But still a feast as you have admitted

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But still a feast as you have admitted

Forum: Theological Expressions
Re:

Partial Exposy on "If the Apostle Paul were to Visit Church Today" posted by RTC (Yesuthass)
Re:

Exposing Yesuthass' Exposy (RTC)
Re:

A Selfish Love Feast (Yesuthass)
Date: 2001, Apr 27
From: RTC

Private Supper or Lord’s Supper? Paul’s rebuke suggests that Christians in Corinth had unwisely confused the Lord’s Supper with a social meal; possibly they had even reduced the Lord’s Supper to a social festival similar to the festivals observed among the Greeks. ++Incorrect. It wasn’t a confusion with the meals. It was the way that the Corinthian believers treated the meal. To partake the Lord’s Supper which signifies the unity of believers was inappropriate when the believers were not acting like they were in one family having a meal. The IVP Dictionary of Paul and his letters say: There was a complicated mix of religious practices in Corinth. Some members of the church were familiar with meals associated with pagan temples and some of them believed that it was all right to continue to participate in these. It does not, of course, follow that they viewed what happened at these meals and the Lord’s Supper in the same way. Further, it is important to note that the very strong explicit criticisms that Paul makes of the Corinthian church meal do not appear to be connected in any way with pagan beliefs or practices that had been carried over into it. It may be that the Corinthian Christians felt that participation in the meal of itself protected them from divine judgment, but Paul’s instruction to them is not about misunderstanding the meal but about refraining from idolatry. Rather, the abuses at the meal were of a social character and reflected the practices of the secular world in general rather than of pagan religions in particular. Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 11 was directed against these practices which meant that the meal had lost its character as the Lord’s meal. As far as practically stopping the abuse was concerned, he commanded that the church members should welcome one another when they came together for their meal. That is to say, the rich should welcome the poor and treat them (as indeed all members of the church should treat one another) courteously and graciously; the occasion was still to be a meal, but the implication may be that there was to be sharing of the food so that nobody felt disadvantaged. Further, Paul laid down that the rich should eat privately in their own houses if they wished to have a larger meal or more expensive fare, and thus avoid importing social divisions into the meeting of the church. Thus Paul was not counseling that the occasion should cease to be a meal and become what it subsequently became in the church generally, namely the token consumption of a morsel of bread and a sip of wine. David K. Lowery, Associate Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis, Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote in Bibliotheca Sacra: At Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper with His disciples (Matt 26:26–29; Mark 14:22–25; Luke 22:15–20) the bread and cup were part of a meal, with the bread probably broken near the beginning (cf. “when He had given thanks,” 1 Cor 11:24) and the cup taken at the end (cf. “after supper,” v. 25 ). By the time Paul wrote, the Lord’s Supper was celebrated in two stages, which consolidated the partaking of the bread and cup at the end of a communal meal. The worship with the bread and cup came to be called the “Eucharist,” from the Greek word “to give thanks.” The communal meal was called the agape (cf. Jude 12), a Greek word for “love.” What bothered Paul about the Corinthian celebration was that the meal (“love feast”) had become an occasion not marked by love for fellow Christians but one of self-centered indulgence. In the subsequent development of the church the celebrations came to be divided, possibly on the false assumption that Paul had advised the Corinthians to do that (cf. 1 Cor 11:22, 34). And from the Grace Theological Journal, Timothy Coyle wrote: The close relationship between the meal and the eucharist can be seen in the institution of the communion service. The eucharist was instituted in the context of a meal, the Last Supper. The eucharist followed the meal (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25), and the elements of the eucharist came directly from the meal itself. There is no indication that the Lord set aside some bread and wine to be used later to represent his body and blood. Rather bread and wine which remained from the meal were used for the eucharist. No doubt this was also the practice of the early church. The eucharist came from the agape. There is an organic bond between the agape and the eucharist since the elements of the eucharist come from the agape itself. Had there been no agape, there would have been no eucharist. Thus Jesus’ command to practice the eucharist (1 Cor 11:24–25) assumes the practice of the agape and applies to it by extension. It should also be noted that the term used for supper always refers to a meal, even the chief meal of the day or a feast, lending support to the idea that the Lord’s Supper must refer to a full meal. This is further supported by the use of the term in John 13:4–5 when Jesus rose from supper and began to wash the disciples’ feet. Thus there is no biblical precedent for describing the small portions of bread and juice used in many “communion” services today as “the Lord’s Supper.” The term may refer to the whole communion service, including both the meal and the eucharist, but it cannot refer to the eucharist alone. In closing, it is incorrect and highly improbable that the Lord’s Supper was not part of the common meal of the believers in the early church, as Yesuthass suggested and whom Anon so eagerly supported.