📖 Biblical Definition
The fellowship meal, or love feast (agape), was the practice of the early church gathering to share a common meal as an expression of their unity in Christ. "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2:42). These meals were connected to the Lord's Supper and embodied the koinonia -- the shared life -- of believers who held all things in common. Jude mentions these love feasts as occasions where false teachers crept in to corrupt the church (Jude 1:12). Paul rebuked the Corinthians for turning the fellowship meal into a display of selfishness and class division (1 Corinthians 11:20-22).
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
Fellowship: companionship; communion; joint interest; partnership in religious worship.
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FEL'LOWSHIP, n. 1. Companionship; society; consort; mutual association on equal and friendly terms. 2. Association; confederacy; combination. 3. Partnership; joint interest. 4. Communion; intercourse. In theology, communion with God; intimate communion of Christians with one another.
📖 Key Scripture
• Acts 2:42 — "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers."
• Acts 2:46 — "Day by day... breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts."
• 1 Corinthians 11:20-22 — "When you come together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat."
• Jude 1:12 — "These are hidden reefs at your love feasts."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
Fellowship meals have been reduced to church potlucks disconnected from spiritual communion.
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The early church's fellowship meals were expressions of deep spiritual communion -- the shared life of believers united by the blood of Christ. Modern church potlucks bear little resemblance to this practice. They are social events with no spiritual content, no connection to the Lord's Table, and no intentional expression of koinonia. Meanwhile, the Lord's Supper itself has been reduced to a brief ritual performed quarterly with thimble-sized cups and stale wafers, stripped of its original context as part of a full communal meal. The recovery of genuine fellowship meals -- where the body of Christ gathers to eat together, pray together, and share life together around the Table -- would do more for church health than a hundred programs.
Usage
• "The fellowship meal of the early church was not a church potluck -- it was the embodiment of koinonia, the shared life of believers united in Christ around a common table."
• "Paul rebuked the Corinthians not for having fellowship meals but for corrupting them with selfishness and division."