Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Epley
Explain "shamanism" to me? How could something Jesus DID and commanded be see as that????????????????????
A church that does NOT teach the obsevance of the Lord's Supper and Feetwashing is NOT an Apostolic church.
|
I'm not advocating that position, I'm asking if someone had that position would it affect their salvation?
We've had foot washing and communion as a part of a New Year's Eve watch night service since I was a teenager. But there has always been a number of folks who are otherwise participating in the church- but they never would attend a watch night service. I would try and gently ask a few people along the way if there was some scheduling issue or if they had some concerns and people would just kind of leave it up in the air.
It always troubled me when Apostolic believers weren't sharing in communion. Personally I'd like to see it more often than once a year- but that's the tradition we've had and people are unreasonably touchy about discussing it.
And it's not just the wine/grape juice divide (Personally I'll drink the "fruit of the vine" in any reasonable form). There are many, many people who I've known most of my life and with whom I have shared Apostolic fellowship but I have never shared communion and foot washing service with them and probably never will. That just strikes me as odd, and troubling.
I understand Paul's warning about drinking from the cup unworthily (
1 Corinthians 11:29). But one pastor I had used to make the communion seem like snake handling ("you'd better have faith when the snakes come out!"). He'd warn people weeks in advance to get right or they would be drinking their own death. It was presented as a test of salvation. If you really believed that you were saved then you would boldly drink the cup and swallow the cracker. I guess by calling it a "cracker" you can tell that the luster had unfortunately come off of the rite at times for me. And this saddens me as well. But the whole atmosphere was one where we were told to look around and "see" who's missing and then the innuendo would be heaped upon them. If you missed Watch Night service without a good excuse it was assumed you were in sin and ducking God's wrath. It was like taking vinegar for communion because of the bitterness.
I don't get the impression that this was the atmosphere, even on the night before our Lord was betrayed.
If someone just took a stand and said, "I can put up with the church services and preaching because I feel God there in the worship, but I will not attend the communion and foot washing service because it's put on with such superstition and spite..." would that person loose their salvation?
LOL
Linear Mode
