I’ve just had the privilege of spending a few days in the lovely Mediterranean island of Malta, leaving behind the grey skies of England and being dazzled by the sunshine and warmth of March there! The history of Malta is rich and varied, but by far the most significant event, according to the Maltese, not just according to me, is recorded in Acts 28:1-9: the account of Paul’s shipwreck on the island which led to the gospel being preached on the island and Christianity being introduced there. The gospel account is recorded in different languages on this monument in Ir-Rabat:

We went on a boat trip to the nearby island of Gozo and from there saw a statue of St Paul on the coast, commemorating his shipwreck (the place is now called ‘St Paul’s Bay’!)

Churches abound in Malta: this is St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta.

The domed church of Mosta, bombed during WW2, but no one was hurt as the bomb did not explode.

The church in Mdina.

Malta is evidence that one individual really can make a huge difference to a whole community. The island is full of beautiful churches, built by people of faith who were captivated by the message of Jesus first brought to the place by an apparent ‘accident’ of nature. Paul’s dedication in preaching the gospel wherever he went has reaped an enormous harvest. We should never underestimate the effect of one person’s testimony.

Pray for Malta, for each place needs an ongoing, living encounter with Jesus, not just an encounter with history. We had the privilege of witnessing the start of a service in Mosta, full of young school children eager to participate in the Easter story. Students from nearby Mattersey Bible College will be going on a mission to Malta very soon; pray they will be a blessing and help to Maltese Christians and there will be an ongoing harvest in that beautiful place.

This morning, Stephen reminded us that God knows us by name and gives us a new name. Tonight, Mark reminded us that choosing a name can be a difficult thing for parents-to-be! At tonight’s dedication service, we had the privilege of dedicating Tatijana to God, acknowledging her as a gift from God to her parents (Ps 127:3-5).

Children are a blessing and a commitment to parents. Christian parents have a responsibility to pray for their children, to discipline them and to bring them up to fear and know the Lord. Parenting will one day mean letting go of these children, but we can entrust them to God who cares for them and sees them all the days of their lives.

In Matt 19:13-15, we see people bringing children to Jesus for Him to bless them. The disciples were not keen on this, believing He was too busy to be bothered with children, but Jesus always has time for children. Jesus wanted to bless them and part of the dedication service involves asking for God’s blessing and direction on the whole family, but especially this new addition!

Children are biologically linked to their parents and will show traits of their parents in many ways. In the same way, by God’s Spirit, we are linked to the DNA of God and are growing to reflect His image. As parents, we promise before God to honour Him in every aspect of our lives and ask for His help in raising children; as a church, we commit to praying for every family within our wider body and supporting them in whatever ways are possible. Ultimately, we are grateful for God’s unconditional love and blessing for us all!

Our prayer is for every child and young person ultimately to come to know the Lord in a personal relationship and we baptise those who make that personal decision of faith.

We had five birthdays to celebrate this week!

Once we come to know God, something amazing happens. We realise that we are known by name, and God actually gives us a new name.

In the show ‘Walk On The Wild Side’, animals are given human voices and it’s difficult sometimes to tell one animal from another (listen to these marmots getting confused between names here!)

This is never the case with God, however. He knows us personally and adopts us into His family, giving us a new name, even as He changed Abram’s name to Abraham, Jacob’s to Israel and Simon’s to Peter. Their life-changing encounters with God resulted in new names.

Is 62 tells us how God will change our names from ‘deserted’ and ‘desolate’ to ‘Hephzibah’ (‘my delight is in her’) and ‘Beulah’ (‘married’). When God is introduced into our lives, a radical change comes over us and we gain a new identity and name in Him.

1 Cor 11:27 (‘So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord’) has left many Christians under a cloud of condemnation and guilt. How can we ever know if we are taking Communion worthily? At times, this leads people so afraid of God’s wrath and judgment that they refuse to take the emblems of bread and wine.

One Bible commentator says “[There is a dangerous misconception that] people are ‘unworthy’ if they have any sin in their lives, or have committed sins during the past week. This in turn resulted in reading verse 28 personally and introspectively, so that the purpose of one’s self-examination was to become worthy of the Table, lest one come under judgment. The tragedy of such an interpretation for countless thousands, both in terms of a foreboding of the Table and guilt for perhaps having partaken unworthily, is incalculable.” (Fee)

We have to understand that whilst it is good to examine our hearts and confess our sins, we are then able to receive God’s forgiveness. If self-examination leads us to believe we are too sinful to take Communion, we have misunderstood the nature of grace. Similarly, if it leads us to believe we ‘deserve’ to take Communion, we have failed to understand God’s grace. The emphasis Paul places on taking Communion in this chapter reminds us of the corporate nature of this love feast; it’s not meant to be a stick to beat us with. ‘We are only worthy because Christ has made us worthy. We need to partake feeling unworthy to do so. This attitude is part of what it means to partake in a worthy manner.’ (Keith Krell, bible.org) We are people who can live without condemnation (Rom 8:1) because of all Christ has done for us, not because of what we have done; God ‘has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.’ (Eph 1:3-4)

Paul’s concern with the Corinthian church is that the factions and disunity in the church there effectively undermine the unifying, redemptive purpose of Christ’s death. He wants us to look back and remember all Christ has done for us and look forward with eager anticipation to His coming again, but he knows that the greatest commandments are to love God whole-heartedly and to love others as we love ourselves. This the Corinthians were clearly not doing. Loving God can never be divorced from loving people (1 John 3:15-18).

‘When we partake of a piece of the bread from one loaf, as a gathered church, we not only symbolise our union with Christ in His atoning work, but our union with His “body,” the church. We symbolise that we all, together, constitute the body of Christ, and that we are all equal sharers in the saving work of Christ. We profess not only our unity but our equality. We are all one body, and we all have equal standing in that body. It is by virtue of His work at Calvary that we are saved. No one is more saved or less saved than anyone else in the body of Christ.’ (Bob Deffinbaugh)

Having dealt with the question of gender issues in 1 Cor 11:1-16, Paul moves on to tackle other aspects of corporate worship in Corinth which left much to be desired (1 Cor 11:17-34).

In matters regarding the Lord’s Supper, Paul sees little to commend the church (1 Cor 11:17, 22). The initial unity and fellowship of the early church (Acts 2:44-47) had broken down in Corinth, with the ‘love feasts’ (fellowship meals incorporating the breaking of bread) becoming little more than an excuse for over-indulgence and drunkenness, with the rich eating their own food and not even waiting for slaves to arrive. This disregard for fellow believers and lack of love and respect troubled Paul enormously, for the sacrament of the Eucharist originated from the last meal Jesus shared with His disciples before His crucifixion (see Matt 26:17-35, Mark 14:12-31, Luke 22:7-38) and was the opportunity to remember His great sacrifice for us all. The relationship between people in the Body of Christ is of paramount importance (Matt 5: 23-24), so to act in so unloving a manner meant this was not actually celebrating the Lord’s Supper properly at all (1 Cor 11:20) C. K. Barrett writes, ‘The Christian Supper was founded on the sacrificial death of Jesus, an act of divine deliverance by which sins were forgiven and a new covenant set up between God and men, who, being reconciled to God, were now united among themselves.’ If this unity (for which Jesus prayed in John 17) is not evident in our relationships, however, we run the risk of being disciplined by God (1 Cor 11:29-30). If factions and divisions proliferate, we are undermining the very sacrifice of Christ which is for all people, regardless of gender, wealth or status.

Discipline is God’s way of demonstrating that we are legitimate children (Heb 12:5-11), but Paul’s advice is for us to ‘examine ourselves’ so as avoid condemnation and judgment. He wants us (in this aspect, as in every other aspect he has considered so far) to treat everyone equally; respect each other; eat together and be devoted to one another in love (see Rom 12:10, Phil 2:3-4).