Articles
Must We Bless the Bread?
I appreciate the question someone asked me last week: "Do we need to ask God to ‘bless’ the bread and the cup in our Lord’s Supper prayers?" Let’s thinktogether about this. The word "bless" in the original Greek is "eulogeo." It’s used in four ways in the New Testament. 1) To praise, or speak well of (Luke 1:64). 2) To invoke God’s blessings upon a person. (Luke 6:28). 3) To cause to make prosperous, physically and/or spiritually (Acts 3:26). The fourth best fits our usage in the Lord’s Supper: 4) To consecrate a thing by solemn prayer. To make holy by praying that God will set something apart for a specific purpose. Jesus "blessed" common meals on several occasions. At the feeding of the 4,000, Mark 8:7 reads, "They also had a few small fish; and after He had blessed them, He ordered these to be served as well." Here, Jesus "blesses" these fish, consecrating them in prayer to serve the purpose of feeding the multitude. After Jesus’ resurrection, when He shared a common meal with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, Luke 24:30 reads, "When He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them." Hence, we have Biblical authority for common meals to ask God to "Bless this food to give us strength in Your service, or to the nourishment of our bodies, etc." We’re not praising the food; we’re calling on God to use that food for His good purposes.
Of course, the question was about the Lord’s Supper, which is no common meal. In 1 Corinthians 10:16, Paul refers to the cup of the Lord’s Supper as "the cup of blessing which we bless." Yet curiously, he says nothing about blessing the bread. Furthermore, in 1 Corinthians 11:24-26, when Paul reminds them of how Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, the word "blessed (eulogeo)" isn’t used anywhere. Instead of "Jesus blessed," it says, "when He had given thanks." (11:24). What about the gospel accounts? Interestingly, not all the accounts of Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper say Jesus "blessed" the bread or the cup. In Luke 22:14-20, the word "blessed (eulegeo)" is nowhere to be found. It says He "gave thanks," a totally different word in the Greek (eucharisteo). Jesus "blesses" a common meal in Luke 24, but not the Lord’s Supper in Luke 22. On the other hand, in Matthew and Mark’s accounts, they both use the word "blessed (eulegeo)" at the institution of the Lord’s Supper. The NASB reads, "after a blessing, He broke it and gave it…" (Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22). The NKJV reads, "Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it…". Oddly though, in the very next verse when Jesus takes the cup, none of the gospels say He "blessed" the cup! He gives thanks for it!
So why do some accounts say Jesus blessed the bread and others say He gave thanks for it? The answer to the inconsistency is that blessing food and giving thanks for it are one and the same (1 Corinthians 14:16 really drives this home)! When we bless food, we’re thanking God for it and recognizing it as a gift from Him to be used for His purposes. That means, if we thank God for the Lord’s Supper bread, we don’t also have to say, "Father bless this bread" and vice versa. Furthermore, we shouldn’t view "bless this bread" as a magical formula that must be stated or the Lord’s Supper is a failure. We can use the phrase "Father bless this bread," and that would certainly be a good thing, but it is not a requirement. What is required is that we give thanks to God for the bread and the fruit of the vine in some form; that’s consistent in every Lord’s Supper passage in the New Testament, and we do need to understand that the bread and cup are consecrated by God to accomplish a specific purpose; to remind us of our Lord’s death for our sin. If we partake of the Lord’s Supper without thanking God for it in some way, we’re partaking in an "unworthy manner." (1 Cor. 11:27).
Consider three final thoughts about prayers offered during the Lord’s Supper. First, those who lead public prayers should be mindful of these things. We ought to always be studying God’s Word so we can best lead others in pleasing worship to Him. Second, if you’re leading a prayer for the Lord’s Supper, and you know it bothers someone’s conscience not to use a certain phrase like "bless this bread" or "bless this cup," why not go ahead and say it? (I don’t know of anyone here who feels that way; that’s just an example.) If we can help others focus better in worship, let’s do what we can. Finally, those of us listening to public prayers are not bound by the prayers offered. Public prayer can be nerve-racking and we need to be merciful to our brethren leading those prayers. If it bothers our consciences that a brother didn’t say a particular phrase, it doesn’t mean we can’t say that phrase in our private Lord’s Supper prayers. Even if a brother somehow forgets to express thanks to God for the bread or cup, it doesn’t mean we’re all doomed to partake of it in an unworthy manner. It means in our private prayers during the Lord’s Supper we need to make sure to give the appropriate thanks. If we notice brother so and so seems to regularly forget to give thanks, the elders ought to remind him with love and kindness about the way God desires us to partake of it. Let’s all work together to make sure the Lord’s Supper, and all that we do for the Lord in worship, is pleasing to God and edifying to one another.
