I attend a church that doesn't teach on the Day of Atonement.  I have in the past given my Atonement offering just the same.  Should I give my Atonement offering to a ministry that would pray over my offering in that regard, or is it okay to continue to give it to my church with the notation "Atonement Offering"?  Does it make a difference?

Sincerely,
Check Please

Dear Check Please,

The Day of Atonement was an Old Testament Jewish festival in which Jews gave offerings by fire – i.e. animal sacrifices – to God (Lev 23:27).  Christians do not celebrate the Jewish feasts.  In fact, Paul specifically told christians not to let anyone bind them to the Old Testament feasts which were just a shadow of the New Law found in Christ (Col 2:17).  The Old Law was a tutor to lead people to Christ, but now that Christ is here – we are no longer under that tutor (Gal 3:24-25).

Christians don’t make “atonement offerings”; we are commanded to take up a collection every Sunday (1 Cor 16:1-2).  We recommend reading “What Must I Do To Be Saved” and “Finding The Church” for more details on what New Testament Christianity is and how to find a faithful congregation to be a part of.

What do you think of taking holy communion in our homes on a daily basis?

Sincerely, Regular Remembrance

Dear Regular Remembrance,

Taking communion is a weekly thing – no more, no less.Christ told us that whenever we take the Lord’s Supper, we should do it in remembrance of Him (Lk 22:19), but He never said how often.It isn’t until the book of Acts that we see how often the church observed the Lord’s Supper.In Acts 20:7 we see that christians ‘broke the bread’ in remembrance of Christ on Sundays.That is when they did it, so that is when we do it.

Paul says that we are to take the Lord’s Supper when the church is gathered together (1 Cor 11:20).Taking the Lord’s Supper is an act of worship done by every congregation of the Lord each Sunday.When we take a look at all the teaching on the Lord’s Supper, we get the truth (Ps 119:160).Christ commands that we do it in remembrance of Him, the church gives us the example of doing it on the first day of the week, and Paul teaches that we should do it when we are assembled as a church.

Did the first century church celebrate special events that commemorated each person's journey of faith?  In several Christian denominations, there are events like that called 'sacraments'.  I am wondering specifically about the sacrament of marriage and how it fits into the first century church and also what the Bible says is proper practice for this type of event.

Sincerely, Practices Made Perfect

Dear Practices Made Perfect,

The Bible doesn’t have any sacraments – but it does teach there are some important events in a christian’s life.The term ‘sacrament’ is not a Biblical word - it is a Catholic one.The Catholic Encyclopedia describes ‘sacrament’ thusly:

Noun, a visible sign of an inward grace, esp. one of the solemn Christian rites considered to have been instituted by Jesus Christ to symbolize or confer grace: the sacraments of the Protestant churches are baptism and the Lord's Supper; the sacraments of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches are baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, matrimony, penance, holy orders, and extreme unction. (Catholic Encyclopedia)

Using that definition, we could loosely say a sacrament is equivalent to an event that is commanded by God for every christian to partake in.There are some scheduled events like that in the Bible:

• Baptism to become a christian (Rom 6:4)
• weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper (Acts 20:7)
• weekly contribution (1 Cor 16:1)

These are the only things even remotely close to a ‘sacrament’ (although that still isn’t a Biblical term) ever seen in the New Testament church.Marriage wouldn’t be on that list because marriage is not required of every christian.

This does not mean marriage isn’t instituted by God.  It is - as early as Adam and Eve (Gen 2:24).God has never laid down specific rules for the marriage ceremony.  He has left those details up to individual cultures.God’s concern has always been about how we act within the sacred bonds of matrimony (Col 3:18-19).  He leaves the 'wedding feast' to our discretion.

My question is on the faith of my own church.  We have a playgroup which has taken everything over.  They have a youth group with children who do not attend, some atheist, but they use church money.  We’ve lost members, so church is no longer in the sanctuary but in the fellowship hall.  We had to go to a part-time minister; the ones taking over are homosexual, so all we hear about is about how they should be accepted, taking focus off of God and onto them; they do not accept my daughter and are rude to her, and she is at the age of great temptations.  We haven't attended for three Sundays.  Do you have any advice?  We have left and come back three times already.  Thank you.

Sincerely,
Fed Up

Dear Fed Up,

The local congregation’s work has always been very simple:

1. Teach the saved.
2. Preach to the lost.
3. When necessary, care for needy christians.

This congregation isn’t doing those things, and is instead doing all sorts of things that are opposed to Scriptures!

The clearest verse on the subject of the church’s purpose is in the book of Ephesians. Eph 4:12-16 points out that the church was designed, so that the saints would be ‘perfected’, for the ‘work of the ministry’, and for the ‘edifying (building up) of the body of Christ’.

The church of the New Testament is supposed to help prepare christians to be better christians by filling their minds with God’s Word. We see many examples of the church being busy with this kind of teaching and learning (Acts 2:42, Col 3:16). This is how christians are perfected (Col 1:28).

The church is also to be busy about the ‘work of ministry’ – preaching to the lost. Christ said He came to save sinners (1 Tim 1:15). One of His last commands to His apostles was to preach to the lost (Matt 28:18-20). Every congregation must be actively attempting to teach the Word of God to those who don’t understand it.

After preaching to the lost and teaching the saved, the only other work that we see an example of is caring for needy christians. Paul told Timothy there was a time to help out poor widowed christians (1 Tim 5:9-10). We also see the church in Jerusalem doing this (Acts 4:34-35)

The church is supposed to be the pillar and support of the truth (1 Tim 3:15).  These church isn’t.  You need to leave.  We would be happy to point you in the direction of a local congregation that puts the Bible as their guide and focus on worshipping God in spirit and in truth (Jhn 4:24).  If we can help, just e-mail us at askyourpreacher@mvchurchofchrist.org and we’ll try and get you in contact with a faithful group near you.