Should we allow our
children to partake of the Lord’s Supper as a teaching tool just like the Jews
used the Passover as a teaching tool for their children?
The Word of God tells us to teach our children in the way of
the Lord (Eph. 6:4; Prov. 22:6). We encourage them to pray, give, sing, and to
listen to what is being taught by the preacher. Therefore, someone might ask,
“Why do we exclude our children from partaking of the Lord’s Supper?” They
might add, “Under the Old Testament, the children of the Jews ate the Passover
meal and used it to teach them about what God did for them in
It is true, under the Law of Moses the Passover was used to teach the children about what God had done.
Exodus 12:3
"Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: 'On the tenth day of
this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his
father, a lamb for a household. 4
'And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next
to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according
to each man's need you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 'Your
lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from
the sheep or from the goats. 6 'Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day
of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of
A lamb was eaten by those in the household.
Exodus 12:24
"And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons
forever. 25
"It will come to pass when you come to the land which the LORD will give
you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service. 26
"And it shall be, when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this
service?' 27
"that you shall say, 'It is the Passover sacrifice of the LORD, who
passed over the houses of the children of
Once a year when the
Passover was prepared, it would cause most children to ask, “why
are we doing this?” It became a great opportunity for the Jews to teach their
children about God and what He did for their people.
We need to understand
that the Passover was a commandment the Jews were to follow. The lamb had to be
chosen and prepared the right way, and the household was supposed to eat it,
but only those that were circumcised could observe it (Ex. 12:48). Under the
Law of Moses, a Jewish child was born a child of God and he was
circumcised on the 8th day, and he was taught about the ways
of God as he grew older, but this would all change under the new covenant that
Jesus established.
Jeremiah prophesied about
this change in:
Jeremiah
31:31 " Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new
covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah -- 32 "not according to the
covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by
the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke,
though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. 33 "But this is the
covenant that I will make with the house of
Under the new covenant, a
person is not born a child of God and then taught about the ways of God.
Instead, a person grows up learning about God and then they choose to become a
child of God by obeying the Word of God. This truth teaches us that there is a
big difference between how a person became a child of God under the Law of
Moses and how a person becomes a child of God under the Law of Christ.
While the Old Testament
is a valuable tool for the Christian today and its examples can teach us a lot,
we must never forget that the Old Testament laws do not apply to us today
because they were nailed to the cross (Col. 2:14). Even though the children of
the Jews partook of the Passover lamb, which they were commanded to do, we cannot take that commandment and apply it to the
Lord’s Supper because it does not apply to us today.
In order to answer our
question about our children partaking the Lord’s
Supper, we must use the examples and commands given to us under the new
covenant. While some similarities can be made between
the Passover and the Lord’s Supper, they each have their own unique purpose and
commands. The Lord’s Supper is to be observed on the first day of the week
(Acts 20:7), and we are to partake of the fruit of the vine and unleavened bread
(Lk. 22:14-20). The Lord’s Supper
should only be eaten by Christians because when we do, we are in
communion with Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless,
is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it
not the communion of the body of Christ?
17 For we, though many, are
one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.
You cannot find an
example in the New Testament where a child or a nonChristian
partook of the Lord’s Supper. Unlike the Passover, which was eaten by the
household, the Lord’s Supper is taken when the Christians are gathered together
to form the body of Christ. Since the Lord’s Supper is for
Christians it excludes our children from partaking of it. The reason I
say this is because under the new covenant we must
choose to become a Christian, which means we must know what we are doing.
This same idea is true
when it comes to partaking of the Lord’s Supper. We learn three things about
the purpose of the Lord’s Supper from the following verses:
1 Corinthians 11:23 For I
received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus
on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks,
He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken
for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
25 In the same manner He also
took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in
My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in
remembrance of Me." 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you
proclaim the Lord's death till He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats this bread
or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of
the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him
eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29
For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats
and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
First, we are supposed to
partake of it in remembrance of Jesus. Just as the Passover was
a reminder to the Jews of how death passed over them, which led to their
freedom of slavery, the Lord’s Supper reminds us of how Jesus made eternal
salvation possible for us by becoming the perfect sacrifice on the cross so we
could have freedom from the bondage of sin.
Second, when we partake
of the Lord’s Supper, we proclaim His death until He comes again (vs. 26). Even
when our children do not partake of the Lord’s Supper, when they see us
partaken of it every week, they will eventually ask us why we do it, and we can
uses that opportunity to teach them about what it represents without them
partaken of it. Remember, they are not commanded to partake of it like the Jewish children were commanded to partake of the
Passover.
Third, we learn that
partaking of the Lord’s Supper is a time of reflection (vs. 28). We need to
examine how we are living our lives in accordance to God’s will. When we stop
and think about the significance of the Lord’s Supper, it becomes a reminder
for us each week to live pure and holy lives before God. It is important that
we know what we are doing as we partake of Lord’s Supper so we do not partake of
it in an unworthy manner as the Corinthians did (1
Cor. 11:17-22). Paul states that we will be guilty of Jesus’ blood and His body
if we partake of it in an unworthy manner (vs. 29).
While our children can go
through motions of eating the bread and drinking the fruit of the vine, they
cannot fully understand what they are doing. Therefore, they cannot partake of the
Lord’s Supper in a worth manner. If they are old enough to understand the
significance of the Lord’s Supper and everything that goes with it, then they are
old enough to become a Christian.
In conclusion, while we
can learn much from the Old Testament, we cannot use it to justify what we do
under the New Testament. The Jews under the Old Testament were
commanded to observe the Passover with their household, but Christians
are commanded to partake of the Lord’s Supper together when they worship God on
the first day of the week. While we should encourage our children to pray,
give, sing, and listen to the preacher, we must not allow them partake of the
Lord’s Supper until they become Christians because they need to know what they
are doing so they can partake of it in a worthy manner.