The Lord's Supper — Snack or Feast?

This is a long post. I warned you! But I felt I had to address all sides of this topic first before opening up discussion. I hope you will consider this post thoughtfully, and I really do welcome constructive criticism.

In a previous post I considered the spiritual aspect of the Lord’s Supper. In many circles today nothing really spiritual is expected to happen at the Lord’s Table, yet Scripture says we have a participation—a communion with Christ’s death (1 Cor. 10:16) through the Lord’s Supper. I won’t repeat that post here, but I would like to quote from the tail end of that post as a way of introducing this post’s topic.

One last angle on this aspect of the Lord’s Supper concerns the idea of fellowship with God around a meal. Wayne Grudem offers Ex. 24:9-11 and Deut. 14:23-26 as examples of a special fellowship with God surrounding a meal. This he describes is a restoration of the fellowship man had with God in Eden before the Fall. Yet he stresses:

“The Old Testament sacrificial meals continually pointed to the fact that sins were not yet paid for, because the sacrifices in them were repeated year after year, and because they looked forward to the Messiah who was to come and take away sin (see Heb. 10:1-4). The Lord’s Supper, however, reminds us that Jesus’ payment for our sins has already been accomplished, so we now eat in the Lord’s presence with great rejoicing….Yet even the Lord’s Supper looks forward to a more wonderful fellowship meal in God’s presence in the future, when the fellowship of Eden will be restored and there will be even greater joy….” [1]

Feasting and Fellowship

Feasting had a prominent place in the Old Testament and in Jewish life. There were seven national feasts and three of them required the males to make a pilgrimage to the Temple–where a huge national feast would commence. It was not uncommon for marriage feasts to last days or weeks even.

A natural result of feasting is fellowship. Or you could say, those you fellowship with are the ones you feast with. Ever read a tale which depicted a medieval feast? The whole idea of feasting is wholly foreign to our minds today. Maybe the closest relative to the feast of yesteryear is the Baptist potluck dinner of today!

The Last Supper & the Feast to Come

The Lord’s Supper (yes, I am getting to the point now) was instituted in the context of a feast. The Last Supper was the time Christ and His disciples celebrated the “feast” of the Passover. This is made clear in Luke 22:15. So, in the context of the Passover festive meal, Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper.

But Jesus and His disciples were not only looking back to the deliverance of Israel at the Exodus, they also were looking forward. Jesus inaugurated the new covenant at this meal, and he also looked forward to the time when he would feast with his disciples again in the kingdom of God. Luke’s Gospel makes this connection especially clear:

Luke 22:15-18 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

And then after the Supper…

Luke 22:28-30 “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

So the context of the giving of the Lord’s Supper involves a look back at the feast of the Passover and a look forward to a future feast: the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Pass the Thimble! Cracker, Anyone?

By now you know where I am going with this. Anyone else fail to see the relation between loaf of bread and 1/2 inch square cracker? Or how about cup of wine with the common thimble sized variety? To quote a book which advocates a radical change in the way we do Communion, “Would the Twelve have somehow deduced that the newly instituted Lord’s Supper was not to be a true meal? Or would they naturally have assumed it to be a feast, just like the Passover?” [2]

Consider this. Every clear example of the Lord’s Supper in Scripture includes a meal. 1 Cor. 11 clearly states that a meal was involved. Acts 20:7-12 also seems to be a clear example of the Lord’s Supper, and there it is obvious a meal is included. Also, the word for “supper” is the Greek word deipnon which means the evening meal–a full meal. [3]

The Love Feast in Scripture and History

The New Testament church held an agape feast, or a love feast in connection with the Lord’s Supper. It was “a simple meal of brotherly love”. [4] Let me quote Merrill F. Unger a bit here:

It would appear that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper by the first disciples occurred daily in private houses (Acts 2:46), in connection with the agape, or love feast, to indicate that its purpose was the expression of brotherly love. The offering of thanks and praise (1 Cor. 10:16; 11:24) was probably followed with the holy kiss (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20). It was of a somewhat festive character, judging from the excesses that Paul reproved (1 Cor. 11:20), and was associated with an ordinary meal, at the close of which the bread and wine were distributed as a memorial of Christ’s similar distribution to the disciples. From the accounts in Acts (2:42, 46) and from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (11:20-21) it is safely inferred that the disciples each contributed a share of the food necessary for the meal, thus showing a community of love and fellowship. To this unifying power of the Eucharist Paul evidently refers (10:16-17). [5]

Apparently most scholars agree that the Lord’s Supper was originally taken as a meal. Let me provide a few quotes regarding this:

Donald Guthrie: “in the early days the Lord’s Supper took place in the course of a communal meal.” (The Lion Handbook of the Bible) [6a]

John Drane: “Throughout the New Testament period the Lord’s Supper was an actual meal shared in the homes of Christians. It was only much later that [it] was moved to a special building…”. (The New Lion Encyclopedia) [6b]

J.G. Simpson: “the name Lord’s Supper…derived from 1 Corinthians 11:20, is not there applied to the sacrament itself but to the Love Feast or Agape, a meal commemorating the Last Supper, and not yet separated from the Eucharist when St. Paul wrote.” (The Dictionary of the Bible) [6c]

Merrill F. Unger: “Apparently the Lord’s Supper and the Agape were originally one (1 Cor. 11:17-34). The common conservative view unites a simple repast with the Lord’s Supper on the general plan of the Last Supper.” (The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary) [7]

Hulitt Gloer: “By the second century the word agapai had become a technical term for such a common meal which seems to have been separated from the ceremonial observance of the Lord’s Supper sometime after the New Testament period.” (Holman Bible Dictionary) [8]

As the giving of the Lord’s Supper became more formal and sacramentally oriented, the agape feast was separated from the Lord’s Supper. And both continued to be practiced for some time, although the Agape Feast was condemned, due to excesses and problems, at a church council in the 300s. Yet the practice continued in some places until as late as the 15th century. [9]

Before moving on, I should mention that the love feast is directly mentioned by name in Jude 12, and it is possibly referred to in a parallel passage in 2 Pet. 2:13. And as mentioned above, what we see in Acts 2 and 20, and also in 1 Cor. 11 seems very similar to the love feast.

Summary (with an Objection Answered)

At this point, it would be helpful to summarize the arguments for partaking of the Lord’s Supper in the context of a meal. I will add a few extra arguments here to consider as well.

• The Lord’s Supper was originally instituted in context of a meal
• The Lord’s Supper looks forward to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb
• The Lord’s Supper is called just that a “supper” not a “snack”
• In 1 Cor. 11 and Acts 20 the clearest examples of what the Lord’s Supper as practiced by NT believers looks like both indicate a meal was eaten
• Jude 12 indicates that love feasts were celebrated by the early church and church history confirms that such feasts were held in conjunction with the Lord’s Supper
• The bread part of the Lord’s Supper was instituted “as they were eating” (Matt. 26:26)
• The cup part of the Lord’s Supper was separated from the bread and it was taken “after they had eaten” (Luke 22:20, see also 1 Cor. 11:25)

Now we should respond to a possible objection.

Objection: Doesn’t 1 Cor. 11:34 say, “if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home”?

Answer: The problem in 1 Cor. was not that a meal was eaten along with the supper. The rich came to the meeting early since they did not want to eat with the poorer classes, and the poor coming late (due to work constraints) found no food left. Some of the rich remained so long at eating and drinking they became drunk. Rather than it being the Lord’s Supper, they were eating their own supper and missing what the whole feast was about. The solution to this was not to stop eating the Lord’s Supper as a meal, rather vs. 33 says, “when you come together to eat, wait for one another”. Those who could not wait, due to selfishness or lack of discipline, were to eat at home (v. 34).

Possible Benefits

Greater Unity. 1 Cor. 10:17 says “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” Let me quote from Ekklesia (the book I referred to above) at some length here:

The one loaf not only pictures our unity in Christ, but according to 1 Co 10:17 even creates unity. Notice careful [sic] the wording of the inspired text. “Because” there is one loaf, therefore we are one body, “for” we all partake of the one loaf (1 Cor. 10:17). Partaking of a pile of broken cracker crumbs and multiple cups of the fruit of the wine is a picture of disunity, division, and individuality. At the very least, it completely misses the imagery of unity. At worse, it would prohibit the Lord from using the one loaf to create unity in a body of believers. [10]

More Fellowship. From the above verse we see that partaking of the Lord’s Supper creates unity. Now picture the typical Lord’s Supper service. Everyone has their own private celebration where they spend time examining themselves and on meditating on the wonder of Christ’s death. They are interrupted from their individual worship (sadly for some they are interrupted from their distracted thoughts or daydreams) and look up in time to chew their food or gulp their juice in unison. This creates unity and promotes fellowship, really???

Surely coming together around the Lord’s table for the Lord’s meal, sharing food with one another, tarrying until we can all eat together–this would promote more fellowship and foster unity. This too is closer to what the Passover feast looked like and what the Marriage supper of the Lamb will look like–a joyful communal feast celebrating the victory performed on our behalf by our Gracious Lord.

Steve Atkerson in Ekklesia puts forth the idea that in Acts 2:42 “fellowship” and “breaking of bread” are “linked together as simultaneous activities”. [11] He sees this because there is no “and” between them, while there is an “and” between “teaching” and “fellowship”, and between “bread” and “prayer”.

Increased Appreciation. I am of the opinion that a cracker and a thimble do not enable me to appreciate the significance of the Lord’s Supper ritual to the proper extent. Is it possible that when Christ instituted the ordinance he intended some benefit to come from the fact that we would be chewing a large piece of bread all the while we are meditating the significance of the fact that Christ’s body was broken? Could he have intended us to think of the bitterness of his life’s blood flowing from him, as we drank a good draught from a wine which is often acidic?

We are not strictly spiritual beings nor shall we ever be. We are a physical-spiritual-emotional being. What we experience physically can be felt in our spiritual senses. I think that with both baptism and the Lord’s Supper, God teaches us verbally and non-verbally. Baptism is a picture to see, the Lord’s Supper is a meal to eat. Seeing, hearing, and eating–all are physical things. I think we shortchange the physical element of the Lord’s Supper when we use a cracker and a thimble.

Especially for us who have an innate tendency to avoid anything with sacramental overtones or that remotely smells of Rome, we do not like rituals. So even in our Christ-ordained rituals, we try to be as un-ritualistic as possible. Perhaps this attitude robs us of experiencing the benefit that a physical/spiritual ritual was meant to have for us.

Greater Focus on the Cross. Many of the groups who celebrate the Lord’s Supper as a meal today, emphasize a weekly observance of the Supper. Church History (and even the New Testament–Acts 20, 1 Cor. 11) seems to clearly indicate that the church used to observe the Supper weekly. In fact the Lord’s Supper became “the focus of the church’s life and practice”. [12] Perhaps a return to a focus on the Lord’s Supper will help us as a church to become more cross-centered.

What This Might Look Like

The book that first set me to thinking along these lines, Ekklesia, also advocates house churches. In a smaller setting, such an observance of the Lord’s Supper could easily be performed as a communal, pot luck meal, with the Lord’s Supper given first, or last, or during the meal.

I can understand where they are coming from with the house church ideal, and perhaps a larger church which advocates small groups would permit the smaller groups to have communion like this from time to time. But how would this work in a larger setting?

Well, we would have to be more creative, but I am sure it could work. There could be a potluck meal on a larger scale in a fellowship hall or something. Perhaps you may not celebrate the Supper every week, but rather monthly or something. Another idea could be to go back to having a larger piece of bread and a larger cup of wine, yet not re-instituting a full meal. I think it would be a step in the right direction, but I like the idea of coming together around tables to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

Side Note about the Elements

Concerning the elements, let me give a brief side note. It is somewhat funny to me that while Baptists, especially, are very careful to infer that since unleavened bread was used at the Last Supper (and first Lord’s Supper) we should always use unleavened bread, they turn around and say it does not really matter what kind of wine you use. It seems fairly clear that “the fruit of the vine” is a Jewish ceremonial expression referring to wine, and that Jesus only uses it in the context of the Passover because this is the expression that was used by the Jews.

With regard to the bread, we must note that nowhere are we told what kind of bread to use, and while unleavened bread was symbolic of the Exodus, we are not told that the presence or absence of leaven has any symbolic significance with regard to the Lord’s Supper. While leaven can symbolize sin or the Pharisee’s false teaching, it also is used to symbolize the kingdom of heaven and its fast and pervasive spread.

And with the drink, it does seem clear that wine was used (in 1 Cor. 11 people were getting drunk with Communion wine). Yet with the modern confusion over alcohol, it seems prudent to not demand that wine always be used. There seems to be some liberty in this matter, but not such liberty that “bagels and coke” (as Pastor Piper lamented in a recent message) could be used.

Some Final Caveats

I do not want to be dogmatic about this whole thing, however. The book Ekklesia makes a big point out of the fact that we should follow apostolic traditions. And indeed several passages are clear in this regard (1 Cor. 11:2, 16; 14:33b-34; Phil. 4:9; 2 Thess. 2:15; 3:6-7a). However, the particular practices which Ekklesia wants us to follow are not themselves abundantly clear from the text alone. So I view this particular thing–eating a meal with the Lord’s Supper, as not ultimately clear enough in Scripture.

I do not see it specifically mandated for us to follow. Although there seems to be some awful strong implications in this regard. I found it interesting to note that in a defense of the Brethren position on the Lord’s Supper from 1915 (ISBE), that they saw the need to divorce the Lord’s Supper from the historic Passover meal in order to find support for the modern requirement of observing an Agape feast (they also advocated foot-washing, and celebrated the Lord’s Supper only once or twice a year). [13]

Also, Barnes brought up a point which seems to show that this modern house church movement is a little inconsistent here. He points out that “supper” means evening meal, and he actually says it is wrong to celebrate the Supper in the morning/midday. [14] Yet it seems that they celebrate the Lord’s Supper and Agape meal in the early afternoon.

So, while I believe there is liberty here, I do see much benefit in considering changing from bread crumbs and drops of wine, to something closer to a meal.

At last my post is at an end. Now I am interested to hear what my readers think. Am I totally off base? Or do you have similar thoughts or concerns?

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Further Resources

• “The Lord’s Supper: Feast or Famine?” by Steve Atkerson–this is essentially Atkerson’s chapter on this subject in the book Ekklesia.
• “Love Feast” a short historical article on the Agape from the Holman Bible Dictionary.
• “New Light On The Lord’s Supper” by Brian Anderson (also a house church movement guy).
• You may be interested in reading this “belief” of the New Testament Restoration Foundation concerning the Lord’s Supper:

The Lord’s Supper celebrated weekly as a full, fellowship meal and as the main reason for the weekly church meeting (Ac 2:42 , 20:7, 1Co 11:18 -20, 11:33 ). In the center of the feast there is to be the one cup and the one loaf (1Co 10:16 -17), both symbolizing and creating unity. The mood of the meal is to be joy, not solemn reflection, because the focus of the Lord’s Supper is the excitement of the Second Coming. It is a rehearsal dinner for the future Wedding Banquet of the Lamb (Re 19:6-9)! [See all their beliefs here.]

Footnotes

[1] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 1995), pg. 969.

[2] Steve Atkerson, Ekklesia…To the Roots of Biblical Church Life (New Testament Restoration Foundation: Atlanta, 2003), pg. 24. [You can click here to download a sample chapter of this book, or click here to order it/learn more.]

[3] Atkerson, pg. 25. Also, Barnes Notes at 1 Cor. 11:20

[4] Merrill F. Unger, “Agape”, The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary (Moody Press: Chicago, 1988), pg. 32.

[5] Merrill F. Unger, “Lord’s Supper”, The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary, pg. 783.

[6a-c] These 3 quotes are taken from Atkerson, pg. 26 (no bibliographical info on the quotes given).

[7] Unger, “Agape”, ibid.

[8] Hulitt Gloer, “Love Feast”, Holman Bible Dictionaryonline edition (Trent C. Butler, editor, Broadman & Holman, 1991).

[9] William Smith, “Love Feasts”, Smith’s Bible Dictionary online edition (William Smith, editor, 1901). Also, see Unger, “Agape”.

[10] Atkerson, pg. 28.

[11] Atkerson, pg. 29.

[12] Henry Riley Gummey, “Lord’s Supper”, “General” section, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia online edition(James Orr, editor, 1915), under the heading VII/2./(1) Ignatian Epistles.

[13] Daniel Webster Kurtz, “Lord’s Supper”, “According to the belief and practice of the Church of the Brethren (Dunkers)” section, ISBE online edition.

[14] Albert Barnes, Barnes New Testament Notes online edition, on 1 Cor. 11:20.