Shawn Lazar

Associate Editor
Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society

What role did eating play in the NT church? While that may not seem like a particularly interesting question, my growing conviction is that theology should emphasize what the Bible emphasizes, and there are at least eight important connections between eating and a healthy NT church life. This article will survey eight ways that the otherwise common act of eating ought to be a part of that life.

I. EATING AND FELLOWSHIP

First, eating was an expression of fellowship between believers. “One of the simplest and the oldest acts of fellowship in the world is that of eating together,” William Barclay said. “To share a common meal, especially if the act of sharing the meal also involves the sharing of a common memory, is one of the basic expressions of human fellowship.”¹ That expression is evident throughout the NT.

For example, eating with others was such a prominent mark of Jesus’ ministry that it became a source of criticism. Religious leaders faulted Jesus for eating with “tax collectors and sinners” (Mark 2:16) and spread the rumor that He was too gluttonous to be a genuine prophet (Matt 11:19). Jesus obviously ate with a wide variety of people.² Pohl noted that both Jesus’ teaching on hospitality (e.g., Luke 14:12-14) and His practice challenged “narrow definitions and dimensions of hospitality and presses them outward to include those with whom one least desires to have connections.”³ Eating was an expression of how radical Christian fellowship could be, reaching to people who would normally be outcasts.

And the Lord’s pattern of eating with others for ministry was followed by the first believers:

And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers…So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart (Acts 2:42, 46).

Notice the apostles continued steadfastly in both doctrine and in “the breaking of bread.” Keener explains that this is “a metonymy for a meal” which “presumably includes the Lord’s Supper.”⁴ The Lord’s Supper expressed both the believer’s participation in Christ and the sharing together of that life in Christ.⁵

More generally, Pohl notes that Paul (Rom 12:13), Hebrews (Heb 13:2), and 1 Peter (1 Pet 4:9) show that hospitality to others, especially to those outside the Christian community, was an obligatory expression of concrete love.⁶

But the act of eating together as believers raised problems. For example, Jews and Gentiles found it hard to eat together because of Jewish food restrictions.⁷ Then God gave Peter a vision that all foods were clean (Acts 10:9-16). However, some time later, despite that vision, Peter once again refused to eat with Gentiles, prompting Paul to rebuke him for acting inconsistently “with the truth of the gospel” (cf. Gal 2:11-14). For Paul, the gospel message had implications for fellowship between Jews and Gentiles as expressed in eating together.

II. EATING AND THE NATURE OF THE CHURCH MEETING

Second, eating was part of meeting as the church. When the early believers met to eat, it was not simply for fellowship or for socializing outside of the church. Instead, they ate when they gathered as a church. That is evident in what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11.

A. Meeting En Ekklēsia

For first of all, when you come together [sunerchomenōn] as a church [en ekklēsia], I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it (1 Cor 11:18).

Notice that Paul addressed the Corinthians concerning their gathering “as a church.” Obviously, Christians can meet together without its being an official meeting of the church. What makes something a meeting en ekklēsia? At the very least, that requires an intentional choice to gather for that purpose. And 1 Corinthians 11 shows what believers did when they met:

Therefore when you come together [sunerchomenōn] in one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you (1 Cor 11:20-22).

What did these believers do when they gathered en ekklēsia? They gathered to eat. Specifically, they came together to eat the Lord’s Supper. As Henderson notes, “the very purpose of the community’s gathering is defined by the verb phagein. It is not too much to say that eating a ‘real meal’ is part and parcel of the Corinthians’ gathering together.”⁸

Indeed, Bryant concludes that the eating of the Supper is what constitutes meeting as the church: “This evidence led us to ponder if there was any New Testament reference to a regular church meeting that didn’t include the Lord’s Supper. And after 25 years we still have found none.”⁹

B. The Supper Was a Supper

If the church met to eat the Lord’s Supper, we should understand what that involved. Here is how Paul describes it:

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes (1 Cor 11:23-26).

How many elements does this celebration have? The traditional answer is two: the bread and the cup (i.e., wine). However, notice that Paul actually mentioned three elements. Jesus began by breaking the bread, then they ate supper, and then the Lord “took the cup after supper” (v 25, emphasis added). Theissen notes what is often overlooked: “The formula presumes that there is a meal between the word over the bread and that spoken over the cup.”¹⁰ In other words, Paul described the Lord’s Supper as including a full meal.¹¹

Most commentators, such as Marshall, acknowledge that the Lord’s Supper was originally celebrated with a meal: “The Lord’s Supper was held in the context of a church meal.”¹² However, if Theissen is correct, the Lord’s Supper was not merely observed with a “social meal” but was, itself, a real supper. As Meeks says, “the basic act is the eating of a common meal, at which it is possible that ‘one goes hungry, another is drunk’ (1 Cor 11:21).”¹³

That is not only suggested by Paul’s description of the Supper, but also by the meaning of the Greek word for supper itself. Barclay comments:

The word is deipnon. It may be that to western ideas the word Supper is misleading, for in the west supper is a light meal. But in Greece and in Palestine the deipnon was the evening meal, and it was the only main meal of the day. Breakfast was no more than bread taken with water or with diluted wine. The midday meal was likely to be eaten in the street in the open air and not at home at all. It was not more than a picnic snack. The deipnon was the evening meal, eaten by the family at home, the one main and principal meal of the day.¹⁴

As a deipnon, the Lord’s Supper was not just a ritualized token meal, but the main meal of the day, eaten in the evening.¹⁵ This may be why Jude refers to a love feast (Jude 1:12), evidently a full meal, which some take to be another name for the Lord’s Supper.¹⁶

In sum, later ritualized versions of the Lord’s Supper bear little resemblance to how it was originally celebrated. As Barclay says, “There can be no two things more different than the celebration of the Lord’s Supper in a Christian home in the first century and in a cathedral in the twentieth century. The things are so different that it is almost possible to say that they bear no relationship to each other whatsoever.”¹⁷

C. The Supper Was a Family Meal

Interestingly, Branick says Paul’s description “recalls a family meal in a Jewish home.”¹⁸ Marshall describes it this way:

The commencement of the meal was marked by the head of the household taking a piece of bread in his hands and saying a prayer of thanks over it…The bread was then broken into pieces and shared among all those present… Similarly, at the end of the meal the host took a cup of wine, known as “the cup of blessing,” and gave thanks to God for it, after which all present drank.¹⁹

That is very similar to Paul’s description of celebrating the Lord’s Supper. Given that model, here is Peter Stuhlmacher’s reconstruction of a Lord’s Supper meeting:

The participants greeted one another with the greeting of peace and the holy kiss; people who did not love the Lord (the unbaptized?) were not allowed to participate in the meal (cf. 1 Cor 16:21-22 with Did 9:5; 10:6). Then the eulogy or eucharistic prayer of thanksgiving was spoken over the (one) loaf of bread (1 Cor 10:16), and with the breaking and distribution of the bread, the full meal began. At its conclusion the cup of wine was taken; the eulogy or prayer of thanksgiving was spoken over it as well, and the wine was distributed to all present.²⁰

In sum, the evidence suggests the Lord’s Supper was originally a full meal that followed the sequence of bread > supper > cup.

III. EATING AND THE LOCATION OF THE MEETING

Third, eating influenced where Christians would meet.²¹ Unlike Christians in later centuries, the early believers did not focus on building sacred spaces such as synagogues, churches, or temples. Where, then, did they meet?

A. The Early Believers Met in Homes

We know that early believers sometimes met in rented rooms²² (Mark 14:15; Acts 1:13). And while they certainly debated in synagogues and perhaps also in schools²³ (Acts 19:8-10), there is no evidence they worshipped in those places (Acts 19:9). Instead, it is widely recognized that “From the beginning of the church, believers gathered in homes.”²⁴ For example, the NT mentions several house churches:

The churches of Asia greet you. Aquila and Priscilla greet you heartily in the Lord, with the church that is in their house (1 Cor 16:19).

Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea, and Nymphas and the church that is in his house (Col 4:15).

to the beloved Apphia, Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house (Philem 1:2).

Likewise greet the church that is in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who is the firstfruits of Achaia to Christ (Rom 16:5).

To give you some idea of what such a house was like—a typical Roman home had several rooms facing a central atrium, among which was a dining room called a triclinium with enough space for nine people to recline on couches. Branick estimates that, at most, twenty people could fit in the triclinium and another fifty in the atrium. However, the house would be overcrowded at those numbers. Instead, Branick suggests a Roman atrium house could comfortably hold between thirty and forty people, providing the upper limit for a typical house church.²⁵

However, other scholars point out that few people lived in houses. As much as 90% of the population lived in large, multi-story, overcrowded, fire-prone apartment buildings called insulae (“islands”).²⁶ Lower apartments were larger and housed higher-income families, while upper apartments were smaller and housed the poor.²⁷ Could Christians have met in these tenements, too? That seems likely. For example, the Christians in Troas met in a third-story apartment, from which Eutychus fell and died (Acts 20:7-12). Was that a “tenement church?” It seems likely. As Jewett suggests, “at least in Rome and Thessalonica the numerical preponderance of groups fell in the category of tenement churches.”²⁸

B. Greeks and Romans Ate Supper at Home

If the church met to eat the Lord’s Supper, a true deipnon, it would be convenient to meet in homes because that is where they would cook and eat the deipnon.²⁹ No wonder Linton reports, “Research on the physical setting of early Christian gatherings reveals the centrality of meals in house-church meetings. The residential facilities in which Christians met were well-suited for the preparation and administration of banquets.”³⁰ The centrality of meals (i.e., the Lord’s Supper) for worship influenced where Christians met. Presumably, once the Lord’s Supper changed from being a deipnon to a ritualized token meal, it was no longer necessary to meet where the deipnon would normally be prepared (i.e., the home).

IV. EATING AND MINISTRY

Fourth, eating was also central to doing Christian ministry and promoting a robust church life.

A. Jesus Ministered During Meals

For example, during His earthly ministry, Jesus often ate with disciples and inquirers, and He used those occasions to teach at the dinner table. “Our Lord used table talk effectively to engage people in spiritual discussions and life-changing encounters.”³¹ You see that throughout Jesus’ ministry, but to give just a few examples: when Jesus ate with some Pharisees, and a sinful woman came to anoint His feet, it became an occasion to talk about love and forgiveness (Luke 7:36-50). When He ate at Martha and Mary’s house, He taught about spiritual priorities (Luke 10:38-42). And when He ate with another Pharisee who was shocked that Jesus did not wash His hands before eating, the Lord gave a lesson about the greater importance of inward cleanliness (Luke 11:37-53). If you listed all the meals that Jesus had with other people, you could come up with a list of topics for potential discipleship conversations. “Jesus is the prime example of someone who reached people through the door of hospitality,” Strauch notes.³²

B. You Can Support Ministry by Feeding Ministers

Eating is not just a way for Christians to do ministry, but also a way to support ministry. When Jesus traveled around Israel, He and the disciples were supported by people who showed them hospitality. Similarly, when Jesus sent out the seventy, He told them not to bring their own provisions, but to stay at the first house that welcomed them (and presumably fed them, Matt 10:11).

Branick notes that Paul’s missionary strategy centered around converting a household and establishing a house church there:

Most probably the conversion of a household and the consequent formation of a house church formed the key element in Paul’s strategic plan to spread the Gospel to the world. If we follow Acts in this matter, Paul had little success preaching in the synagogues. His method then shifted to establishing himself with a prominent family, which then formed his base of operations in a given city (cf. Acts 16:13-34; 17:2-9; 18:1-11).

Paul’s missionary strategy depended on hospitality.³³ He and the apostolic workers would be housed and fed and supported so they could continue to minister in that city.

Later in the apostolic period, when John was writing his third epistle, he praised Gaius for supporting traveling teachers:

Beloved, you are acting faithfully in whatever you accomplish for the brothers and sisters, and especially when they are strangers; who have borne witness of your love before the church. If you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God, you will do well (3 John 1:5-6).

Although food is not explicitly mentioned, it is surely implied. As Hodges says, “Thus [Gaius] will need to furnish the missionaries with appropriate food and lodging, taking care to see that all their needs are attended to.”³⁴

Feeding traveling teachers is still something that happens today, as many guest speakers can attest. Strauch says, “In practical terms today, Christian hospitality for traveling evangelists and teachers means providing food, washing and caring for their clothes, supplying financial help for future travel expenses, giving directions, and caring for their car if that is their means of transportation.”³⁵

C. Eating Can Create Opportunities for Evangelism

It can be awkward to invite someone to a contemporary church service. People are reluctant to offer the invitation, and unbelievers are reluctant to accept. I have often urged congregations to invite their friends to church but have seldom seen it happen. By contrast, most people have no trouble inviting others to a party at their house. If a church meeting occurs in a home, around a meal, then inviting people to attend becomes normal and not at all intimidating. “For the early Christians, the home was the most natural setting for proclaiming Christ to their families, neighbors, and friends.”³⁶ Hence, in Paul’s description of the Lord’s Supper, he assumes there will be unbelievers present:

For otherwise, if you bless God in the spirit only, how will the one who occupies the place of the outsider know to say the “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not understand what you are saying? (1 Cor 14:16 NASB).

Therefore if the whole church gathers together and all the people speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are insane? (1 Cor 14:23 NASB).

Morris notes there are three classes of people present: believers (“the whole church”), inquirers (“outsiders,”idiōtai) whom he says “were interested and had thus ceased to be merely ‘unbelievers,’” and finally, unbelievers.³⁷ However, Fee does not draw as strong a distinction between the outsiders and the unbelievers, seeing them both as unbelievers, but he recognizes that means the gathering was “accessible to unbelievers,” and suggests “Paul may very well have in mind an unbelieving spouse accompanying the believer to their place of worship. Such a person is both outside of Christ and as yet uninstructed in Christ.”³⁸ In any case, unbelievers were welcome at the meeting of the church.

D. Eating and Love

Robert Jewett thinks the association between the admonitions to love (“agape”) and the language of the love feasts (“agape feasts”) may have been intended for “support and participation in the sacramental celebration.”³⁹ Certainly, the very language of a love feast shows that the meal is meant to express and to develop loving relationships within the local church. “I don’t think most Christians today understand how essential hospitality is to fanning the flames of love and strengthening the Christian family,” Strauch said. “Unless we open the doors of our homes to one another, the reality of the local church as a close-knit family of loving brothers and sisters is only a theory.”⁴⁰ Thus, eating together helps fulfill the many love commands of Scripture.

V. EATING AND ALMS TO THE POOR

Fifth, eating was an important aspect of Christian service to the poor. Jesus called his disciples to invite the poor for supper:

“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind” (Luke 14:13).

In the ancient world, most people were poor. Sakari Häkkinen estimated that nine out of ten people in Galilee lived at or below a subsistence level of poverty.⁴¹ Jesus Himself would probably be included as a landless peasant who worked as a manual laborer in a small village (of some 200-400 people).⁴² According to Häkkinen, most Galileans lacked food security and lived from meal to meal, and only an elite had “moderate surplus resources” or more. That means many of the first Christians were poor, too. Providing food for the poor to eat became an important aspect of showing Christian love and charity, just as Jesus commanded. When Christians ate together, they were expected to feed hungry brothers and sisters in Christ:

If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? (Jas 2:15-16).

But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? (1 John 3:17).

Poverty was especially prevalent among widows, and the believers in Jerusalem cared for them. However, there were problems in the supply chain, and the widows were not being treated equally:

Now at this time, as the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint developed on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food (Acts 6:1 NASB).

Obviously, providing food to the poor was considered an important job for the church. And those practical needs could be naturally filled if the church met to eat a supper.

But even outside of Jerusalem, there were problems. When Paul corrected the Corinthians in their celebration of the Lord’s Supper, that criticism included concern for the poor:

Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you (1 Cor 11:20-22).

What, exactly, was the problem? Blue argues that the larger context was a famine in Corinth, so that Paul urged the believers with ample food to share with those who did not.⁴³ It could be that the rich ate a sumptuous supper on their own before the poor could arrive to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.⁴⁴ Or perhaps the rich did not share their abundant food with the poor, who then went hungry.⁴⁵ Instead of inviting the poor to their feasts, as Jesus commanded (Luke 14:13), the haves were excluding the have-nots, and that kind of discrimination needed immediate correction. Thus, the Lord’s Supper was an occasion for the rich to minister to the poor by sharing good food with them. As Michael Eaton summarizes, “It was a genuine meal in the early church, and an occasion of expressing much love towards each other. Widows and needy people were cared for.”⁴⁶ Clearly, then, the act of eating together was also a means of caring for the “unwanted, needy people who cannot reciprocate.”⁴⁷ In fact, Lampe says sharing food with the poor, and thereby “giving ourselves up to others,” is part of how Christ is proclaimed in the Lord’s Supper.⁴⁸

VI. EATING AND CHURCH LEADERSHIP

Sixth, when a church is looking for a new pastor/teacher/elder, the top two questions people usually ask are: can he teach, and has he been divorced? But Paul lists several more qualifications that make greater sense within the context of a house church where believers gathered to eat.

A. Elders

If you remember the context of a house church where believers met together to eat a full meal, Paul’s description of the overseer takes on new meaning. It may be important to point out that a house church would have had a sponsor, patron, or patroness—the paterfamilias of the house (see Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 1:11; 16:15, 19). Branick says the title episkopos could mean “patron” who graciously oversaw and protected those under his care.⁴⁹ Likewise, Jewett says that such a patron would normally exercise some authority over the group and even bear legal responsibility for it.⁵⁰ Jewett quotes Theissen’s description of this as “love-patriarchalism,” where “the hierarchical social order is retained while mutual respect and love are being fostered by patrons serving as leaders of the congregations in their houses.”⁵¹

With that context, eating was related to two qualifications for being an elder in the church. For example:

It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, skillful in teaching, not overindulging in wine, not a bully, but gentle, not contentious, free from the love of money…(1 Tim 3:1-3 NASB).

Notice that, besides his teaching ability and marital status, the candidate must also be hospitable and should not overindulge in wine. Paul did not randomly choose those qualities to emphasize. Hospitality meant welcoming strangers into your home and feeding them. Hence, Branick explains, “Someone or some group had to provide a place or places for the assemblies. Someone had to provide room and board for the traveling brethren, to provide funds for traveling.”⁵² No wonder, then, that overseers needed to be hospitable. “In the absence of Paul, everything favored the emergence of the host as the most influential member at the Lord’s supper and hence the most likely presider.”⁵³

Likewise, if the meeting of the ekklēsia involved eating a Lord’s Supper with a full meal which included wine, and given that drunkenness had been a problem in the past (cf. 1 Cor 11:21), it would be important for Paul to emphasize that an overseer should also be in control of his drinking.⁵⁴

B. Deacons

The role of deacons takes on clearer meaning if you picture a house church meeting where believers have gathered together to eat a full supper. The original proto-deacons, like Stephen, were chosen specifically to wait on tables to establish fairness in the distribution of food because the Hellenistic widows were being short-changed in favor of the Hebrew widows.⁵⁵ The problem of equally distributing food also became a problem in Corinth, where the rich were not sharing with the poor. Could the function of the deacons have been as basic as literally waiting tables, serving the food, making sure it was distributed equally to all, and helping to set up and clean up afterwards? Jewett notes that “the eucharistic liturgy was combined with diaconal service, understood as serving meals in celebration with the faith community.”⁵⁶ If that is right, no wonder, then, that Paul opens the role to both men and women, or better still, to married teams, who know what it means to have a well-run household, and who have control of their drinking, among other virtues (1 Tim 3:8, 12).

VII. EATING AND CHURCH DISCIPLINE

Seventh, eating was involved in church discipline. If the meeting of the church centered around eating a supper, it makes sense that church discipline would include excluding someone from partaking in it. When a man in Corinth had a sexual relationship with “his father’s wife” (his stepmother?), Paul said:

But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person (1 Cor 5:11).

Do not eat with that brother. Gordon Fee understands this to mean “that the incestuous man is to be excluded from Christian fellowship meals, including the Lord’s Table.”⁵⁷ However, Fee does not believe Paul meant to also exclude this man from private meals. But Strauch thinks Paul does have in mind not showing private hospitality: “we are to refuse hospitality to a professing Christian who lives in unrepentant moral evil.”⁵⁸ He adds, “We cannot act as if nothing is wrong and invite such a Christian into our homes to eat.”⁵⁹

Jude may also refer to disciplining people by excluding them from the love feast:

These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots (Jude 1:12).

It sounds as though Jude expects them to remove the “spot” from their feasts.

Yet another example, is John’s prohibition of showing hospitality to traveling teachers who contradict his doctrine:

If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him (2 John 1:10).

Many commentators take 2 Thess 3:10b (“If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat”) as a popular maxim “of good old workshop morality.”⁶⁰ However, Jewett thinks it is another example of “community discipline” and refers to being excluded from a communal meal:⁶¹

The wording thus implies a sanction in which deprivation of food as such is in view, not temporary exclusion from a particular meal. The most obvious point about this sanction has never been pointed out, so far as I can tell, and it is crucial for understanding the place of the common meal in the Thessalonian congregations. The sanction must be enforceable for the regulation to be effective. This means that the community must have had jurisdiction over the regular eating of its members, which would only have been possible if the community was participating in a common meal on an ongoing basis.⁶²

On the other hand, Paul’s mention that he labored night and day so “that we might not be a burden to any of you” (1 Thess 2:9) might be best understood in the context of Christians meeting to eat together on a regular basis: “He provided what he could for the Agape meals, rather than relying on patrons to do it for him.”⁶³

VIII. EATING AND ESCHATOLOGY

Eighth, eating also formed the early Christian’s expectations for the future. As Jewett said, “Such meals were marked by eschatological joy at the presence of a new age and of a Master who had triumphed over the principalities and powers.”⁶⁴ For context, Koenig explains how supper imagery fit into early Jewish eschatological expectations:

Undergirding the great importance attached to openness toward guests was a hope shared by many first-century Jews that God would act as bountiful host at the end of time by entertaining Israel at an endless feast (Amos 9:13- 15; Joel 3:18; T. Levi 18:11; 1 Enoch 62:14; Midr. Exod 25:7-8). In the expansive vision of Isaiah this blessed meal would include “all peoples” (Isa 25:6-8).⁶⁵

I think this kind of expectation is evident in the NT, too, where eating helped to form Christian expectations for the next life. For example, notice the connection that Paul draws between the Lord’s Supper and the Second Coming:

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes (1 Cor 11:26; cf. Matt 26:29; Mark 14:25; Luke 22:18).

How long will the Church celebrate the Lord’s Supper? Until He comes. For Paul, the Lord’s Supper is not only a reminder of what He did, but also of what He will do, i.e., return again. Meeks says, “some connection with Jesus’ eschatological coming is found in all versions of the early Eucharistic tradition, though in varied verbal formulations.”⁶⁶ But why would a supper have that kind of eschatological connection? In part, because a Biblical image for life in the Messianic age was sitting at a grand banquet with the heroes of the faith:

“And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 8:11).

“They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God” (Luke 13:29).

Leon Morris comments, “Sit at table employs the imagery of the Messianic banquet, a symbol of the joy of the end of time greatly beloved by the Jews.”⁶⁷ In pointing to the return of the Messiah, the Lord’s Supper is an anticipation of that Messianic banquet. The realization of the banquet is pictured in Revelation:

Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.” (Rev 19:9).

Thomas notes that the “marriage supper” is a deipnon, as is the Lord’s Supper. However, he also notes that these two deipna are distinct: “the Lord’s Supper is not the same as the marriage supper of the Lamb which fulfills the commemorative suppers practiced by local churches and is exclusively future in connection with Christ’s second advent. The Lord promised Laodicean overcomers the privilege of participation in this supper (3:20).”⁶⁸ Thus, the idea of a supper could also be a reminder and motivation to work for eternal rewards.

In sum, the idea of eating a supper was an important illustration of future salvation and the Messianic banquet to come.

IX. CONCLUSION

The picture of the importance of eating to normal church life as seen in the Bible, and as noted in the academic literature, may strike you as different from how church is practiced today. Why the difference? As Emil Brunner once noted:

In the last 50 or 100 years New Testament research has unremittingly and successfully addressed itself to the task of elucidating for us what was known as the Ecclesia in primitive Christianity—so very different from what is to-day called the Church both in the Roman and Protestant camps. It is, however, a well-known fact that dogmatists and Church leaders often pay but small attention to the results of New Testament research.⁶⁹

Instead of facing this “distressing problem,” the dogmatists appeal to “development” to explain the difference between the NT ekklēsia and today’s church.

By contrast, it is important for Biblicists to face the issues raised in the role of eating to NT church life. If your practices differ from the Biblical ones, what should you do? Of course, the obvious answer is to return to Biblical practices. Horrell suggests at least experimenting with such a return: “Perhaps the occasional reincorporation of the Lord’s supper [sic] into the context of a real shared meal might be worth experimenting with.”⁷⁰ Likewise, Jewett says we ought to “seek new ways of integrating the Lord’s Supper into revitalized forms of potluck meals.”⁷¹ Simply put, begin eating together. Some people may object that church has not been conducted like that for many centuries. When Roland Allen faced similar opposition after explaining how Paul’s missionary methods differed from modern methods, he would give this response: “All I can say is ‘This is the way of Christ and His Apostles.’ If any man answers, ‘That is out of date,’ or ‘Times have changed’…I can only repeat ‘This is the way of Christ and His Apostles,’ and leave him to face that issue.”⁷²

____________________

¹ William Barclay, The Lord’s Supper (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 59.

² Craig Keener, Acts (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 171.

³ Christine D. Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 21.

⁴ Keener, Acts, 171. See also, I Howard Marshall, Acts (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980), 83.

⁵ David Horrell, “The Lord’s Supper at Corinth and in the Church Today,” Theology 98 (1995): 201.

⁶ Pohl, Making Room, 31.

⁷ Vincent Branick, The House Church in the Writings of Paul (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2012), 32.

⁸ Suzanne Watts Henderson, “ ‘If Anyone Hungers…’: An Integrated Reading of 1 Cor 11.17–34,” New Testament Studies (48): 206. Greek transliterated.

⁹ See Bob Bryant, “Rediscovering the Lord’s Supper: One Church’s Journey” Grace in Focus (July-August 2000): 6.

¹⁰ Gerd Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth, ed. and trans. John H. Schütz (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1982), 152.

¹¹ Branick, House Church, 98. While virtually all commentators admit that the Lord’s Supper was eaten with a meal, few say the meal was itself part of the Lord’s Supper. Fee says, “The words ‘after supper’ indicate that at the Last Supper the bread and cup sayings were separated by the meal itself (or at least part of it); given their continuing but otherwise unnecessary role in the tradition, it seems probable that this early pattern persisted in the early church.” Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, Revised Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987, 2014), 613.

¹² I. Howard Marshall, Last Supper and Lord’s Supper (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, 1980, 2006), 108. See also G. H. Lang, The Churches of God (Shoals, IN: Kingsley Press, 2012), 70; Jeffrey A. Gibbs, “An Exegetical Case for Close(d) Communion: 1 Corinthians 10:14-22; 11:17-34,” Concordia Journal (April 1995):156; Robert Jewett, “Tenement Churches and Communal Meals in the Early Church: The Implications of a Form-Critical Analysis of 2 Thessalonians 3:10,” Biblical Research 38 (1993): 32; Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006), 66.

¹³ Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven, CT: Yales University Press, 1983), 158.

¹⁴ Barclay, The Lord’s Supper, 60-61.

¹⁵ Branick, House Church, 98.

¹⁶ Marshall, Last Supper, 110. See also, Jewett, Romans, 66.

¹⁷ Barclay, The Lord’s Supper, 111-12.

¹⁸ Branick, House Church, 99. See also Keener, Acts, 171; Craig Blomberg, “Jesus, Sinners, and Table Fellowship,” Bulletin for Biblical Research, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2009), 55.

¹⁹ Marshall, Last Supper, 19.

²⁰ Peter Stuhlmacher, Biblical Theology of the New Testament, trans. Daniel P. Bailey (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018), 401. Viola and Barna have a similar reconstruction: “For the early Christians, the Lord’s Supper was a festive communal meal. The mood was one of celebration and joy. When believers first gathered for the meal, they broke bread and passed it around. Then they ate their meal, which then concluded after the cup was passed around. The Lord’s Supper was essentially a Christian banquet.” See Frank Viola and George Barna, Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices (N.P.:Tyndale, 2002, 2008), 192. See also John Koenig, New Testament Hospitality: Partnership with Strangers as Promise and Mission (Philadelphia, PA:Fortress Press, 1985), 67.

²¹ Where they met would depend on what they did when they met. See Gregory Linton, “House Church Meetings in the New Testament Era,” Stone-Campbell Journal 8 (Fall 2005): 229.

²² Linton says, “Perhaps the disciples rented a room that was part of a domestic residence, or maybe a believer donated it for their use. Many houses in Palestine had rooms on the upper floors accessible by an exterior stairway. Rabbinic writings indicate that Pharisees used such rooms as meeting places for study.” Linton, “House Church Meetings,” 231.

²³ Billings notes that it is often assumed that Paul “either rented or was provided a lecture hall owned by a certain Tyrannus;” however, the school may not have been a physical place at all, but an informal gathering of students around their teacher, Tyrannus. “Most such orators found an audience for their activities in public spaces, such as the gymnasia and baths, etc.” See Bradley S. Billings, “From House Church to Tenement Church,” The Journal of Theological Studies 62 (2) (October 2011): 546.

²⁴ Linton, “House Church Meetings,” 231. See also Branick, The House Church, 13. This is a widely shared view. See also Jon Zens, Jesus Is Family (Orange, CA: Quoir, 2017), 24; Carolyn Osiek and David L. Balch, Families in the New Testament World: Household and House Churches (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox , 1997), 32; Robert and Julia Banks, The Church Comes Home: A New Basis for Community and Mission (Claremont, CA: Albatross Books, 1986), 39.

²⁵ Branick, House Church, 39-42. See also Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archeology, 3rd rev. and expanded ed., (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1983, 2002), 180-82.

²⁶ Jewett, “Tenement Churches,” 26; Branick, House Church, 42.

²⁷ Linton, “House Church Meetings,” 235. The top floors were less desirable because when fires broke out, people in the top floors were the last to know. See Osiek and Balch, Families in the New Testament World, 18.

²⁸ Jewett, Romans, 69.

²⁹ Billings, “From House Church to Tenement Church,” 567.

³⁰ Linton, “House Church Meetings,” 229.

³¹ Alexander Strauch, The Hospitality Commands (Littleton, CO: Lewis and Roth Publishers, 1993), 22.

³² Strauch, Hospitality, 22.

³³ Branick, House Church in the Writings of Paul, 18.

³⁴ Zane Hodges, The Epistles of John: Walking in the Light of God’s Love (Denton, TX: Grace Evangelical Society, 1999), 282.

³⁵ Strauch, Hospitality, 29.

³⁶ Strauch, Hospitality, 22.

³⁷ Leon Morris, 1 Corinthians, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985, 2001), 191.

³⁸ Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 758-59; Carson says the two words “probably refer to the same kinds of people: non-Christians.” D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12-14 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1987), 115-16.

³⁹ Jewett, “Tenement Churches,” 33.

⁴⁰ Strauch, Hospitality, 17.

⁴¹ Sakari Häkkinen, “Poverty in the first-century Galilee,” HTS Teologiese Studies/HTS Theological Studies 72(4): 1. See http://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/hts/v72n4/46.pdf.

⁴² Ibid., 9.

⁴³ Bradley B. Blue, “The House Church at Corinth and the Lord’s Supper: Famine, Food Supply, and the Present Distress,” Criswell Theological Review 5.2 (1991): 237.

⁴⁴ Koenig, New Testament Hospitality, 67.

⁴⁵ Fee, Corinthians, 599. Craig Blomberg describes the problem this way: “The minority of well-to-do believers (1:26), including the major financial supporters and owners of the homes in which the believers met, would have had the leisure-time and resources to arrive earlier and bring larger quantities and finer food than the rest of the congregation. Following the practice of housing festive gatherings in ancient Corinth, they would have quickly filled the small private dining room. Latecomers (the majority, who, probably had to finish work before coming on Saturday or Sunday evening—there was as of yet no legalized day off in the Roman empire) would be seated separately in the adjacent atrium or courtyard. Those that could not afford to bring a full meal, or a very good one, did not have the opportunity to share with the rest in the way that Christian unity demanded.” See Craig Blomberg, 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995), 228.

⁴⁶ Michael A. Eaton, “Jude,” The Branch Exposition of the Bible: A Preacher’s Commentary of the New Testament (Cumbria: Langham Global Library, 2020), 1189.

⁴⁷ Strauch, Hospitality, 24.

⁴⁸ Peter Lampe, “The Corinthian Eucharistic Dinner Party: Exegesis of a Cultural Context (1 Cor. 11:17-34),” Affirmation 4/2 (1991):10-11.

⁴⁹ Branick, House Church, 89.

⁵⁰ Jewett, “Tenement Churches,” 25.

⁵¹ Ibid.

⁵² Branick, House Church, 90.

⁵³ Ibid., 91.

⁵⁴ If you read on, you will note that most of Paul’s qualifications for an overseer, including the title itself, take on new meaning in light of the house church. If it is understood that the early believers worshipped together by eating together in homes, no wonder a man overseeing such a gathering in his home better have a good relationship with his wife and should rule his house well. A chaotic household would not be an ideal place to host a meeting. And given the financial disparities between believers that had expressed themselves in Corinth, where, as Craig Blomberg explains, “wealthy patrons” would have been “accustomed to being treated unequally” (Blomberg, 1 Corinthians, 228), such a man should not be greedy or covetous, so as to side with the rich against the poor.

⁵⁵ Branick, House Church, 88-89.

⁵⁶ Jewett, “Tenement Churches,” 32.

⁵⁷ Fee, Corinthians, 247.

⁵⁸ Strauch, Hospitality, 45.

⁵⁹ Ibid., 46.

⁶⁰ Leon Morris, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984), 146.

⁶¹ Jewett, “Tenement Churches,” 33-34. See also Jewett, Romans, 67-68.

⁶² Jewett, “Tenement Churches,” 37. See also Mal Couch, The Hope of Christ’s Return: Premillennial Commentary on 1 & 2 Thessalonians (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2001), 253.

⁶³ Jewett, “Tenement Churches,” 41.

⁶⁴ Jewett, Romans, 66. However, Jewett also notes how an “overly realized eschatology” led to excesses and “licentious behavior.”

⁶⁵ Koenig, New Testament Hospitality, 16.

⁶⁶ Meeks, The First Urban Christians, 158-59. See also Horrell, “The Lord’s Supper at Corinth,” 201.

⁶⁷ Leon Morris, Luke, rev. ed., (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974, 1988), 248.

⁶⁸ Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 8–22: An Exegetical Commentary (Chicago, IL: Moody, 1995), 373.

⁶⁹ Emil Brunner, The Misunderstanding of the Church, trans. Harold Knight (London: Lutterworth, 1952), 5.

⁷⁰ See Horrell, “The Lord’s Supper at Corinth,” 201.

⁷¹ Jewett, “Tenement Churches and Pauline Love Feasts,” Quarterly Review (Spring 1994): 55-56.

⁷² Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962), ii.