Why hasn’t your session examined your children? If they are in favor of paedocommunion, I don’t see how they would have a problem setting up a meeting between each of your children to admit them to the Table. Have you asked them to do this?

here (pdf) is a link to the PCAs decision on the issue, and it is a ‘No’. However, different presbyteries handle it in different ways. Some allow sessions to examine children a very young… sometimes even as young as two years old. I would have trouble, though, with a session that simply disregarded entirely the judgment of the GA on the matter. And I say that as one that disagrees with their judgment.

Your comment, “How can you argue with 1 Corinthians 11:27-34″ reveals an ignorance of the actual paedocommunion argument. I would suggest you read the PCA minority report in favor of paedocommunion (which is included in the above document, and begins on page 502 (or the sixth page of the document)).

Very briefly, I would argue that 1 Cor 11 requires nothing that a baby cannot satisfy. They are worthy partakers. The word translated ‘examine’ is dokimazo, and would be better translated as ‘prove’ (as in 1 Cor. 3:13; 2 Cor. 13:5, etc.). Thus, the text is not required some sort of intellectual standard of doctrinal integrity. Rather, Paul is requiring the saints to love and serve one another, and their behavior is how they show their qualification for the Supper. The Corinthians were dividing the church by failing to recognize the poor and needy. Paul’s solution, then, is not to require a high level of maturity and doctrinal precision, but rather to wait for one another.

I’m pretty sure the method your church uses to practice communion has a long history in the church. I prefer passing the bread, and then all partaking together also. But I don’t think what you described is a violation of Paul’s exhortation to wait for one another. The problem in Corinth was that some people didn’t have anything at all, and others were getting drunk they had so much. I don’t think that’s what is going on at your church.

First off, I don’t think you’ve defined paedocommunion acceptably. I think Peter Leithart did a fine job defining the position in the AA/FV Colloquium book.

You said it was “believing that you can give communion to children before they are accepted as church members”. This I utterly reject, and actually don’t know any pro-paedocommunion individual that would accept it. No one believes that anyone outside the church should be given the Supper. No, the point of paedocommunion is that young baptized children are Christians. They are members of Christ’s Church just as fully as the adults sitting around them. The children are church members, and that is exactly why it is argued they should be given the Bread and the Cup.

The second point I want to make is that your entire critique of the paedocommunion position applies just as forcefully to paedobaptism. Why do parents get to decide when their child is going to be baptized? Why isn’t it the session’s duty to dictate when, precisely, after birth any given child will be baptized? I know in my church (which isn’t PCA, but I can’t imagine it being different at any run of the mill PCA) some babies are baptized within a week of being born, and others don’t until they are one or two montsh old. Some even older. Sometimes it is health issues that put off the baptism, other times it has to do with when extended family can travel to be at the rite. Are all of these things failures on the elder’s part to maintain the purity of the sacraments? Your criticism, if valid, applies just as directly and forcefully to paedobaptism.

Moving on, let us consider adult members in the church. Is it a failure for elders to uphold their responsibilities when an adult individual in the church chooses, for whatever reason, not to partake on a given Sunday? Regardless of whether they should or not, they are making a decision that you don’t appear to believe should be made by individuals… only by the session. Right?

I agree with you that fathers are not elders. There is a division between household government and church government. Being a father does not give me the right to decide when my child is worthy to partake of the Lord’s Supper. The Church has that authority, and when the child was baptized, the Church affirmed what God declared in the baptism… that the child is admitted into the Church, signified and sealed in the covenant of grace, ingrafted into Christ, regenerated, forgiven his sins, and is committed to God through Christ to walk in newness of life. Isn’t that what the Church is saying about a person when they baptize them?

No, as a practicer of paedocommunion, I make no decision regarding the worthiness of my children. That decision was made by God when He granted the children to me and they were born into a covenant home, and when they were baptized, personally and individually receiving the promises of God regarding the blessing of the covenant.

Also, even in the understanding of paedocommunion you presented (where a dad just decides his child can have communion, and so gives it to him at the next opportunity–which is not how it actually happens in my experience, btw), the father does not take on the responsibility of ensuring the purity of the sacraments. That lies solely on the shoulders of the session. It is the session’s responsibility to know who is partaking, and whether or not they are qualified to partake. IF the dad thinks its okay, and just gives it to the child, but the session doesn’t agree… it is their responsibility to intervene. The responsibility doesn’t magically transfer to the father just because he is usurping on the authority of the elders.

God Bless-