QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: Is It Right to Eat in the Church Building?

by Bobby L. Graham

Synopsis: Is it right to eat in the church building, as is asserted by the writer who is quoted below?

Note

In this issue, Bobby Graham reviews an article that asserts the church is authorized to provide for common meals. He asked “permission to include the entire article sent me to retain the meandering course of the writer in its context. I have also numbered the writer’s paragraphs to facilitate references to his material.” We have provided additional space in this issue to accommodate his request. In the “Assertion” section, you will find the original article, affirming that the practice is scriptural. In the “Answer” section, you will find Bobby’s response—Ed.

Assertion

1. The early Christians ate meals together on a frequent basis (Acts 2:46; Jude 12). Eating meals together was both a symbol and an act of Christian fellowship. The evidence of this lies in the fact that Christians were not to eat with those from whom they had withdrawn their fellowship (1 Cor. 5:11). Clearly, we have scriptural authority for Christians eating common meals together. Historians show that those meals often took place immediately before or after worship (F.W. Mattox, The Eternal Kingdom, 52).
2. Because we have established the scriptural authority for the meal, we can conclude that we also have scriptural authority to have a location for that meal to take place. We have the command to assemble in Hebrews 10:25. The command to assemble necessitates a place to assemble and thus we have authority for church buildings. The authority for eating gives us the authority to have a place to eat.
3. Some years ago, I spoke to a brother in Christ who preached for a church that would not have common meals (potluck meals/fellowship meals/love feasts) in the church building. This brother specifically stated that doing so was in violation of 1 Corinthians 11:22, and was a sin that would cause a Christian to end up in hell. I asked him if they had a water fountain in the church building. When he said, “Yes,” I reminded him of the fact that 1 Corinthians 11:22 says, “What, Do you not have houses to eat and drink in?” When I asked him how he could consistently teach people are going to hell for eating in the church building, but not for drinking in the church building, he told me the water fountain was necessary because their services were very long. 1 Corinthians 11:22 is the most common passage referred to by those who teach that eating in a church building is a sin. In the context Paul is discussing an abuse of the Lord’s Supper. The Lord’s Supper is not a meal to be eaten for the purposes of filling the belly. It is not an act of worship to be partaken of only by those who have available to them the bread and fruit of the vine (1 Cor. 11:20-21). Paul rebukes the Corinthians for their attitudes and actions when he says, “What? Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God, and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you” (1 Cor. 11:22). A meal can be eaten before or after worship but the Lord’s Supper does not need to be turned into a meal. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11:22 are to Christians who had turned the Lord’s Supper into a meal. He tells them they can take care of that at home.
4. Do Paul’s words of rebuke teach us that we cannot eat in a church building? Consider the fact that there were no church buildings in Paul’s day. Also, remember that the early Christians often met in homes (Acts 12:12; Rom.16:2-5; 1 Cor. 16:19). Did they eat in their homes? Yes. Did they worship in their homes? Yes. Did they eat and worship in the same place? Yes. It is not a sin to eat and worship in the same place.
5. There is no inherent evil in Christians eating together as long as they are faithfully in fellowship (1 Cor. 5:11). The practice is scriptural, authorized, and even beneficial (Acts 2:46; Jude 12). Because the practice is scriptural, we are free to examine options regarding how to have such meals, and to choose which of those options is the most expedient. Regarding options, one must be very careful not to bind his opinion in such a way as to condemn to hell those who choose another option. For, when one has done that, he has become guilty of binding where God has not.

Answer

In my answer, I will use the same numbers assigned to the paragraphs in the article above.

1. The author shows from the Scriptures that early Christians ate meals together (Acts 2:46), sometimes before and after their worship (Mattox). Notice that the Scriptures authoritatively set forth the will of the Lord relative to such matters, but historians lack divine essentials for that purpose. What the Bible teaches, we must accept (2 Tim. 3:16-17), but what men say is not to be received with the same degree of faith (1 Thess. 2:13). What the author quoted above has failed to note is that their meals were a function of their homes and were done as individuals (from house to house), while their worship was a function of the local congregation and done in the gathering.
2. The writer asserts he has established authority for the meal as a work of the local church, but he has not. The reason is that he has not demonstrated that it pertains to the responsibility of the local church. His citation of Acts 2:46 comes nowhere close to identifying a congregational responsibility. Read it for yourself and see! While it is true that there must be a location for the meal, it does not follow that the church has a right to undertake a clearly individual work. If he could show authorization for a church-provided meal—one financed or arranged for by the church (but he has not done so), then it would follow that the church could provide a place for the meal. When the Bible gives the church a duty, then the place for implementing that duty is necessarily authorized, as in a place for the church to assemble (Heb. 10:25). If he could find a passage assigning the church the duty of arranging for meals and providing a place for them, then he would have something that is so far missing in his defense of such meals.
3. In paragraph number three (see above), we witness some mighty meanderings as the writer tries to find a defense for church-provided meals, but he comes up lacking. The Corinthians were indeed abusing the Lord’s Supper by turning it into a common meal, and it is also true that Paul’s divinely given remedy for their problem was to eat at home the kind of meal they were attempting to eat in the church. He could have instructed them to eat their meal before or after worship, as the writer thinks appropriate in the first paragraph. Instead, Paul told them to eat it at home. Why? There is a gigantic difference between a church-provided meal and a meal eaten at home. The latter has Christ’s permission, while the former lacks his authority if provided for by the congregation. The defense on the basis of the water cooler simply fails to show authorization. Eating and drinking in this verse (v. 22) refers to social eating and drinking, not meeting a real need. It would be just as abusive to this verse to forbid a baby’s nursing in the building out of necessity as it is to forbid drinking at the water fountain to meet a real need. Surely not even the writer would so misuse this verse! He must give up his point here.
4. In this paragraph, the writer grasps for straws by citing the ancient practice of Christians meeting in homes for worship. When that is done, even today, the owner of the home can offer hospitality if he desires (Heb. 13:1-2), but doing so does not transform it into the kind of practice followed in many places today. It remains an individual practice of hospitality. It is when the church plans, finances, and oversees such occasions that they become church-provided meals, lacking in Bible support. This writer has eaten on church property in earlier years when brethren gathered to accommodate an early afternoon meeting to sing or to hear preaching. He has even eaten in the building once in a great while if the weather dictated, or when lodging in a church building (eating, sleeping, and showering there) so he could preach for the group and work in the neighborhood in the daytime. I never thought I sinned because I did so in the first instance as an incidental use of the property (not a church-designed use of it) and in the second instance as a provision by the church for a preacher’s needs (Phil. 1:5; 4:10-16). That is not the same as a church-provided meal.
5. I agree with the writer’s point that eating together is authorized, but when provided by whom? For the Christian in his home function? Yes! For the church? No! I also agree with what he says about the benefits of this activity. Still, I strongly disagree that the church’s arranging for it and providing a place for it should be seen as a scriptural option when it has not even been shown to be authorized for the church. To stand by what the Bible authorizes is not binding where God has not bound. To allow a practice that the Bible fails to authorize is to loose where God has not loosed.

Author-Bio

Bobby L. Graham

Bobby actively participates in fill-in preaching, Belize trips, teaching an hour each day at Athens Bible School, and in gospel meeting work. He and his wife, Karen, have three children. He can be reached at bobbylgraham@pclnet.