God desires for His children to frequently celebrate His Holy Supper.  You may find yourself asking why anyone would exclude Christians from the Lord's table because they have different beliefs.

First of all, let me assure this practice is meant in no way to be an insult or slight of any kind to any brother or sister in Christ.  This is indeed the “Lord’s Supper”.  We desire above all to be faithful to His instruction for its use in our practice of this supper.  We live in an age where differences in belief are often downplayed as not being terribly important.  But throughout the New Testament we find the Lord and His Apostles encouraging Christians to remain faithful to the Word and to His one teaching.  We find that division in teaching is displeasing to God and counterproductive to His mission.  With a careful reading of 1 Corinthians 10-11 we find that division can create many problems in the administration and reception of the Holy Supper.  We learn that with His Supper, God is not only effecting communion between Himself and His children but also between fellow Christians.  And we learn that when Christians bring division to the table of the Lord, they do not celebrate the supper as He intended it, but actually disrupt it to such a degree it can cause spiritual harm to those who participate without rightly judging what is going on.  Despite the appearance of closed communion as a narrow and arrogant action, our motive for the practice of closed communion is two fold.  First we desire to remain faithful to God’s instruction for its practice.  And second, we most certainly do not wish to give anything to anyone that could harm them.  Despite the appearance of this practice, it is for us an act of faithfulness to God and an act of love toward others that we commune only those who share a common confession of faith with us through membership in the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

Rev. David D. Reedy 2002

Prince of Peace Lutheran Church   

Dayton Tennessee   

423.775.4253

Prince of Peace is a LCMS congregation located in Rhea County Tennessee, serving the entire county of some 32,000 people.