Brother Rushmore, … eating in the church building … If you have any information on this issue that you could send me or a good source of information available, I would appreciate the help. Thanks, Bruce Stulting
If eating in the church building were prohibited in the New Testament, then it would be a sin to eat in the church building. If the New Testament does not prohibit eating in the church building, then it is neither sinful to eat in nor to refrain from eating in the church building. However, if the New Testament does not prohibit eating in the church building, then making a religious law prohibiting eating in the church building where God made no such law is sinful (Deuteronomy 4:2; Proverbs 30:6; Revelation 22:18-19).
Apparently, some sincere persons believe that it is sinful to eat in the church building, basing their conviction on an avowed respect for the Word of God. A high regard for God’s Word is praiseworthy. However, if the New Testament does not prohibit eating in the church building, then these sincere persons, who have a high regard for God’s Word and who have believed and affirmed that it is sinful to eat in the church building, must renounce that teaching. They do not have to eat in the church building, but they cannot justifiably teach such a doctrine if the New Testament does not prescribe it upon its pages.
Doubtless a surface reading of 1 Corinthians 11:22 and 34 is the source of confusion as to whether it is biblically permissible to eat in a church building:
“What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not. … And if any man hunger, let him eat at home; that ye come not together unto condemnation”
The context in which this verse appears treats the abuse of the Lord’s Supper in the assembly of the Lord’s church (vss. 17-34). Additional to any observance of the Lord’s Supper or in combination with its observance, the Corinthian Christians were eating a meal for the nourishment of their bodies. In a sense, they had intermingled a common meal with the spiritual Supper or communion that Jesus had instituted. These first century Christians failed in two areas: (1) They perverted the Lord’s Supper by turning it into a common meal. (2) They perverted what we may refer to as a fellowship or potluck meal by not sharing, by which the more affluent had plenty and the less affluent had little or nothing. This latter circumstance demonstrated the division for which the apostle Paul rebuked the Corinthian church in earlier chapters (1:10-13; 3:1-4). Ponder this information as we review other pertinent considerations before we draw any conclusions.
The term “church” means “assembly,” as Strong’s indicates: “a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place, an assembly.”1 The word “church” is used in three senses relative to the Lord’s church in the New Testament: a universal sense (Ephesians 1:22), a congregational sense (1 Corinthians 1:2) and referring to the worship assembly of a congregation (1 Corinthians 11:18). The context determines the sense in which the word “church” is used. The context, regarding whether one can eat in the church building without sinning, pertains to the worship assembly. “For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it” (vs. 18). The act of coming together for worship (here the Lord’s Supper) is described as “the church,” which is the assembly. The act of assembling for worship is described also in verse 20 and 14:23. Ponder this, too, as we address other information before drawing any conclusions.
There is no evidence that the first century church owned any church buildings, by which any allusion to such would have been intelligible to the original recipients of the Book of First Corinthians. All available evidence indicates that the first church buildings came into being long after First Corinthians Chapter Eleven was penned.
‘Church’ in the NT, however, renders Gk. ekklesia, which mostly designates a local congregation of Christians and never a building. (emphasis added, ler)2
In the New Testament it is the translation of the Greek word ecclesia … meaning simply an assembly, the character of which can only be known from the connection in which the word is found. There is no clear instance of its being used for a place of meeting or of worship, although in post-apostolic times it early received this meaning.3
CHURCH EDIFICES Until the second century Christians were not permitted to erect churches, but were compelled to worship in private houses, in the open fields, or, to escape persecution, in the Catacombs (q. v.) and other concealed places. On the suspension of persecution, we find, from A.D. 202 and forwards, notices of Church edifices in Nicomedia, Edessa (Odessa), and other cities. Diocletian issued an edict (A.D. 305) ordering all Christian churches to be razed to the ground. Under Constantine these were rebuilt, and great numbers of new ones erected over the whole Roman empire.4
Ekkleesia in the New Testament never means the building or house of assembly, because church buildings were built long AFTER the apostolic age.5
In the next place, the first century church sometimes met in private homes (Romans 16:3-5; 1 Corinthians 16:19). Imagine the ramifications of not being able to eat in the place where the church assembles to worship if that place were your private dwelling also. Further, it would be untenable for the apostle Paul, in the same epistle no less, to condemn eating in a place or a location (1 Corinthians 11:17-34) and commend a Christian couple who permitted the church to worship in their home, in which home they lived and naturally would ordinarily eat their meals.
Last, the apostle Paul himself worshipped and ate a meal in the same building (Acts 20:7-11). The apostle preached at the Troas assembly of the church, in which they observed the Lord’s Supper. Paul preached until midnight. A young man fell from the third story out the window and died. The apostle Paul resurrected him to life and they all returned to the building, where they ate a meal together.
Summarized, we note these observations from the foregoing:
- The term “church” in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 refers to the worship assembly in which the Lord’s Supper is observed and does not refer to a building or the place in which worship occurs.
- First century congregations did not own church buildings and therefore, the apostle Paul was not addressing whether one may eat or ought not to eat in a church building when he wrote 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.
- Sometimes Christians worshipped in private homes in the first century, in which homes they also naturally ate meals, with the implicit approval of an inspired apostle.
- The same apostle who some think prohibited eating in a church building worshipped and ate in the same building, but not at the same time.
One can only conclude from an honest evaluation of the available biblical and historical evidence that the apostle Paul did not prohibit eating in a church building. To believe, teach and make a test of fellowship an issue of eating in the church building results from a sincere but misguided shallow reading of 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. Neither biblical nor historical evidence warrants coming to the conclusion that it is inherently sinful to eat in a church building.
(Yet, a congregation may opt to refrain from eating in its church building for any number of pragmatic reasons, none of which in any way affects other congregations. For instance, the arrangement or size of the facility may not lend itself to a fellowship meal and a congregation may decide not to eat in the church building, lest the auditorium carpet is soiled or the pews are marred, if the auditorium were the only room in the building large enough to accommodate the potluck meal.)
It is not inherently sinful to eat in the church building. It is not necessary to have fellowship meals in the church building. It is sinful to make any law where God has not, make it a test of fellowship and attempt to enforce it upon other congregations.
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1 Enhanced Strong’s Lexicon, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1995.
2 The New Bible Dictionary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.) 1962.
3 Easton, M. G., M. A. D. D., Easton’s Bible Dictionary, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1996.
4 McClintock and Strong Encyclopedia, Electronic Database, (Seattle, WA: Biblesoft) 2000.
5 Fausset’s Bible Dictionary, Electronic Database, (Seattle, WA: Biblesoft) 1998.
