LIMITING THE LORD’S SUPPER
There is a habit that has settled into many churches across generations. We take the Lord’s Supper and compress it into a single hour on a single day, as though the grace of God must wait its turn on the calendar; yet the Scriptures themselves never restrict the table to a Sunday ritual. They speak instead of a communion that breathes with the steady rhythm of daily devotion and with hearts awakened again and again to the presence of the risen Christ.
The Supper was never meant to be a mere ceremony appended to the end of a sermon. It is a living remembrance of the Savior who gave Himself for us. Paul states this without hesitation: “As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). That simple phrase “as often as” stretches far beyond the boundaries of a weekly routine. It invites a frequency shaped not by tradition but by longing. It calls us to remember not reluctantly nor rarely, but willingly and often.
The early church understood this with a simplicity and a purity that should humble us. Luke tells us that they continued daily with one accord, breaking bread from house to house and eating with gladness and simplicity of heart (Acts 2:46). This was not a hurried ritual pulled out once a week. It was the quiet pulse of a community that knew Christ was among them. Their lives were carried along by the steady grace of daily fellowship, daily prayer, daily remembrance, and daily dependence. They did not wait for the week to turn in their favor. They turned their hearts toward Jesus day by day.
When we limit the Supper to Sundays alone, we unintentionally rob it of its gentle power. We reduce a living communion to a scheduled appointment. We begin to treat the table as a locked room that opens only once every seven days, rather than a meeting place where weary souls may come again and again to the One whose body was given and whose blood was shed. The more we restrict what Christ meant to overflow, the more we weaken the very sense of nearness the Supper is meant to create.
There is also the deep spiritual reality of abiding. Jesus calls us to remain in Him and to let His life remain in us (John 15:4). This abiding is not weekly. It is continual. It is the soul leaning into Christ every hour and every day. The Supper echoes this same call. It draws us into a deeper surrender, a deeper dependence, a deeper fellowship. When we artificially restrict its place in the life of the church, we narrow the very path God widened through the cross.
If we pay close attention to the pattern of Scripture, we discover something important. The first day of the week was indeed a gathering day for teaching and giving (Acts 20:7), yet this does not define the frequency of the communion table. The daily breaking of bread belonged not to a weekly gathering alone but to the ordinary flow of the church’s life. They did not confuse the rhythm of assembly with the rhythm of remembrance.
The real question, then, is not about schedule but about desire. How often should a believer remember the cross. How often should the heart draw near to the Lamb who loved us and gave Himself for us. How often should grace be received with trembling joy. It is difficult to believe that once a week can bear the full weight of that answer; the cross stands above time, and the table stands at the center of Christian life.
If our hearts are to recover the simplicity and power of the first believers, then the Supper must be more than a weekly formality. It should become a place of reverence and renewal, received with gratitude and with a readiness that declares that Christ is worthy of remembrance far more often than we have allowed.
The Lord’s Supper is not a Sunday ceremony. It is a daily invitation. It is the ongoing call of the Savior who still says, “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19). Let us not limit what He meant to overflow. Let us return to the simplicity of Scripture, lift the cup with living faith, and draw near as often as our hearts long for the presence of the One who died and rose again.
BDD
