By What Authority Is the Lord’s Supper Served on Sunday Night?
Someone asks, “By what authority is the Lord’s Supper served on Sunday night?” In one sense, this question is slightly amusing. The only Scripture in the New Testament designating the day on which and the frequency with which Christians observe the Lord’s Supper presents an example of its observance on the evening of the first day of the week (Acts 20:7). By the way, the Lord’s Supper was instituted by our Lord “in the evening” (Mark 14:17).
The one asking the question, however, may mean to ask about a congregation making the Lord’s Supper available in a morning worship, as well offering it to those in an evening worship who were not present in the morning. While we are thinking about that inquiry, add to that the Lord’s Supper being offered on the same Lord’s Day to other members of the same congregation who may be infirm at home, in a hospital or in a retirement home.
Going back to Acts 20:7, this apostolically approved example presents the obligation of every Christian to partake of the Lord’s Supper weekly on the first day of the week. The time of day is as immaterial as it is inconsequential as to whether the church assembles in an “upper room” or not (Mark 14:15; Acts 20:8).
Once I heard someone object to the Supper being offered a second time at the same congregation on a Lord’s Day on the supposed basis that those having already taken of it earlier in the day were ‘spiritually observing it’ in the evening, too, while some in the evening were partaking of it. That is not a biblical argument, but rather it is homespun and off the wall. For instance by comparison, have you ever heard anyone in the Lord’s church argue that someone could experience baptism ‘spiritually’ without actually being immersed? Are baptized believers being baptized again ‘spiritually’ if they are present at someone else’s baptism? The absurdity of the latter should reveal the absurdity of the former suggestion. Obedience requires activity as well as the investment of one’s Bible heart. In addition, there is no suggestion in the New Testament that Christians should partake of the Lord’s Supper multiple times on the Lord’s Day; it is a weekly requirement, along with the other four acts of New Testament worship.
