In his sermon 'Crackers and Juice or Bread and Wine?', Robert Bosley discusses the elements of the Lord's Supper, focusing on the historical and scriptural basis for using bread and wine. The debate over using leavened or unleavened bread has been ongoing since the early church, with leaven sometimes symbolizing sin and unleavened bread commonly used in the Passover. However, Jesus and the apostles never specified unleavened bread for communion, leaving room for interpretation. Wine, traditionally used in communion, is considered a gift from God but must be used in moderation to avoid sin. Bosley explains that the temperance movement in the 1800s led to the introduction of grape juice as a substitute, although scripturally and historically, wine is the intended element. He emphasizes the importance of unity in the church through communion and encourages aligning personal conscience with biblical teachings. The sermon concludes by highlighting the simplicity of bread and wine as common elements that God uses to convey grace and nourish both body and soul.

All right, if you would take out your Bibles and open up to Matthew chapter 26 Matthew chapter 26 as our Elder Trent said I'm gonna be continuing with the series discussing the Lord's Supper. Not the final one quite yet. I've got one more after this, I think. But today, we're going to read the passage of the institution of the Supper and from there look around that a few other passages and thoughts as we consider what are the proper elements for rightly participating in the Lord's Supper. And hopefully we'll be able to see that this is more, there's more to consider here than we may first think.

But let's read Matthew 26 beginning in verse 26 and we'll begin there. Alright, Matthew writes, and as they were eating Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And then he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." Let's pray. Oh Heavenly Father, we come before you this afternoon So thankful for this day, this time that we've had together on your day to worship together, to edify one another, and to sit at your feet to be instructed by your word.

We pray Lord that you would continue to teach us this afternoon. Help me Lord to speak as I ought to speak and give us all hearts and minds to receive what is contained in your word and may Christ be glorified in all that we do. In his name we pray, amen. So as I said we're going to continue the study through the Supper and today I want to particularly look at the elements for the supper. If you've been a part of or attended other churches before coming here, you've probably noticed that we are a little bit different in our celebration of the Lord's table than other Baptist churches.

It's often easy to see who the visitors are by who coughs after drinking the wine. It's not something Baptists are particularly known for. And so there's this issue of what are the right elements, what elements are, how can we substitute, is it right to substitute things? And this is a common question among churches, especially today. So I had a few things in mind and then I asked, I actually asked the the Grok AI to give me a list of a few of some of the stranger things that people have used as substitutes in the Lord's Supper.

In an online blog, a woman recounted how her youth group was on a missions trip and they planned to serve communion but found that their food had gone bad and so instead of bread and wine they served chips and Pepsi. Several accounts from youth groups around the country where they would celebrate the supper so-called with pizza and soda or other snacks like milk and cookies. At one point, at least one time, a pastor again at a youth event, is anyone noticing a theme? It's very hard to restrain myself from talking about youth ministry, but at a youth event a pastor used an apple for the supper. He used the flesh of the apple as a substitute for bread and the juice instead of wine, saying that it symbolized the reverse of Adam's sin.

And possibly the most egregious example, Kairos Community AME Church in Nashville, Tennessee in 2012, served Skittles and Arizona iced tea for communion in remembrance not of Christ, but of Trayvon Martin. Hopefully, hearing all these things, we immediately have a revulsion for this, a disdain for this ungodly approach to what God has called his church to do. The flippancy with which people have approached the table and substituted the elements based sometimes on political instances, such as the issue there at that church in Nashville or in an effort so called to to reach the young ones. Even if it's done with sincerity we have to ask the question is this right? And if we are going to substitute elements, where do we draw the line?

It's easy to, I think, rightly criticize skittles and iced tea, but what about churches that are generally good churches that their communion elements are a saltine cracker, which I guess technically is a kind of unleavened bread, but it's a little strange to me, a cracker in grape juice. Where do we draw the line? What's acceptable? What's not? So I want to take our time this afternoon to look at what the scriptures tell us about the elements of the Supper, and also look at a little bit of church history, and I want us to consider these things.

How do we rightly celebrate the Supper? What is out of bounds? What is within a level of Christian freedom? So I want us to see what are these elements and what was the practice of the first Christians as recorded in Scripture? Now I read Matthew 26 and you can go to the other institution passages recorded in the Synoptic Gospels, Mark 14, Luke 22, and you can go to 1st Corinthians 10, 1st Corinthians 11.

Those are the dominant passages that contain the Lord's Supper and consistently the elements are described as bread and the cup and then the cup contains the fruit of the vine as we read right here in Matthew 26. So we'll start with bread and then look at the cup and the fruit of the vine second. So the word for bread, when it says bread, what is this? Well, it's the Greek word for bread. It's very generic.

It's the simple term for everyday bread. I know, shocking. There is something interesting though, when we consider the references to bread in regards to the Lord's Supper. Remember when the Supper was instituted it's in the context of the Passover which is part of or the colonization of the feast of unleavened bread. But when the gospel writers and when Paul writes about the supper, Never is the bread identified specifically as unleavened bread.

Never is it identified as leavened either. The word used is the Greek word, artos, which is the generic word for bread. It's just our word for bread means all kinds of bread. Artos in Greek means all kinds of bread, though often it is meant to convey the idea of just your normal everyday bread, which would have been a leavened loaf of bread. There is a specific word for unleavened bread, azumos, which is used in our New Testament but only in the context referring directly to the feast of unleavened bread and used metaphorically for the removal of sin in 1st Corinthians.

Now when we consider the bread that was used, considering the context of the feast of unleavened bread, I think we are safe to assume that is what Jesus used in the institution of the Supper. He's celebrating the Passover, he would have taken the bread that was there, which is unleavened bread, and instituted the supper. However, because the gospel writers, nor Paul, reflect on the ordinance ever specify that it was unleavened bread and therefore we should use unleavened bread, This has created a bit of a debate throughout church history, which we'll look at a little bit more here in just a minute. And this debate has been ongoing from the very beginning of the church. Often today when we think of debates about the Lord's Supper, we think of, well, what does it do?

Or who should partake? Or especially when we talk about the elements, should it be wine? But actually, historically, the debate about wine has not really been a debate at all until the modern Temperance movement in America in the 1800s the debate historically was what kind of bread to use In the early church The the dominant position was to use leavened bread. And that was pretty much unquestioned for about a thousand years. And then the Western churches began to switch to unleavened bread.

The Eastern churches, the Eastern Orthodox, they still use leavened bread today, whereas in the West, the Roman church uses unleavened. And then the Protestant Reformation happened, and the Reformers were kind of indifferent toward it. I could quote from Calvin, and I'll get to in a second, but ultimately the Reformer said it doesn't really matter. The question is, are you taking whatever bread you choose with faith? Now, to summarize the arguments for unleavened bread, There are really three arguments.

The first is it's almost certainly what Jesus used, which is a pretty persuasive argument, I think. It's what Jesus used, it's how he instituted the supper, almost certainly That seems to be pretty clear. Secondly, we know leaven is occasionally used to symbolize sin, such as in, even in Matthew's own gospel, Matthew 16, 11, Jesus talks about avoiding the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy, the sin of the Pharisees. And Paul in 1 Corinthians 5, 8, the leaven of malice and wickedness. So leaven is used to symbolize sin and therefore we should use unleavened bread because we've put sin out.

God by his grace has done a work and we are to be putting sin to death and putting sin far away from us But I do think it's important to note that while this connection with leaven is kind of a dominant idea in the mind in our mind And in the mind of evangelicalism today the Bible never explicitly states that leaven is a picture of sin. It's sometimes used that way to describe how sin works, but leaven itself is never called a picture of sin. Rather, it's a picture of something that is pervasive, something that fills and spreads whatever throughout whatever it comes in contact with, whether it's sin and corruption in the soul or in the parable of the woman putting leaven in the bread a picture of the kingdom of God filling the earth. It's used positively and negatively. And the removal of leaven in the Exodus when the Passover was instituted and the Feast of Unleavened Bread was instituted.

It did not have anything necessarily to do with removing sin. It was not a symbol of removing sin. It was a symbol of being ready to leave Egypt at a moment's notice. It's explicitly what Exodus 12 39 says, But Paul in 1st Corinthians 5 does make that connection to sin, the leaven of malice. So the removal of leaven is a picture of sin sometimes and therefore it is argued we should use unleavened bread.

And lastly, it does maintain that continuity with the people of God and the Old Covenant because that is what they used in the Old Testament sacrament of the Passover in the context in which our meal was instituted, was in the feast of unleavened bread therefore we maintain continuity with the people of God throughout history by continuing to use unleavened bread. And those are good arguments. Now the arguments for Leavened bread, there's a few, there are about five that are very commonly cited. First, leaven, yes, is sometimes used to symbolize sin, but it's also used to symbolize the spread of the kingdom of God, Luke 13, 20, 21 for instance. Also just the symbolism, leaven causes bread to rise, and the raised bread is a symbol of our risen Christ that we partake of.

In a sense, that's the second argument, the third argument, in a sense the New Testament begins or at least is empowered at Pentecost. We read about that at the beginning of the Gospel, or in the Book of Acts. The Spirit falls on the church and empowers the new church there in Jerusalem to spread the Gospel on the day of Pentecost. Well, how was Pentecost celebrated in the Old Testament? It was celebrated with an offering of leavened bread.

Fourth, the use of leavened bread distinguishes the New Testament ordinance from the Old Testament Passover. Unleavened bread was part of the shadow which has passed away, and now the fullness has come in the New Testament. The Passover bread in Deuteronomy 16.3 is called the bread of affliction, And we do not have the bread of affliction, we have the bread of life given to us in the body of God's own Son. And historically, the historical argument that this was the majority position for a thousand years, still dominant to this day in the East, and was either, the reformers and the puritans were either indifferent or favored Levin. So to my mind, there are good arguments on either side.

And I personally am not able to say definitively what I think is best. I am torn between the two. I think There are good arguments on either side. And I personally am not able to say definitively what I think is best. I am torn between the two.

I think there are good arguments on either side, but I'm not strongly persuaded. To me, the regulative principle of worship, which hopefully I have time to talk about a little bit more in a minute, but the idea that we are not able to be inventive when it comes to the worship of God. To me that seems to point towards unleavened bread, but at the same time if you know the regulative principle of worship and what it actually means and says, that we are to do the necessary elements of scripture of what God commands, though the how that is done, what are called the circumstances, we are given freedom. Perhaps leavened or unleavened is an element of circumstance, an element of freedom, whereas the element itself is bread, not the kind of bread. And that was Calvin's position, and most of the reformers.

Calvin and the Institutes wrote, whether the bread is leavened or unleavened, it makes no difference. These things are indifferent and left to the church's discretion and I tend to agree. So that's the bread. Now the cup. What does the cup mean?

Well, it's pretty clear. Obviously, he's not talking about the physical container itself. That's not part of the ordinance or part of the sacrament. This is a figure of speech for the contents of the cup, which is identified when Jesus says, I say to you I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until I drink it with you new in the kingdom of God. So we have the cup and the contents of the cup the fruit of the vine.

What is the fruit of the vine? By the first century this had become a stock phrase, an idiom that was unambiguously a reference to wine. The Mishnah, a Jewish collection of regulations functionally, excuse me, and liturgy, contains a blessing that is to be spoken over wine and describes God as he who creates the fruit of the vine. And the Mishnah contains other blessings that are deeper sited over food and everything like this. Only wine, alcoholic wine, is to be given this blessing about God who is the one who creates the fruit of the vine.

Everything else is the fruit of the ground or the fruit of the trees. Only wine is the fruit of the vine. And we know by the time in the Passover there was already a developed consistent liturgy by the first century of four cups of wine, one of which is called the cup of blessing, which Paul may refer to in 1st Corinthians 10, which our elder read this morning before the Supper. The cup of blessing which we bless is not our communion with the blood of Christ. So when the Gospels are written, when Jesus instituted the supper, fruit of the vine was a standard common idiom for wine.

And further, the chance of it being grape juice is essentially zero. While the ancient peoples did have methods and tools for storing grape juice, it was uncommon, very difficult to do, and generally reserved for children and took a lot of work. The crushed grapes after harvest would sometimes be, the juice would sometimes be drank for a short time as and filtered to maintain just the grape juice but this was all local and for a very short time because they didn't have the supply lines we have today. You couldn't transport things as easily then. So when it's your harvest time, that's the time you can get fresh grape juice.

That's about it. They didn't have refrigeration. They didn't have as many methods as we might have today to pasteurize and filter and keep it from fermenting because here's the thing, fermentation of crushed grapes and the juice that comes from the grape happens within a few hours. It begins very quickly the same day the grapes are crushed without some tremendous intervention. Passover is about six months after the end of grape harvest.

It's almost impossible that they would have had grape juice. Furthermore, we know from 1st Corinthians 11 that the cup contained alcohol. How do we know this? Well, some were abusing and getting drunk at the supper in the church. And Paul's rebuke is not, you need to not drink alcohol.

He corrects the misuse of it, not the use of it. Their misuse and abuse of it was the problem, not the fact that they had alcohol. And so this debate about whether we should use wine or grape juice is, like I said earlier, a uniquely modern American phenomenon. Until this time, until about the 1800s and the temperance movement, the only real debate about the wine was should it be watered down or not. At the time of institution it was common practice for water to be mixed with wine to water it down, sometimes to as much as three parts water to one part wine.

And now interestingly this seems to be a custom that the Jews adopted from the Greeks and the Romans Greco-Roman culture thought of drinking wine full strength as uncivilized and barbaric and The Jews thought it was a great idea actually And so you see that the church they adopt this practice very early on. A few weeks ago I read an account of Justin Martyr when he describes an early church worship service after, as he calls it, the president gives encouragement to obey and heed the things spoken in the sermon, bread, wine, and water are brought out. And the water is not baptismal water, it's water for mixing with the wine. And That's in the second century. It's very early on so this was a common practice among the church, but biblically We don't see any institution of this What does the Bible say about wine I don't have time to go into all of this, but the Bible holds two things in tension that we must hold in tension when we consider anything related to alcohol.

On the one hand, it is explicitly called a gift from God. At the same time, it is a gift that is so easily abused. And we are free to enjoy it rightly and avoid the abuse because that is sin to abuse what God has made and given you. So numerous passages describe wine as a gift from God. Deuteronomy 7.13, a blessing on the people for obedience to the covenant is that God would cause their wine, their grain, their oil to overflow, an abundance of produce, including wine.

Psalm 104.15, that God has made wine to cheer man's heart. Ecclesiastes 9-7, go eat your bread and drink your wine with a happy heart because God has already accepted what you've done. There's one unambiguous reference to watered-down wine in the Old Testament. It's Isaiah 1 22 and this is used metaphorically to describe the decay, the moral decay among the people and possibly a literal reference to watered down wine. It's not entirely clear but it's at least a picture of the moral decay of the people, that their silver is mixed with dross and their wine is mixed with water.

And they've in this, this is the beginning of what's called the covenant lawsuit, where God is bringing charges against his people for their apostasy, and they have mixed the worship of God with idolatry, and they have mixed their good works with sin. And this is going to bring God's judgment. That's the one unambiguous reference to watered down or diluted wine in the Old Testament. This is not to be confused with passages that refer to mixed wine, which seems to always refer to wine that's been mixed with spices, herbs, or other liquids that enhance its flavor, its aroma, or even increase its alcohol content. And this is used both as a sign of God's favor, such as Lady Wisdom, which is personified in Proverbs 9, 1 through 5.

It's also a metaphor of God's unrelenting wrath against the wicked in Psalm 75, 8, that God has a foaming cup of mixed wine in his hand and he will make the wicked drink of it. So it's used positively and negatively there. And the reformers took a fairly moderate position here as on the bread. They were largely indifferent to the idea of mixing in itself. However, they did advocate as much as possible for what they called natural wine, or simply undiluted wine.

And this was because at that point, the Roman church had made a dogma that the element of the supper had to be watered down wine. And so the reformers weren't so much concerned about whether or not it's watered down, but making it a rule you have to obey. Making it a rule where God is not spoken. I read part of a quote earlier from Calvin, there's a little bit more to it, where he says, whether the bread is leavened or unleavened, and the wine, red or white, it makes no difference. Now here I'm actually inclined to argue with Calvin a little bit.

I think if red wine is available to the church, it seems to me that that should be preferred as the wine is meant to be a visible symbol of Christ's blood, and it's hard to have that imagery with using white wine. But the whole debate about wine, this is the big sticking point among American evangelicals today and even some Reformed. The temperance movement which began in the early 1800s began as its name implies a temperance movement, in other words a moderation movement. However, the temperance movement, which had good goals, drinking and excessive alcoholism, and this was a real problem. We need to be reminded to drink in moderation if you're going to drink.

That's not a bad thing to be told. Don't get drunk. That's good. But the original point of the temperance movement was co-opted, I believe corrupted, by the twin influences of the second great awakening and first wave feminism. Both of these influences affected the temperance movement and turned it into a abstinence movement instead of a moderation movement, especially in the church which now completely novel interpretations of very clear passages of Scripture were proposed in order to get around what the Bible clearly says about alcohol as a blessing and our command to drink it as part of the Lord's Supper.

So we see from the scriptures that the elements of the Supper In all the relevant passages in the institution, times that Paul talks about it, it's simply bread and the fruit of the vine, which is a figure of speech for wine, common alcoholic wine. Again, I mentioned earlier the the regular principle of worship seems to tilt towards unleavened bread. Again, the regular principle of worship you have to distinguish between the elements and the circumstances. To help you wrap your mind around this, we are told to sing as a church, right? Singing is an element of our worship.

The circumstances would be all the things around how we accomplish that element, what instruments we use, whether we have instruments at all, whether we sit, we sit, we stand, what part of the service we do our singing in. These are all circumstances. We are given freedom to do these things the way each local church sees fit. Now here, when it comes to the elements of the Supper, it seems most obviously that the elements are bread and wine. The generic words are used in the New Testament.

Circumstances, I think, are when we talk about the kinds or the species of the element. Is it leavened or unleavened bread? Is it red wine or white wine? Maybe. What kind of wine?

Because they're all different kinds. Merlot, Zinfandel, I think Zinfandel is actually a white, I don't know, I don't drink wine much. So, I don't think we can put grape juice versus wine in the category of a debate about circumstance. Because grape juice is not a kind of wine. It's a different product made from the same thing, but it's a different thing.

Just because both are from grapes, that doesn't mean they're kinds of the same thing. It would be akin to saying that we could use cupcakes instead of bread simply because they contain many of the same ingredients. Now there are other things we could talk about what do you do in mission contexts or in places where it's not easy to access these things Simply put I don't have time to go into it, but simply put God is gracious with his people and this has been the reformed position and I believe the biblical position God is gracious to his people and patient if it is not possible to obey his commands in the exact elements God gives grace an example of this we could go to when they reinstitute worship I will lose under Josiah they celebrated Passover but they did it in the wrong month because it was too late to do it in the right month. God blessed them for it anyway. And so God's grace is given to us through the ordinance, through the sacrament, through the elements, but His grace is not so tied to the particular elements that you won't receive it if you do it differently if necessity requires it.

So that's all I'll say about those circumstances of missions or times or places of scarcity. So in conclusion, how do we think through this? How do we apply this? What does this mean for us as a church? First, I want us to consider, are we undermining, and I want us to be careful that we are not undermining the purpose, one of the purposes of the sacrament of communion, and that's the unity of the church.

When we take the bread and the wine, we are proclaiming that we are one body because we are united to Him. We are united together as a church. If you refuse to take or you substitute one of the elements by yourself, you have to ask yourself what are you saying in this action? If we're one body because we partake of one bread and one cup, what are you saying when you don't partake? Now I understand, please don't hear what I'm not saying.

I understand there are real concerns and questions people have, especially when it comes to wine, either health issues or conscience issues. And I want to be sensitive to that. But I also want you to remember God has spoken. God gave bread and wine as the ordinances to the sacrament, or as the elements for the sacrament. And I do not believe we have freedom to change what God has clearly spoken.

Real dangerous allergies are one thing, but preferences and conscience issues are another. And it may be a real conscience issue. I'm not trying to say your conscience isn't real, it's not important. As Luther said, it's not wise to go against conscience, and that is true. But your conscience cannot be allowed to dictate what you think the Word of God says.

You must lead your conscience to be in conformity to Scripture, not conforming your interpretation of Scripture to your conscience. Now that isn't to say that if your conscience prevents you from drinking wine, then you need to violate your conscience today, or I guess next Sunday since we already did it, and violate your conscience and drink the wine. That's not what I'm saying. I want, Rather you need to be open to being corrected. Wrestle with these things.

Struggle through these things. Think through these things. And let your conscience be shaped by the scriptures. Study, ask questions, learn, and be willing to change. Second, as I hopefully shown earlier, I know we went through it quickly, but I think we have biblically based arguments for either leavened or unleavened bread, and we have historical precedent for both throughout all of church history and among the people that we are most closely aligned with theologically.

So let's not argue about it. We use unleavened bread here. Praise God for that. Praise God that when we come, we take the unleavened bread and we use it as part of the elements, and We receive it with confidence and joy, embracing that we are following the example set for us by Christ himself. If you go and you visit another church and they use leavened bread, partake and rejoice that Christ has been raised and you've been raised to life with him and you receive the bread of life Not the bread of affliction So let's not argue about in different debatable matters Third we have clear biblical arguments for the use of wine.

This is again not been a debate until the last 150 to 200 years. And the last 200 or so years, especially the last 150 years, this perspective on rejecting wine has been dominant among the American Christian Church and that view is changing today. And while there are dangers with any change of the church's attitude toward a thing or changes in societal attitudes toward things are absolutely dangerous there is the opportunity for more misuse. I agree I know that But I do think that this change is a generally positive development because it's correcting an imbalance that was contrary to Scripture. So yes, we must be aware of and guard against the misuse of alcohol in the church and by the church members.

Drunkenness is a sin as is the abuse of anything God has made, but at the same time God did give wine to cheer men's heart, and especially to cheer the heart of his saints when they receive it in the Eucharist. And fourth, my ultimate point here, so I want us to see that the elements God instituted are common, simple, everyday elements. He picked bread and wine, two of the most commonly consumed things throughout all of human history. You don't get more basic than that. And God picked these common simple things and elevated them to such a grand level that these are one of the means where God communicates His grace to you.

It is in bread and wine, not in and of themselves, but through the Spirit by faith You have communion with Jesus It is communion with the body and blood when you eat these ordinary elements in the Lord's table So we should be amazed at what God has done. He takes these simple basic foods that nourish our body and He elevates them to a means of nourishing the soul. So let us rejoice that God has given us all that we need, both body and soul. And we see these two things proclaimed here in the table. He feeds us body and soul with bread and wine and we feed spiritually on Christ in the elements.

We have a God of abundance who through his grace that we heard so much about does amazing things with what is common and simple. And he's doing the same thing with you There are not many wise not many powerful. We are common normal people that God and his grace is changing and elevating and using to change the world. It may not seem like it, but that's what God is doing in you if you are in Christ. He is using you to transform this world, to fill it with His glory.

What He does with the elements, He does with you. So let this cause you to worship and stand amazed at what God has done. A God of abundance, a God who is pouring out immeasurable grace on us in every way. So let's be thankful that we have such an incredible, loving, compassionate Father who gives us all good things to enjoy both physically and spiritually. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for this time. We've been able to be in your word and to consider these things. I pray Lord that you would help us to come before you with humble hearts, a desire to know you and commune with you more closely, and Lord help us to not be easily pulled off into debates and arguments about secondary things, about indifferent things. Help us Lord to have unity and peace as we seek to obey and follow you in the example you've given in your son. Be with us the rest of this week And give us Lord that grace that we need to be your workers in your kingdom wherever you've placed us until we meet again this next Sunday.

In Christ's name we pray, amen.