Phillips, Bobby

Unfortunately in 2018 Mr. Phillips resolutely apostatized to Eastern Orthodoxy, though this does not affect the quality of the articles below.

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Articles

The Cup of Blessing: an Analysis of 1 Cor. 10:16-17, 2014, 15 pages, with objections answered in a another 10 pages

1 Cor. 10:16 speaks of the cup in the Lord’s Supper as singular.  Is there a spiritual principle that this passage is prescribing?  Yes.  The following verse (v. 17) can be translated as: “Because [it is] one loaf, we many are one body: for we are all partakers of that one loaf.”  This teaches that the numerical one-ness of the common loaf (and hence common cup as the loaf denotes the whole supper), symbolizes our unity together as the one body of Christ as we partake of Christ’s one sacrifice on the cross.  

This sense of the verses was common in the reformation age.  It was the translation of Martin Luther’s German Bible, the 1602 Spanish Bible, the 1637 Dutch Bible, the 1707 French Bible.  Today it is translation of the 1995 NASB and 2011 ESV Bibles.      

Commentators that have interpreted 1 Cor. 10:17 as speaking of a common loaf, and by implication a common cup, include: John Calvin, The Genevan Bible Notes (1560), Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, John Gill and others.

Divide it Among Yourselves, 2014, 14 paragraphs

Phillips addresses the question of whether serving prepared individual cups fulfills the command of Christ to “take this [singular cup] and divide it among yoursevles,” (Lk. 22:17).  Phillips carefully expounds and preserves the teaching of this verse and illustrates it from history at the Westminster Assembly.

Many Grapes in One Vessel: The Common Cup in Reformed History, 2014, 43 pages

Phillips demonstrates the widespread practice of using a Common Cup in the Lord’s Supper through the history of the protestant reformation, and how the reformers were continuing the theology of the early church in understanding the Common Cup to represent the unity of believers sharing in the one sacrifice of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16-17).  

The article includes numerous primary source materials translated for the first time into English from reformers such as Bucer, Farel, Olevianus, Laski, Daille, Lavatar, Weiss, and Huysinga, amongst others.

Introduction to Gillespie’s Of the Use of a Table in the Lord’s Supper, 2013, four paragraphs 

A helpful introduction to the context of the Westminster Directory of Public Worship and Gillespie’s classic work.