Since I was just chipping away at the book one essay at a time, it took me a while to finally finish Knots Untied, the collection of essays by J.C. Ryle that I have been reading and commenting on here in the last several weeks. In an essay on the Lord's Supper, Ryle raises the question of what is to function as the primary element of worship. Some Protestants, particularly evangelicals, have a tendency to elevate the preaching of the Word as the primary element, sandwiched between a few songs. In some cases, the preaching and the music occupy such a place that almost everything else becomes unimportant and worship loses its character altogether.

Anglicanism, the context in which Ryle is writing, tends in two directions (at least among those who hold convictions about such things): Anglo-Catholics tend to view the Eucharist as the pinnacle of worship, while evangelicals align themselves with the Reformed perspective, which takes the preaching of Scripture as primary. Ryle's essay, written from an evangelical perspective, attempts to demonstrate that the Anglo-Catholic position is unwarranted. He comments:

Like the ark of God in the Old Testament, this blessed sacrament has a proper position and rank among Christian ordinances, and, like the ark of God, it may easily be put in the wrong one. The history of that ark will readily recur to our minds. Put in the place of God, and treated like an idol, it did the Israelites no good at all... Treated with reverence and respect, it brought a blessing... It is even so with the Lord's Supper.—Placed in its right position, it is an ordinance full of blessing. The great question to be settled is,—What is that position?

...The Lord's Supper is not in its right place, when it is made the first, foremost, principle, and most important thing in Christian worship. That it is so in many quarters, we all must know... The sermon, the mode of conducting prayer, the reading of 'holy Scripture,' in many churches are made second to this one thing,—the administration of the Lord's Supper.—We may ask, 'What warrant of Scripture is there for this extravagant honour?' but we shall get no answer... To thrust the Lord's Supper forward, till it towers over and overrides everything else in religion, is giving it a position for which there is no authority in God's Word.

If you are looking to Scripture for evidence, as Ryle suggests, it is hard to miss the prominent place that the preaching of the Word holds in the ministry to which Christ calls his people. Ryle notes further on that the New Testament speaks with relative infrequency about the Supper in comparison with how often it speaks of and gives examples of the verbal presentations of the gospel. Looking to Luke and Acts, for example, it is time and time again the proclamation of the gospel that brings people to repentance and faith. Even in Jesus' own ministry, his making known the presence of the Kingdom through miracles and healings was always secondary to his announcements that the Kingdom of God was at hand.

The focus of Ryle's essay, as I mentioned above, is merely to demonstrate that the Lord's Supper should not hold the place it does in high church Anglicanism. However, he does not end up sharing his thoughts on its place and significance. This is unfortunate because the tendency in evangelicalism is to go too far in reacting to the excesses of those they deem to be making an idol of the sacrament, and they in turn undermine its value and partake of it far too infrequently. Would Ryle align himself with John Calvin, who rightly stressed that the Supper should always accompany the preaching of the Word because it is a visible representation of the gospel?

It is important to remember that Jesus' institution of the Supper before his death and resurrection is of enormous significance for the church. Too often evangelicals forget this an adopt a view of the Supper that reduces it to a mere memorial. The invitation to the table is an invitation to enter into intimate communion with Christ. It is an invitation to "taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps. 34:8). It is an invitation to be united with Christ by physically partaking of the elements. It is an invitation to have a foretaste of the coming marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:6-10). It is an invitation to receive—not just to remember—his grace.