Arthur Gonçalves
Aug 13, 2025
Teaching Series on Weekly Communion (Part Two)
Learning from the Church Through the Ages
In our last article, we saw from Scripture why weekly communion is a biblical pattern, joining the ministry of the Word with the ministry of the Table each Lord’s Day. But the question naturally arises: Did the church after the apostles practice this?
The answer is yes. From the earliest days after the New Testament period, through the centuries of church history, and even into the Protestant Reformation, the regular—often weekly—celebration of the Lord’s Supper has been the norm for many faithful churches.
We look to history not as our final authority (Scripture alone holds that place), but as a valuable witness. When God’s people across centuries and cultures have seen fit to practice something consistently, it should make us pause and consider.
1. The Early Church: The First and Second Centuries
The earliest extra-biblical writings we have bear clear witness to frequent communion.
The Didache (late 1st or early 2nd century), a manual for church life, instructs:
“On the Lord’s Day, after you have come together, break bread and give thanks…” (Didache 14)
The Didache assumes the Lord’s Day gathering includes the breaking of bread. It also insists that only baptized believers partake, protecting the sacredness of the Table.
Justin Martyr (c. 100–165 AD) gives one of the clearest descriptions in his First Apology:
“On the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place… bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings… and there is a distribution to each.” (Ch. 67)
For Justin, the Table was central to Sunday worship—readings, preaching, prayer, and the Supper formed a single liturgy.
Other early fathers like Ignatius of Antioch even called the Supper “the medicine of immortality,” showing that they saw it as a vital means of grace, not an optional extra.
2. The Patristic Period: Third to Fifth Centuries
Church fathers across the ancient world testify to the Supper’s regular—often weekly—place in worship.
Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 313–386) told new believers:
“After having partaken of the body of Christ, approach also to the cup of His blood… each is made a partaker of the body and blood of Christ.” (Catechetical Lectures, 23)
Augustine (354–430) spoke of communion as a frequent and expected practice, sometimes daily, certainly weekly. While his theology of presence began to lean toward later medieval views, he maintained that the wicked may receive the elements but do not partake of Christ’s body without faith.
In this era, the Supper was guarded closely: only baptized believers were admitted, and it was administered by the church’s ordained leaders, typically with deacons distributing.
3. The Medieval Church: Continuity and Change
The medieval church kept the Table at the center of worship, but serious theological errors developed.
The doctrine of transubstantiation—the idea that the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ—was formally defined in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council. Alongside this came concomitance (Christ is wholly present in each element), leading to the laity often receiving bread only, while clergy drank the cup.
While lay participation declined (sometimes to once a year), the structure of worship remained centered on a weekly Table, showing how deeply embedded the instinct for Word-and-Table worship was in Christian life.
4. The Protestant Reformation: A Call Back to the Table
The Reformers rejected both the corrupt theology and the impoverished practice of medieval Catholicism, returning to a biblical view of the Supper as a means of grace, received by faith.
John Calvin (1509–1564) advocated weekly communion:
“The Lord’s Table should be spread at least once a week for the assembly of Christians…” (Institutes, 4.17.43)
Although Geneva’s council limited him to quarterly observance, Calvin’s vision was clear: the Table belongs alongside the preaching of the Word every Lord’s Day.
The English Puritans, including Richard Baxter, also desired frequent communion:
“If we might have it weekly, I would take it as a great mercy; for it is the most solemn ordinance of God for our comfort on earth.” (The Reformed Pastor)
5. Baptist History: The Early Particular Baptists
The 17th-century English Particular Baptists often practiced weekly communion. The 1689 London Baptist Confession reflects a theology that naturally fits frequent observance:
“The supper of the Lord Jesus was instituted… for the perpetual remembrance and showing forth the sacrifice of Himself in His death… and to be a bond and pledge of their communion with Him, and with each other.” (LBCF 30.1)
For them, the Supper was part of the covenantal life of the church, not an occasional ceremony.
Standing in a Long Line
When we move toward weekly communion, we are not inventing something new—we are recovering an ancient rhythm.
From the Didache to Justin Martyr, from Augustine to Calvin, from the early Baptists to today, the people of God have recognized the goodness of gathering each Lord’s Day to hear the gospel and then taste it.
Our aim, like theirs, is that every week, the gospel would be proclaimed to our ears and sealed to our hearts until the day we drink it new with Christ in His Father’s kingdom (Matthew 26:29).
Next in This Series: In our final article, we will explore why weekly communion will deepen our grasp of the gospel, strengthen our unity, and help your elders shepherd your souls more faithfully.
Sources
For Weekly Communion – Heidelblog, November 2022. https://heidelblog.net/2022/11/for-weekly-communion/
Matthew Wiersma, A Historical Overview of the Lord’s Supper – Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary. https://cbtseminary.org/a-historical-overview-of-the-lords-supper-matthew-wiersma/
Reformed Theologians on the Frequency of Communion: Past & Present – Reformed Presbyterian Church of Matthews. https://www.rpcmatthews.org/articles/reformed-theologians-on-the-frequency-of-communion-past-amp-present