A sixteenth-century woodcut from Johannes Cogelerus’s work titled in English Lutheran Doctrine Illustrated and attributed to Jacob Lucius of Kronstadt illustrates Lutheran communion of both bread that is Christ’s body and wine that is Christ’s blood. Note that the altar behind the communicants itself has a front panel illustrating the Last Supper. (The image above is from SMU’s Birdwell Library’s website.)
What is the Sacrament of the Altar? What are its benefits? Who is to receive it? Around those three questions The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther organized his Large Catechism’s discussion of the Sacrament of the Altar, what is also called “The Lord’s Supper” or “Holy Communion”. Other questions about this Sacrament have come up in recent discussions at Pilgrim, even as we recently increased how often we offer the Sacrament and may make other changes regarding it in the near future. So, from the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost until the First Sunday in Advent 2012, our Sunday Morning Adult Bible Class went through the Large Catechism’s treatment of the Sacrament of the Altar, using its answers to Luther’s three questions as a launching point for our other related questions.
The text of the Large Catechism distributed to the class is from the second edition of Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions: A Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord (available for purchase here), though you can certainly follow along with an earlier version of its base translation available here.
Week 11 – December 02, 2012
Audio
Week 10 – November 25, 2012
Audio
Week 9 – November 18, 2012
Audio
Week 8 – November 11, 2012
Audio
Week 7 – November 04, 2012
Audio
(We regret that, due to technical difficulties, the recording ends abruptly partway through.)
Week 6 – October 28, 2012
Audio
Week 5 – October 14, 2012
Audio
Week 4 – October 07, 2012
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Week 3 – September 30, 2012
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Week 2 – September 23, 2012
Audio
Week 1 – September 16, 2012
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