Love feast

OT antecedents of the love feast

The Passover meal

See also Ex 12:3–11; Ex 12:15–16; Mt 26:17–18; 1 Co 11:23–25

Other festive occasions

Dt 12:7; Ne 8:10

The NT practice of the love feast

It was linked with the Lord’s Supper

Acts 2:46 ESV

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,

See also Ac 20:7; 1 Co 11:17–34

The name “love feasts”

Jude 12 ESV

These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted;

See also 2 Pe 2:13; Jn 13:2; Jn 13:34 It was at the Last Supper that Jesus Christ gave his new commandment to his disciples to love one another as he had loved them.

The charitable distribution of food

Acts 6:1 ESV

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

Abuses of the love feast

Selfishness, indulgence and ostentation

1 Corinthians 11:20–22 ESV

When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.

See also 1 Co 11:33–34

Licentiousness

2 Peter 2:13 ESV

suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you.

Ungodly participants, especially false teachers

Jud 4; Jud 12

See also 2 Pe 2:1; 2 Pe 2:13

The heavenly love feast

Foretold by Jesus Christ

Matthew 26:29 ESV

I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

The marriage supper of the Lamb

Revelation 19:9 ESV

And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

See also Is 25:6; Mt 22:2–14 The parable of the marriage supper indicates the prerequisites for attendance at the supper.