The Lord’s Supper and Healing

As I have continued to reflect on Pentecost this year I went back to Veli-Matti Karkkainen’s chapter “The Pentecostal View” in The Lord’s Supper: Five Views when he suggests, “in keeping with ancient Christian tradition in which the Eucharist was depicted as pharmakon or medicine, Pentecostals at times envision partaking in the Lord’s Supper as a place of healing” (126).  Karkkainen goes on to quote Pentecostal theologian Simon Chan who comments, “To believe in the Spirit-filled church means that the charismata operate freely within the life of the church, especially in the eucharistic event when the action of the Spirit is particularized.  In short, the holy communion should be the best occasion for prayers of reconciliation and healing to take place” (128).

I’ll save my understanding of this for a future post.  How do you understand the interaction between the Lord’s Supper and healing?

Be Sociable, Share!
Posted by on May 8, 2010 in Communion, Theology | 1 comment

1 Comment

  1. Ken
    May 3, 2011

    Thanks for sharing that post. I grew up Pentecostal and then got turned on to Reformed theology and moved to South East Asia and I’m now in the Anglican church (liturgical church!). I love both Karkkainen and Chan’s writings and have read almost all of both published works and have met and talked with Simon Chan. He’s really a gracious guy and hopefully he keeps writing more on liturgy in trinitarian and pentecostal perspectives, because I’ve greatly benefited from his and Karkkainen’s work.

    Respond

Submit a Comment