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Love Feasts

by Keith Sharp

Some appeal to the "love feasts" of Jude verse 12 to find justification for the local church coming together to eat a common meal. The passage warns:

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....

A parallel passage also warns, "They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you..." (2 Peter 2:13b). Both passages are warning about false teachers appearing on the horizon toward the end of the apostolic age (2 Peter 2:1-2; Jude verse 4). Do these passages authorize a local congregation to come together for the purpose of eating a common meal?

The term "love feast" is not found in Second Peter two verse thirteen. It only has the word "feast." In Jude verse twelve, the only biblical occurrence of the phrase "love feast," the phrase is a translation of the Greek word "agape," the usual New Testament word for love. There is nothing in the context to conclusively prove what kind of feasts these were. Furthermore, the local church is not mentioned in the context of either verse. If we simply go on the basis of the inspired text, the basis of our faith (Romans 10:17), we would conclude these verses prove nothing about the congregation coming together to eat a common meal.

However, the majority of scholars contend love feasts were "the brotherly common meals of the early church" (ISBE, "Agape," so Vine. 3:22; Thayer, 4; Arndt and Gingrich, 6; Mounce, 429). Does this prove love feasts were common meals as a function of the local church?

All of the word scholars simply give "love feast" as the definition of "agape" in Jude verse twelve. They then act as commentaries in stating their conviction that these love feasts were common meals of the congregations. The uninspired comments of word scholars carry no more weight than any other commentaries.

Furthermore, these same scholars contend the love feasts were something very few brethren would endorse.

At the end of this feast, bread and wine were taken according to the Lord’s command, and after thanksgiving to God were eaten and drunk in remembrance of Christ and as a special means of communion with the Lord Himself and through Him with one another. The Agape was thus related to the Eucharist as Christ's last Passover to the Christian rite which He grafted upon it. It preceded and led up to the Eucharist, and was quite distinct from it (ISBE, so Thayer).

Will brethren endorse the church gathering for a common meal to lead into the Lord’s Supper? I don’t know of any brethren who practice this.

Nor are the scholars anything like unanimous in their opinion that love feasts were common meals as a function of the local church.

In opposition to this view it has been strongly urged by some modern critical scholars that in the apostolic age the Lord's Supper was not distinguished from the Agape, but that the Agape itself from beginning to end was the Lord's Supper which was held in memory of Jesus (ISBE).

I believe the arguments these scholars make to uphold their theory that Jude 12 and 2 Peter 2:13 authorize common meals as a function of the church disintegrate on examination.

The author of the ISBE article asserts:

The fact that the name Agape or love-feast used in Jud_1:12 (Revised Version) is found early in the 2nd century and often afterward as a technical expression for the religious common meals of the church puts the meaning of Jude's reference beyond doubt.

Well, how about these practices that can be traced back to the early or mid second century: clergy/laity distinction (Schaff. 2:123-6), one bishop over the local church (Ibid. 144), and observance of Easter (Ibid. 220)? Even by the late first century the "mystery of lawlessness" (2 Thessalonians 2:7) was well under way to produce apostasy. In fact, that’s the reason 2 Peter chapter 2 and the book of Jude were written.

But the arguments taken from the Scriptures to uphold this "church common meal" theory for love feasts actually backfire. The ISBE author appeals to Acts 2:42,46; 1 Corinthians 10:16;11:24; and Acts 20:11. But in Acts two, rather than eating common meals in the temple where the church was gathering, they took their meals "from house to house" (Acts 2:46).

1 Corinthians 10:16 and 11:24 are references to the Lord’s Supper, and Paul forbad the church at Corinth to come together for the purpose of eating a common meal (1 Corinthians 11:22,34). Acts 20:11 only mentions Paul eating in the place where the church assembled and that in preparation for departing on his journey. In none of these passages did the church come together with apostolic approval for the purpose of eating a common meal, and one passage absolutely and plainly forbids this practice.

I’m not sure what the love feasts were, but I’m absolutely sure of one thing: they do not constitute divine approval of the local church coming together for the purpose of eating a common meal.

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Works Cited

Arndt, W.F. and F.W. Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (from e-Sword computer Bible program.

Mounce, William, Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words.

Schaff, Philip, History of the Christian Church.

Thayer, J. H., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament.

Vine, W.E. An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words.

 

  Other Articles by Keith Sharp
Proper Attitudes for Proper Giving
The Divine Pattern