On the Lord's Supper during quarantine. Been thinking. A question:

If "when you come together" throughout I Cor 11 requires physical proximity for the Lord's Supper, why doesn't "when you come together" in I Cor 14:26 require physical proximity for singing and/or teaching?

(Here's the verse:

"What then, brothers? WHEN YOU COME TOGETHER, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up."

I Cor. 14:26)

I'm sympathetic to concerns about celebrating the Supper via an online service. I worry about its sacredness not being fully appreciated, and other practical matters. But arguments that the practice is necessarily "against the Bible" seem to me to rest on two assumptions:

1) that what is described in I Cor. 10-11 is *essential* to the Supper. There are no exceptions or alternatives. That could be right, but needs to be demonstrated. (By the same hermeneutic, e.g., people argue that using one loaf is essential to the Supper [I Cor. 10:17].)

2) that physical proximity (an "in the same building" kind of gathering) is *necessary* for the gathering/unity of the church. Again, that could be right, but must be demonstrated. I think we need greater hermeneutical self-awareness in going from descriptive to prescriptive.

Related to this second point, there seems to be some confusion in equating "private communion/Mass" (which the WCF opposed) with online communion. An online communion can involve the church *in its entirety.* It is not "private" in the sense WCF is talking about.

The issue here, as I see it, is not whether the Supper is a shared meal, but whether physical proximity is necessary for it to be "shared."

That is good and difficult question, and I think we should have patience for differing views, in a Rom. 14 kind of way.