Readers of Ordained Servant may recall that about two years ago I wrote an enthusiastic review of Harrison Perkins’s Reformed Covenant Theology: A Systematic Introduction. I was equally enthused to receive his recent volume, Take and Eat. I am a proponent of frequent communion myself and published some thoughts on the matter here in Ordained Servant some years ago (“Why Weekly Communion?” Ordained Servant 17 (2008): 107–112). I therefore expected to be pleased to read what Dr. Perkins had to say about the matter, and I was not at all disappointed. The book unfolds in five brief chapters: “What Is the Celebration of the Lord’s Supper?” “The Place to Celebrate the Lord’s Supper,” “The Pattern for Celebrating the Lord’s Supper,” “The Blessing in Celebrating the Lord’s Supper,” and “The Manner to Celebrate the Lord’s Supper.” While the book is good in all the ways that books—especially theological ones—ought to be good, there are three peculiar virtues of this book that make it an unusual contribution to the Christian, and especially Reformed, community: its brevity, its clarity, and its strategy.

This little volume is brief, yet surprisingly thorough. The reader has no sense that the author feels obliged to demonstrate his familiarity with everything ever written about the Supper or its frequent observance. Perkins judiciously selected from his thorough knowledge of Scripture and theology the matters that might be most helpful to people thinking about the Lord’s Supper. Busy officers in the church will easily find the time it takes to read the book; just as importantly, laypeople will benefit from it as well; indeed, it would be well for churches to study the book as part of the regular adult education in the churches (including in such education precocious younger people). Readers need not have a theological education to read the book with real benefit; I will be delighted if it becomes one of the most-frequently-read books in the churches over the next several years. A convincing argument need not always be a lengthy argument, and the persuasiveness of Perkins’s reasoning is greatly aided by the brevity of the book.

The book is also remarkably clear. When a book is well-written, the reader often does not notice how well-written it is, because clear prose calls attention to its subject, not to itself. This volume excels in its clarity; theology students ought to read it, if only to learn how to write clear theology without pedantry or obfuscation. Part of the reason the volume is so persuasive is due to its prose being so transparent; the reader reads through the prose to see the matter at hand. Many readers, whatever conclusions they reach, will find it to be the clearest book about the Supper they have ever read; and some will even find it to be the clearest religious book they have ever read. Congregations that study the book together will have few, if any, discussions about what Perkins has said; their discussions will be about the matter itself, to wit: the nature of the Supper and the frequency of its observance.

The strategy of the book distinguishes it from other books about the Supper and/or its frequency. The emphasis throughout the book underlies the entirety of the book but is overtly articulated in the fourth chapter: “The Blessing in Celebrating the Lord’s Supper.” Those of us who are proponents of frequent-weekly-regular communion tend to go straight to exegesis, systematic theology, or historical theology; Perkins throughout the book emphasizes the rich, multi-dimensional blessedness of the Supper. Two results emerge from this emphasis on the Supper’s blessedness. One result is that even churches that do not change the frequency of the Supper will surely come to appreciate the Supper—and the Savior who instituted it—more than they had before. The second result of this emphasis is that it shifts what the late Peter L. Berger called “plausibility structures.” Readers who appreciate Perkins’s description of the blessedness of the Supper will find themselves therefore in a different posture, intellectually, when they consider the matter of its frequency. Rather than ask, “Why should we celebrate the Supper frequently?” they will ask, “Why shouldn’t we celebrate the Supper frequently?” Perkins deftly kills two birds with a single stone by emphasizing the blessedness of the Lord’s Supper, by helping all to appreciate its blessedness more than they had before, and by inclining some to be more open (therefore) to a more-frequent observance. In my own teaching and writing about the Supper through the years, I did not have the wisdom to approach the matter as Perkins has approached it; I went straight for the biblical and exegetical jugular, as it were, without realizing that for many people, the posture towards the blessedness of the Supper itself needed to change before they could consider fairly the considerations regarding its frequency. I happily stand corrected by Dr. Perkins’s approach, which was and is superior to mine.

I recommend this gem of a book enthusiastically; all its readers will benefit by a greater appreciation of what a blessed gift the Supper is to the bride of Christ, and some will be motivated to consider a more-frequent observance of it. All will gain, and none will lose, and I heartily commend it to all.

T. David Gordon is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is a retired professor of religion and Greek at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania. Ordained Servant Online, November–December, 2026