Who Is the Supper for and How Do We Fence the Table?
April 3, 2026
April 3, 2026
Abstract: Nick Gardner explains from Scripture that the Lord’s Supper is intended for believers only, and that these believers should be baptized members of a local church. Gardner encourages pastors to clearly explain who should and shouldn’t partake of the Lord’s Supper, a practice referred to as “fencing the table.” He emphasizes the importance of preaching the Word and meaningful membership as we fence the table, providing examples from church history and his own church context.
My eyes were scanning and then I noticed my friend John. Almost immediately, my mind churned with thoughts and questions:
I resolved to say something. I leaned over and whispered something like this: “You shouldn’t do this. This is not for you. I can explain more later.” John acquiesced. He didn’t take the Lord’s Supper.
Should I have warned my friend not to take the Lord’s Supper? It’s a good question. But it raises several other questions: who exactly is the Lord’s Supper for? Who should say who can partake of the Lord’s Supper? How can churches properly ensure that only the right people take the Lord’s Supper?
In this article, I hope to answer these questions and provide some helpful examples from church history (and the present day) as to how churches might serve the Lord’s Supper to the right people. This is what people have often called “fencing the table.”
The New Hampshire Confession of Faith defines the Lord’s Supper this way:
We believe that Christian Baptism . . . is prerequisite to the privileges of a church relation; and to the Lord’s Supper, in which the members of the church, by the sacred use of bread and wine, are to commemorate together the dying love of Christ; preceded always by solemn self-examination. (Article 14)
So, baptism leads to membership and membership is displayed, in part, through participation in the Lord’s Supper. The Supper itself makes use of bread and wine in order to represent what Jesus secured for us via his death—union with himself and one another.
As we saw in the New Hampshire Confession, the Supper is only for baptized church members. But why? Three criteria help us break that down. First, the partaker must be born-again. Regeneration is the formal qualification for partaking because partaking is an act of faith. Without faith, one can’t receive Christ in the Supper.
Second, the partaker must be baptized. The Lord’s Supper is a covenant sign for those who have professed faith through baptism. Baptism is the front door of the church, and the dining room is where you feast on the Supper. You must walk through the door to get to the dining room.
Third, the partaker must belong.11 .This point is shaped by Bobby Jamieson’s discussion of the relationship between church membership and the ordinances in Going Public (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2015), 138-139. That is, they must be accountable to a local church via something that looks like membership. The Lord’s Supper certainly strengthens the faith of individual believers, but it is not an exclusively individual event. Instead, the meal belongs to Christ’s gathered people—i.e., local churches. The local church, therefore, is the authorized agent for administering the Supper. Baptized believers have a right to the Lord’s Supper by virtue of their membership in the church.
So who is excluded from the Supper? Unbelievers, unbaptized believers, and unchurched believers should all be excluded.
At least two practices help pastors and churches properly fence the table.
First, preach the Word. The proclamation of the gospel is the foundation for the Lord’s Supper. Through a right understanding of the gospel which comes through preaching, the Lord’s Supper becomes a tangible, visible illustration of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—a visual sermon in itself. So, to properly fence the table, the gospel must be preached because the gospel is what explains the Table and qualifies who may come to it (Col. 1:13–14).
Second, practice meaningful church membership. Fencing the table begins in the interview process of a prospective member. That is where you, pastor, should ensure he or she understands the gospel, believes it, and has professed it through baptism. The other side of meaningful membership—church discipline—is also necessary in order to properly fence the table.
If your church is full of unrepentant sinners who Sunday after Sunday partake of the Supper as though it’s all okay, then you have a serious problem. This not only potentially deceives the partaker to their eternal detriment, but it also confuses the world on what it means to be a Christian. What lies between becoming a member and potentially disciplining members is discipling members. Through the ordinary means of grace, church members should grow to look more like Jesus.
You may be thinking, “Okay, Nick. I got preaching and membership, but what would it look like to actually fence the table?” To answer this, let’s survey three examples—two from the past and one from today.
In his Lord’s Supper liturgy, Calvin included words for both true believers and those who professed to believe but undermined their confession with their lifestyle. For the true believer, Calvin encouraged them to discern “whether he truly repent[ed] of his faults and is sorry for them.”22 .John Calvin, “Forms of Ecclesiastical Prayers” in Reformation Worship, 327. For the deceived unbeliever, however, Calvin actually issued an excommunication of sorts to be individually administered. Here is a sampling of that excommunication:
In the name and by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, I excommunicate all idolaters, blasphemers . . . all those who rebel against their father and mother . . . quarrelers, fighters, adulterers . . . hoarders of wealth . . . drunkards . . . gluttons, and all those who lead a scandalous life.33 .Calvin, “Forms,” 326.
From this, we may observe that Calvin rightly connects excommunication with the Lord’s Supper. That’s the essence of excommunication: public disfellowshipping through exclusion from the Lord’s Supper. This connection is in contrast with evangelical churches who have wrongly separated the Lord’s Supper from belonging to a church.
Also, it is interesting to note that Calvin loosely followed the Ten Commandments for determining who was disqualified from the Lord’s Supper. In other words, Calvin was not arbitrary in his judgments but rather adhered to biblical morality.
While Calvin is right in both regards, he wrongly assumed for himself and the other pastors the authority to excommunicate. This measure is inconsistent with the New Testament where the authority of the keys resides with the congregation (1 Cor 5:1–8).
So you may not want to follow Calvin’s model of publicly listing who may not take the Supper. And yet, his example does provoke us to think about how we might protect the Lord’s Supper from “pollut[ion] and contaminat[ion].”44 .Calvin, “Forms,” 326.
The Anglican Tradition is well known for its liturgy, especially the Book of Common Prayer, which is largely the work of English Reformer Thomas Cranmer. Like Calvin, Cranmer also included a word for the spiritually deceived in his “fencing of the table.” He would say:
If any of you here is a blasphemer, adulterer, or is in malice, or envy, or in any other grievous crime (except he is truly sorry, therefore and earnestly minded to leave the same vices, and trust himself to be reconciled to Almighty God . . . ), let him bewail his sins, and not come to that holy table.55 .Thomas Cranmer, “The Supper of the Lord, and the Holy Communion, Commonly Called the Mass” in the Book of Common Prayer (1549) in Reformation Worship, 366.
Here we see two distinct features in Cranmer’s “fencing” compared to Calvin’s. First, Cranmer speaks directly to the sinner and calls them to action. He doesn’t excommunicate them, but rather pushes them toward godly repentance. Secondly, Cranmer invites the penitent sinner who has committed such gross sins to be reconciled to God. The Supper is for repentant sinners.
Cranmer’s model here instructs us that no matter how scandalous the sin, if a sinner is truly repentant, he too can “take and eat.” So, the fencing of the table is an opportunity for you, pastor, to call the erring to repentance.
At my church on Capitol Hill, we prepare for the Supper by reading 1 Corinthians 11:27–29 aloud. After this reading, we issue an invitation and a soft fencing. Below are the words I used to fence the table when I led the Lord’s Supper recently:
We understand that this means that this table is open to you this evening if you are a baptized member of an evangelical church in good standing. That includes members of this church and members of other churches where the same gospel you’ve heard here is preached. If you’re allowed to take the Lord’s Supper there, then you’re welcome here. If you’re not sure, then you don’t need to feel any embarrassment. It’s our custom not to come forward, but for the elements to be brought to you. As the plate is passed along, you can simply let it pass by and use the time for prayer and reflection.
You may notice some stark differences between my church’s practice and Calvin and Cranmer’s. For starters, our fencing doesn’t focus as much on what the individual has done (i.e., their specific sins). Instead, we highlight membership in a local church. That said, we do fence the table against wrong believing and wrong living. By wrong believing, I mean those who believe a different gospel. By wrong living, I mean those who are not “members in good standing”; that is, those who have been excommunicated in our church or another church.
We also provide a category for people who are not sure where they stand spiritually. In their case, we encourage them not to feel any embarrassment but instead spend that time in reflection and prayer.
So however you fence the table, let me encourage you to preach the gospel clearly, practice meaningful membership, and learn from church history as well as from other churches around you. Finally, remember that the fence must have a gate. Don’t build the fence so high and thick that weak believers feel unable to partake in the Supper. Calvin is helpful here:
And since we are conscious of our much frailty and misery in ourselves . . . let us understand, therefore, that this Sacrament is a medicine for poor, spiritually sick people, and that the only worthiness that our Lord requires of us is to know ourselves well enough to be displeased with our vices and to find all our pleasure, joy, and contentment in him alone.66 .John Calvin, “Forms of Ecclesiastical Prayers” in Reformation Worship, 327.
Amen.