Six Short Videos for Paedocommunion

I have just finished six short videos arguing for paedocommunion.  Below is the table of contents; click here to go to the video page with all of them.

#1 – Passover: Plain Inclusion in Exodus 10

#2 – Passover: All the Covenant Community Must Eat

#3 – 1 Corinthians 11: Proclamation Doesn’t Exclude

#4 – 1 Corinthians 11: Remembrance Doesn’t Exclude

#5 – 1 Corinthians 11: Examination/Worthiness Don’t Exclude

#6 – 1 Corinthians 10 and 12 Require All the Covenant Community to Eat

Passover Included Children [Part 1]

Passover was not withheld from Hebrew children who could eat food.

One of the more contentious pieces of the paedocommunion debate is whether the Passover included children in the Old Testament.  Over 4 posts, I will show that children were participants.

The argument against paedocommunion falls on Ex 12.26 for backing, assuming that the “What do you mean by this” means the children do not participate.  Here is the passage

All Who Eat are In, All Who are In Eat [Part 2]

In Part 1, I tried to link the idea of UNION of the body with the celebrated union of FEASTING.  This is the pattern of union and communion we see in baptism and the Eucharist, or in the Old Testament, in circumcision and the peace offerings (culminating in the Passover peace offering).

In Part 2, I want to show that the household unity is crucial to the whole idea of sacramental feasting in the Old Testamant.

Here are four verses out of two texts that are referring to the peace offerings (sh’lamim)

All Who are In Eat, All Who Eat are In [Part 1]

Unity and Feasting go together in scripture.  If you are on the fence about giving covenant children communion, let me suggest a few maxims and demonstrate them quickly:

1. Both initiation (baptism/circumcision) and covenant renewal meal (Passover/Lord’s Supper) show the BOUNDARIES of who is labeled as one of God’s covenant members.
2. Baptism AND Communion are labeled TOGETHER as makers of the the UNITY of the Body.

To say that one more time,  both sacraments express 1) Boundaries, and 2) Unity.  All who eat are in, all who are in eat.

Here is what I think is an efficient list

Pentecost

Easter – Video: Resurrected Children and Passover

Real

I wrote this post in response to this post of Doug Wilson’s at Blog and Mablog:

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As a friend and I have often discussed the Eucharist, We have mentioned that there is a good word to use for the meal, a word that gives us “Real” significance, real participation in a real spiritual action, a word that answers the need for real presence without magic, but also avoids mere memorialism:

The Meal is Covenantal.

What Does the Body Know About Itself?

What if we ask the question of the benefit to the Eucharist this way: not what good a sacrament is for the individual, but what good it is for the WHOLE body in worship.

We do baptize people who have no concept of what is happening – and that serves in great part to teach the congregation about both themselves and that young member. I would say that part of the BODY issue about sacraments is that it is WE who celebrate sacraments together, not I who celebrate the sacrament alone. So when a child in my church communes, (young or younger), we may ask what the benefit is to the child, but I think we shouldn’t forget that its benefit might in part be that benefit to all the other eyes that watch and to the hands that administer.

The gospel, in that context is telling ME that the covenant blesses when SOMEONE ELSE partakes.

Pastor Lonn Oswalt – Immanuel Presbyterian, Clinton, Mississippi

Infants Under Law

An ingredient that ought to be thrown into anyone’s stew if they are cooking up a theology about faith in children is this:

Infants are called to keep the law; infants can break the law.

Cursory examples are:

Gen 17 – Circumcision

Positive: Infants required to recieve circumcision;

Negative: he who did not receive circumcision is considered “cut off from his people”

Jdg 13 – Nazarite Vow

Positive: Samson required to be a Nazarite “from the womb”;

Negative: Samson must not drink alcohol – so his MOTHER could not drink it while he was in the womb, because it would cause HIM to break the command.

GRANTED:

Ability to break the law does not necessarily imply ability to keep the law.

Ability to keep the law externally does not imply internal regeneration.

However,