We see this fellowship meal throughout the New Testament. In Acts 2:46-47, we see that the early church just after being established shared in meals together. This practice was still in practice 20 years later as we can see in it being addressed in the chapter 11 in Corinthians. Jude also mentions the love feast in his letter which was written 30 years after the beginning of the church. The practice of sharing a meal together was practiced throughout the New Testament church, and I think it is something that we would benefit from today if we practiced it more regularly. So let us read together Paul's instructions to the Corinthian church in regards to how they should share their meal together.
In an examination of 1 Corinthians, we see that Corinthian church had a major problem with the divisions within the body. Throughout the book, these issues of division were revealed. From the very first chapter where in verse 12 Paul wrote, “One of you says, “I follow Paul'; another 'I follow Apollos'; another, 'I follow Cephas'; still another, 'I follow Christ.' All sorts of divisions manifested themselves in the Corinthian church.
In chapter 11, the divisions seemed to manifest themselves among economic lines and were exposed during the fellowship meal.
“For as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. Don't you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothings?”Verse 21 shows that some people are getting drunk while others remain hungry. Verse 22 mentions that those who were hungry were those “who have nothing”.
In order to properly understand chapter 11 and the struggle with the abuse of the Lord's Supper, we have to picture the fellowship meal as it was at that time of the early church because it is an almost forgotten practice in our time. For the early church, the fellowship meal was the intimate time of family gathering in which the sacrifice of Jesus was remembered and the unity of the church was proclaimed. Prior to the crucifixion, Jesus implemented the Lord's Supper during a meal with his disciples. This shared meal continued to be practiced throughout the early church. In I Corinthians 5:11, where Paul commanded the church not to eat with the immoral brother, Paul was telling them to not allow that guy into the fellowship meal. The fellowship meal was supposed to be the sacred time in which the eternal fellowship of believers actually peeked through the veil of eternity and manifested itself in our physical reality. The fellowship meal was the church gathering. It should not have been violated by a self-proclaimed believer who refused to stop living in an intentional and flagrant sin.
We find ourselves on the other side of history. At some point from the time of the early church to now, the important fellowship meal and its proclamation was discarded and the meal transformed into a token piece of unleavened bread and a sip of wine or grape juice. This happened to the detriment of the church because a result of the meal being thrown out was the eventual watering down of fellowship and a loss of its true meaning. No longer was the church a family that shared a meal together. They were just a collection of individuals who gathered together to worship and be educated. With the disappearance of the meal went the disappearance of near universal fellowship.
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2 comments:
I was familiar with background of the early church communal meal before this post, but I appreciate your research. I have also thought about this as well. Though this sort of meal seems to be the central gathering at newer house churches, how do you see it implemented in the churches that have reduced the Lord's "Supper" to a chicklet and shot of juice? Do you propose a complete dismantling of that particular church's tradition or perhaps adding something new and different?
In an ideal world, I would center the Sunday service around a shared meal. We would have to move to a more interactive sermon style, but that would be a good thing. The singing would still remain pretty much what it already is.
Most of our settings are not ideal. In these, change would have to be slowly brought about. In my Sunday School class last week, we talked about this subject. We are going to start meeting after church for a fellowship meal every week. Whether we will have a little discussion starter lesson is still up in the air. It will be for a trial time period to see if it is beneficial to the life of the church. My sermon this week is on this subject and we are going to open it up to anyone in the church that wishes to participate. Sadly, the Lord's Supper part of the fellowship meal will not be included in the meal, but we are trying to do what we can without dividing the church.
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