It’s often been said that your theology comes out your fingertips. Which is as much to say that what you believe shapes how you act. All very true. Everyday examples of this abound. You believe that water slakes thirst. So you take a big gulp of ice cold water. You don’t try to quench thirst by swallowing a handful of sand. Put simply, believing leads to doing.
But the opposite is quite true as well. Your practices form your beliefs. This is demonstrated when people committed to a reprobate life cherry-pick Scriptures to justify their sinful lifestyle. Their actions begin torturing their beliefs into a twisted Frankenstein Confession of Faith. “I want to follow every kink that comes into my mind; and the Bible says, ‘God is love’ & ‘Judge not’, so, yeah, God is a-ok with what I’m doing.”
But for the Apostles, doctrine & practice are inseparable. What you believe is how you’ll live, and how you live in turn provides the compost for the seeds of what you believe to grow in. Your head and heart aren’t disconnected from each other. All of this is why this covenant meal isn’t indispensable, and why we must work to understand the theology of what we do here.
This covenant renewal meal is a habit which forces us to grapple with God’s promises. Partaking weekly makes this unavoidable. It’s a weekly divine fork in the road. The Scripture spurs us to obey in faith, and thus partake this meal. As we partake this meal, it makes us long to seek out, and comprehend with all the saints the infinite mystery of the treasure set before us. We know & believe Christ is offered here; so we eat & drink. In our eating & drinking, our faith is braced. We believe and so obey, and as we obey, we believe yet more.
So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ…
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