At what point is a child mature enough to examine his or her own heart to see whether or not he or she is discerning the body or not? Certainly, there is absolutely no reason why we would ever assume that an infant could examine his or her own heart with any sort of conscious maturity. This is not to say that an infant cannot be regenerate by the sovereign working of the Holy Spirit. David , Jeremiah and John the Baptist are all examples of those regenerate from the womb (Ps. 22:9; Jer. 1:5; Luke 1:15, 41). We may all agree that a 3 or 4 year old may have a sincere profession of faith in Christ (and may be savingly united to the Redeemer); but, we may disagree about whether or not he or she is mature enough to discern the body in the Supper.

Since the practice of the Lord’s Supper has regained something of a focused treatment online in recent days, I thought it might be advantageous to focus on another important aspect of the Lord’s Supper–namely, how and when should we bring our children to the Table. In doctrinally serious churches, welcoming the children of believers to the Lord’s Supper is one of the most important elements of the life of the church. It is also one of the most difficult and widely debated matters.

On one side of the debate are those who believe that the children of believers should be well into their teenage years prior to bringing them to the table. On the another side of the debate are those who want to bring their children to the table at infancy or an extremely young age. In between these two extremes are those many churches that have a confirmation class to prepare the children of believers doctrinally and then bring them to the table when they are in their latter adolescence or early teenage years. There are also those churches that encourage the parents to work closely with their children and then to bring them to the elders of the church when they believe that they might be ready to be examined for communing membership in the church. We might call this view the “parent-elder conference” approach. I have personally adopted this latter approach over the years, because every child is at a different spiritual stage. Therefore, parents should work closely with the pastor/elders of the church to determine when each child should be welcomed to the table.

Part of the difficulty we face when approaching this subject is that the Scriptures do not give us an age with which we may reasonably resolve the tension. Rather, the Scriptures give us general principles to which we must adhere–principles that require a great deal of wisdom. For instance, the Apostle Paul–in 1 Corinthians 11:27-32–gives warnings to the members of the church. Each member must be able to examine himself or herself prior to partaking of the bread and the wine. At what point is a child mature enough to examine his or her own heart to see whether or not he or she is discerning the body or not? Certainly, there is absolutely no reason why we would ever assume that an infant could examine his or her own heart with any sort of conscious maturity. This is not to say that an infant cannot be regenerate by the sovereign working of the Holy Spirit. David , Jeremiah and John the Baptist are all examples of those regenerate from the womb (Ps. 22:9; Jer. 1:5; Luke 1:15, 41). We may all agree that a 3 or 4 year old may have a sincere profession of faith in Christ (and may be savingly united to the Redeemer); but, we may disagree about whether or not he or she is mature enough to discern the body in the Supper. We are to be looking for both sincerity and maturity.

Read More