do when there is no Church building to go to? They could do what the Early Church did for the first 300 years of Christianity - make your home - your Church!

THE EARLY CHURCH “Broke Bread” daily in their HOMES

“Continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from HOUSE to HOUSE, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart,” (Acts 2:46) 

In 1 Corinthians 11:20-34, the Apostle Paul reports, “Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper (bread and wine). For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk.” Paul here is obviously describing a common meal (Bread and wine was a common meal at that time, similar to pizza and beer today). Paul was rebuking some of the believers who were coming to the dinner drunk and taking communion in an unworthy manner. Paul goes on to say: “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep,” (1 Cor. 11:30). Fallen asleep is another way of describing death. The Lord’s Supper is not a meaningless ritual, as the New Covenant cost Jesus his blood and his life. We should, therefore, prepare ourselves before receiving his Blood (DNA) through Communion by healthy introspection, confession of sin, and resolution of differences with others. 

GRACE BEFORE MEALS (Praying before Eating every Meal)

To the Early Church Christians, every meal was having communion with Jesus - who was always present with his disciples and remembered at mealtime. This may be how the tradition of “Grace before Meals,”(or asking Jesus and the Holy Spirit to bless our food and drink) was started. We can be thankful for the companionship of the Holy Spirit that unites us with Jesus through his blood DNA. Again, because as Christians our bodies have become the body and blood of Jesus (as temples of the Holy Spirit united with Christ), we need to pray for everything that we put into our temples, and ask God to supernaturally bless it. So when did this Home-church tradition of breaking bread start? The sacrament of Holy Communion derives from the Last Supper that Jesus shared with his "family" the Twelve Apostles.

THE LAST SUPPER (The Pattern Jesus set for Home Church Gatherings)

“When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this PASSOVER with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the Kingdom of God.” After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” (Note: Jesus was still in his physical body when he said this. He was obviously not attempting a magic trick by changing his body into a piece of bread ~ transubstantiation). In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup IS the New Covenant in my (DNA) Blood (Lk. 22:14-20). 

The Book of Acts informs us that the Early Christians continued daily to gather together to celebrate the Eucharist or Communion: “Every day they continued to meet together ... They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved,” (Acts 2:46-47). Here we see that they celebrated every day (Not just on SUN-days) by meeting together in their private homes and breaking bread. 

THE PASSOVER (Jesus was the Lamb of God and the Last Dead Sacrifice offered to God)

This Passover dinner that Jesus mentions in the book of Luke (22:14), was and still is an annual Jewish Holiday in which the Israelites ate a meal of roast lamb, bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. Passover commemorated Israel’s escape from Egypt when the blood of a sacrificed lamb painted on their door-frames saved the firstborn sons from death. This event foreshadowed Jesus’ work on the cross. As the spotless Lamb of God, his blood would be spilled to save his people from the penalty of death brought by sin. “For Christ, our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed,” (1 Cor. 5:7). So at the Last Supper, we see that a dominant part of celebrating communion revolved around a meal. And common meals continued to be the normal setting in which Christians met together for fellowship and worship in their homes after the birth of the Church on Pentecost when the Apostles, Disciples, and the 3000 believers were baptized by the fire of the Holy Spirit.

UNDERGROUND LOVE FEASTS or THE “COUNTERFEIT” MAGIC MASS

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer,” (Acts 2:42).

From the above verses and many others, we can see that the New Testament believers in Jesus gathered together daily in their homes - to celebrate the Lord’s Supper - commonly referred to as the "Agape" Love-Feast (Agape is a Greek word meaning unconditional love). As Jesus commanded them at the last supper to do, the Apostles continued to share bread and wine as part of a full potluck meal with their families. The Love-feast was the main reason for the church gathering and all would contribute and bring as an offering to the Lord - the best food that they could afford. They ate together to joyfully acknowledge the Spirit of Christ that continued to empower them for their daily service to him. So the Apostles continued this tradition of meeting together and eating together and this was the setting for their fellowship and worship. It was the central part of every Family-Home Church gathering - commanded by Jesus and handed down and practiced by His apostles in the Early Church for over 300 years. This Agape Love Feast was a common family-church potluck meal that consummated in a very special celebration of Communion and union with God the Holy Spirit. So, why did the Love-feasts stop?

HOME-CHURCH COMMUNION - IS BANNED BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

According to historians in the 4th-century, the Catholic Church of Rome at the Council of Laodicea forbade the use of Family-Home Churches for celebrating the Agape pot-luck or love feast as did the Third Council of Carthage and the Second Council of Orleans. The Trullan Council of 692 (Canon 74) stated that those who held love feasts in churches should be excommunicated from the Catholic Church. In 390AD, the Roman emperor Theodosius ordered a massacre of 7,000 "Christian heretics" in Thessalonica. He also banned all home-churches or conventicles and ordered that they not be called churches anymore.

CATHOLIC “PAGAN” COMMUNION (The Eucharistic “Magic” Rite)

The Roman Emporer Constantine authorized the pagans to join the Roman Church in the 4th century. He also allowed them to continue practicing their Roman “Mithraism” pagan rite of transubstantiation (The magic show that allows priests to turn their bread into the actual body of their God). The renowned historian Will Durant reports that belief in transubstantiation as practiced by the priests of the Roman Catholic system is “one of the oldest ceremonies of primitive religion,” (The Story of Civilization, p. 741).

In Egypt, priests would consecrate wheat cakes which were supposed to become the flesh of their pagan God - Osiris (Encyclopedia of Religions, Vol. 2, p. 76). This allowed the worshippers to eat the cakes and become one with their God. In the Osirian temple at Denderah, an inscription (translated by Budge, Chapter XV, Osiris, and the Egyptian Resurrection) describes in detail the making of wheat cakes. The cakes of 'divine' bread were made from each mold, placed in a silver chest and set near the head of the god with the inward parts of Osiris as described in the Book of the Dead, XVII, (Wiki). This series of events eventually led to the formal Catholic Mass, and the supremacy of the High Priest over the priesthood soon led to the Bishop of Rome becoming the Bishop over all Bishops or the Pope. 

Cyprian the “Catholic” Church Father directed his parishioners to attend a huge Cathedral and watch a priest perform a transubstantiation. This is the Catholic teaching that in the Eucharist Mass, the Priest MAGICALLY changes the substance of wheat bread and grape wine into the substance of the actual Body and the Blood of Jesus while all that is accessible to the senses remains as before, “ABRACADABRA.” The Priest then shares these crackers (the “flesh” of Jesus) with those that take communion for their weekly spiritual nourishment. Some Bible scholars report that the stage-magic phrase “HOCUS POCUS,” actually comes from the Latin words ‘hoc est corpus meum” which when uttered by the priest at the Catholic Mass – supernaturally converts bread and wine into the Lord’s body and blood. Priests are then essentially performing WITCHCRAFT making them Witches (J. A. Jungmann, The Early Liturgy: To the Time of Gregory the Great, 1959). This Catholic counterfeit “Magic Mass” was Satan’s attempt to fraudulently imitate the Holy Spirit’s Regeneration Operation in the Love Feasts to deceptively keep God’s people from receiving the Blood DNA of Jesus.

So then, if we also know that the Catholics turned communion into a magic show, and the Protesting Catholics (Protestants) subsequently turned the Lord’s Supper into a symbolic monthly ritual communion service (eating stale crackers and drinking grape juice) - whatever happened to the very special Union celebration with God that Jesus spoke of?

JESUS’ DNA REVELATION AND COMMUNION (The Ultimate Union with Christ)

“This is the (New) Covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts (DNA). I will be their God, and they will be my people,” (Jer. 31:33)

Here in the Old Testament, Jeremiah is prophesying that in the future - God will internally write the New Covenant in the hearts (DNA) of his people – so that it effectively can govern their lives. In contrast, the Old Covenant was ineffectively externally written on Stones (The 10 Commandments). Only through this New Covenant written in the Blood (DNA) of Jesus, and transformed by the Holy Spirit in the cup of wine and bread during the Lord’s Supper - can the Old Covenant be fulfilled and its purpose achieved. This New Covenant written within the blood (DNA) of Jesus completes and supersedes the Old Covenant. “By calling this Covenant ‘NEW,’ he has made the first one obsolete (or no longer used) and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear,” (Heb. 8:13). 

Jesus said, “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you,” (Lk. 22:20). Paul repeats Jesus stating that the New Covenant is in Jesus’ Blood, and further states that anyone who consumes (eats and drinks) the body of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body (DNA) of Jesus: “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep or died,” (1 Cor. 11:25-30). Jesus confirms that we must consume His DNA to inherit eternal life: Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever,” - and “I am the bread of life,” (Jn. 6:35-58).

WHAT DOES COMMUNION MEAN TO YOU -?

How do we interpret these words of our Lord? Do you have a Catholic, Protestant, or Early Church interpretation? Was Jesus speaking about the Catholic ritual of the Eucharist called "transubstantiation," wherein ONLY an Order of Catholic Priests can magically transform regular wine into the actual blood of Jesus and their wafers into his actual flesh by repeating some magical words. Parishioners are then mandated to eat the flesh of Jesus (like cannibals) and drink his blood (like vampires) weekly for spiritual nourishment.

Or does this mean that protestants should just continue to ritualistically drink grape juice and eat thin crackers as a symbolic remembrance of Jesus’ death on the cross as in our Protestant Communion services? I don’t believe that either one of these interpretations from Catholics or Protestants really captures the true meaning of ‘Jesus’ words. Jesus didn’t say, “this is a symbol of my flesh and blood.” He said, "My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink." 

THE HOME-CHURCH MEANING OF COMMUNION

If communion was just a symbolic gesture to remember Jesus’ death - why were a number of believers getting sick and dropping dead from doing it in an unworthy manner? We may not fully understand it, but the Early Church believed in the Holy Spirit’s Regeneration Operation that was assisted by the Royal Priesthood of ALL believers in the Home Churches. To understand and receive Jesus’ DNA revelation is the ultimate salvation. By being filled and “Sealed” with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13), our spiritual genes (Eccle. 3:11) are awakened by God’s “immortal seed” - the DNA of Jesus (1 Pet.1:23); our genetic code is altered; our corrupted DNA is restored back to the image of God, and the regeneration process starts our journey toward Eternal Life. It is this redemptive operation that heals our contaminated blood with the DNA of Jesus to make us New Creatures in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17) to allow us to fellowship with God.

What could families do when there is no Church building to go to? They could do what the Early Church did for the first 300 years of Christianity - make your home - your Church!

For further info see the book: Hidden Bible Taboos Forbidden By Organized Christianity p. 188 - 192.

By James Slobodzien

Author - Christian Living / Inspirational Books at Clinical PsychologicalServices, LLC