By Editor Bob Terry
The word “transubstantiation” is not a welcome word in evangelical circles. It usually refers to the Roman Catholic belief that when a prayer of consecration is pronounced over the elements of the Lord’s Supper — the bread and the wine — the elements become the actual body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Roman Catholic scholars argue this is consistent with a literal reading of the biblical accounts of the Lord’s Supper as recorded in the Gospels.
Baptists and Protestants, generally, view the elements of the Lord’s Supper as symbols that point to a reality beyond themselves. When Jesus passed the bread and the cup at the Last Supper, He gave them meaning by tying them to what was about to transpire.
His body would be given for lost humanity. His blood would be poured out as a once-for-all offering for sin.
The argument between substance and symbol is not new. The early church fathers disagreed. Origen and Clement of Alexandria supported the supper as symbol. John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nyssa were among those on the substance side.
It was not until the 13th century that transubstantiation became the official teaching of the church in the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. But that did not stop debate. John Wycliffe and John Huss were two who rejected the teaching. Most of the Reformation leaders, including Martin Luther, John Calvin and Anabaptist leader Ulrich Zwingli, rejected the teaching as well.
While agreement on the nature of the elements of the Lord’s Supper will not happen anytime soon, there is another part of worship where Christians might find agreement on the use of the term “transubstantiation.” That is the act of giving. No, the tithes and offerings presented to the Lord through the offering plate do not become the body and blood of Jesus.
But there is a sense in which the nature of the money is drastically transformed from one substance to another, and that is the meaning of transubstantiation according to the dictionary. In local churches, individual Christians regularly and obediently present their tithes and offerings as acts of worship. Churches then use part of the money received to sustain pastors and other ministers who give themselves to the work of the gospel.
In a real sense, the tithes and offerings flow into human personalities. The dollars make it possible for God-called men and women to devote themselves completely to God’s service. These ministers are instruments of proclamation, ministry and missions in the Lord’s Kingdom. They are there because of the tithes and offerings given by God’s people. In a sense, money equals ministry and that is quite a transformation.
Alabama Baptist churches practice cooperative giving. This allows churches to join with sister churches in channeling part of their tithes and offerings to causes beyond themselves. Once again, the transformation takes place.
Tithes and offerings become youth evangelism conferences, leadership-training events, marriage-enrichment retreats. The funds become counseling sessions for a minister’s family in crisis, a state missionary helping a church in a changing neighborhood, a temporary meeting facility for a burned church.
The money placed in the offering plates of churches becomes an emergency shelter for children, a Baptist campus minister at a state university, a resource tool for Sunday School teachers and much more.
The changes represented by these examples are not changes in degree. They are changes in kind. The tithes and offerings given to God are transformed into something entirely new. That is the meaning of transubstantiation.
Cooperative giving makes it possible for funds to be transformed into proclamation, ministry and missions around the world. The primary channel of cooperative giving for Alabama Baptists is called the Cooperative Program. Again money flows into personalities who are yielded to God’s service. We call them missionaries. Some serve in various parts of this nation. Most serve on international fields. Some serve openly. Some serve where the culture is hostile to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some live in apartments and drive cars. Some live in tents, ride horses or in boats or walk between remote villages.
No matter the circumstances of service, these missionaries represent the transformed results of regular and obedient giving by Christians in their local church. So do the new believers in Christ, those who are led to the Lord because of the work of yielded lives able to invest themselves in full-time service because of the giving of fellow Christians.
Transubstantiation — changing money into proclamation, ministry and missions — can be seen in any local church. But such changes are possible across Alabama, across America and across our world only as Christians join together in the transforming method of cooperative giving.
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