Holy Communion for Amateurs

HOLY COMMUNION FOR AMATEURS
By Tom Wright
Hodder & Stoughton. 97 pages. £4.99
ISBN 0 340 74579 7

This latest little offering from Tom Wright is easier to read than to assess. It lures the non-specialist reader into the subject through several short, imaginative chapters in which we participate in a modern birthday party, an ancient Passover meal, the Last Supper, and an early Christian meal. He draws out a focus on forgiveness, God's past and future, the fellowship of believers and the life-changing story the meal proclaims.

It was no surprise to find Dr. Wright majoring on the eschatological focus of Holy Communion; this is where he is at his best. He says that in Jesus, God's future came rushing into the present to meet us, and therefore, at every celebration of the Jesus-meal, 'God's past catches up with us again and God's future comes to meet us once more'.

This short book is courageously comprehensive in its scope: the differences of Christendom are aired and commented on; Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Frith and Oecolampadius all get their moment. He states clearly that Holy Communion is not a sacrifice humans do to earn God's favour, but I would still have liked clearer teaching on the achievement of the cross. I was sorry that he reserved his least charitable criticism for those who favour lay presidency. Indeed, the last few chapters seemed out of place: more of an attempted justification for Anglican liturgy (including some of its recent and questionable additions) than a natural progression from his theological explanations.

All in all, this isn't a book I would give to 'amateurs', but much of it I found beautifully written, clever, heart-warming and stimulating.

James Dudley-Smith,
Wimborne

© Evangelicals Now - February 2000
Please consider supporting this ministry by subscribing.

• Request Free Sample

Main Articles

• A youth worker's nightmare
  'I ask you, members of the jury: 'How many of you could defend yourself if you were falsely accused? How many of you could produce 16 witnesses and 100 letters of reference to defend yourselves?'
• Ready to die? When the question is suddenly personal
  Helen England describes how it feels to face death in the aftermath of a car crash
• Rome and the Lutherans
  The declaration on justification signed by the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation (reprinted from World Magazine)
• Bringing men back to church
  Suggestions and strategies on how to get men back into church (reprinted from The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood)
• The beauty of God
  Can we properly call God beautiful?
• The Crowded House
  Steve Timmis concludes his series on planting a network of household churches in Sheffield (part 2 of series)
• Monthly column on hymns and songs
  The prominence given to music in modern worship
• Kingdom cool
  Style and content in the 21st century church - how should we confront the culture and what should the focus of church be?
• Monthly column on the arts: notes from the Dome
  The music chosen for the Millennium Dome and Cliff Richard's Millennium Prayer
• Monthly column for youth leaders: snoozing in the armchair church
  How to encourage young people to participate and become involved in the wider church

Other articles

• A New Kind of Living
• The Iron Giant
• Cantatas (BWV 105, 179, 186) by Johann Sebastian Bach - CD review
• Star Gazing - (Audio tape)
• Matters of Life and Death - An extract from the book Matters of Life and Death giving a Christian response to the consequences of limited resources in the NHS
• Holy Communion for Amateurs
• The Claims of Truth - John Owen's Trinitarian Theology
• Paul the Apostle - A Biography
• Learning in Christ's School
• Setting Hearts on Fire - a guide to giving evangelistic talks
• Be Sure What You Believe - the Christian faith simply explained
• Let's Explore - the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes
• Whatever Happened To The Ten Commandments?
• Making Connections - building relationships with people at the edge
• Geneva Commentary Series - Judges
• Sins of the Fathers