Did Paul Mean We Can Take Communion Whenever We Want?

Question: Doesn’t 1 Corinthians 11:26 say we can partake of the bread and wine of communion as often as we choose to?

Answer: Many assume so, but no, that’s not what it says. Paul is speaking in 1 Corinthians 11 of the specific observance Jesus instituted on “the night in which He was betrayed” (verse 23).

The Gospel accounts make clear that this was the Passover (Luke 22:8, 11, 15)—with Jesus revealing new significance to the occasion, the partaking of the bread and wine signifying the acceptance of His sacrificial death. In 1 Corinthians 10:16-17, Paul refers to the church partaking together of these symbols as the “communion” or sharing of the body and blood of Christ in a figurative sense. Again, this was the Passover. In fact, Paul earlier in 1 Corinthians 5:7 says that “Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.”

Passover was an annual occasion, coming on the 14th day of the first month on the Hebrew calendar in the spring (Leviticus 23:5). As a youth, Jesus Himself observed the Passover with His family at the specified time each year (Luke 2:41). And He continued this yearly practice with His disciples, ending with the last one, the night of His betrayal before He was killed. After Christ’s death and resurrection, the early Church continued to observe the annual festivals listed in Leviticus 23. For example, Luke records that Jesus’ followers met to observe the Feast of Pentecost (Acts 2:1).

The Passover was likewise still observed, but now as a memorial to Christ’s death—He being the true Passover Lamb. Even in secular society, it’s customary to observe memorials on an annual basis. And being the Passover, it was already an annual occasion observed on the same day each year on the Hebrew calendar.

There is nothing to indicate that Christians might arbitrarily choose to partake of the bread and wine representing Christ’s sacrifice at some time other than the time decreed in the Bible—the time of Passover at the beginning (that is, in the evening) of the 14th day of the first month on the Hebrew calendar.

When Paul said “as often as” you partake of the bread and wine, he did not mean as often as you choose to of yourself, as many think. He simply meant whenever or every time Christ’s followers actually did partake of them as part of the Passover service—which was once a year on the night Christ was betrayed. The New Living Translation says, “every time you eat this bread and drink this cup” (emphasis added).

This was not promoting some daily or weekly or quarterly “communion” service—or even an annual communion service disconnected from the biblical Passover, such as on supposed “Good Friday.” It was simply talking about the observance of the Passover each year.

Question: Was “breaking bread from house to house” in Acts 2:46 an example of a daily communion ceremony?

Answer: No, the verse just means that Christians were sharing meals in each other’s homes. Even today, the expression “break bread” simply means to eat a meal.

Bread is often synonymous in Scripture with food in general, as it has historically been the principal sustenance and a common feature at meals. And with bread in particular the custom until more recent times was to tear a loaf into smaller portions for all to eat. We see this in the Bible, with scriptures such as Luke 9:16-17, where Jesus in feeding the five thousand broke loaves of bread into pieces—with “broken pieces” left over.

Furthermore, Jewish meals of Christ’s day customarily began with a blessing over bread followed by breaking apart that bread for distribution. As Barnes’ Notes on the New Testament states of the breaking of bread in Acts 2:42 and 2:46: “It would rather seem to be implied that this referred to the participation of their ordinary meals. The action of breaking bread was commonly performed by the master or head of a family immediately after asking a blessing” (note on Acts 2:42).

Also read Acts 27:33-38, where bread was broken after Paul gave thanks in a meal for nourishment, with non-Christian shipmates receiving enough to eat.

The meaning in Acts 2:46 is also regular food. The full verse states that believers attended the temple daily and then returned to private homes to share a meal. The New Century Version paraphrases this, “They ate together in their homes, happy to share their food with joyful hearts.” The International Standard Version says they “ate at each other’s homes, and shared their food with glad and humble hearts.”

As with all Jewish meals, the Passover meal likewise included the blessing and breaking of bread—in this case, unleavened bread as a required part of the ceremony. During the Passover meal before His death, Jesus incorporated the blessing and breaking of bread into a new Christian observance of Passover. On this occasion, observed once each year on the same night, the breaking of unleavened bread symbolizes Christ’s sinless body being broken as an important aspect of His sacrifice for our sins.

Yet the common phrase “breaking bread” still referred to eating meals generally, as it did in Acts 2:46. Interestingly, our modern words “company” and “companion” derive from Old French cumpaignon, “one who breaks bread with another,” from the Latin companis, meaning “together with” (com) + “bread” (panis), or someone with whom you were sharing bread or meals.