Gone without Food

~I Corinthians 6.4-7a In everything we do, we show that we are true ministers of God. We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind. We have been beaten, been put in prison, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless nights, and gone without food. We prove ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, our kindness, by the Holy Spirit within us, and by our sincere love. We faithfully preach the truth. God’s power is working in us.

~I Corinthians 11.27 I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm.

Going without food was a cost this apostle sometimes had to pay in his extensive work and travel to share the knowledge of God in Jesus.

Not everyone is called to be a food monitor.

~Acts 6.1-5

In those days ... the Hellenistic Jews . . . complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”
This proposal pleased the whole group.

~Acts 21.8

The next day we went on to Caesarea and stayed at the home of Philip the Evangelist, one of the seven men who had been chosen to distribute food.

A couple of food points can be observed here.

Believers shared food in a daily distribution.

And not everyone is called to be a food monitor; specific people were chosen for this. Even so, Philip, one of the seven chosen for this physical work, later is known for his evangelism as well.

Eating together is a valuable part believers' lives.

~Acts 2.42-43, 46-47 All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. . . . . They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.

For all the wealth it contains, the Bible is not a big book, and the New Testament only about a quarter of the whole. Therefore, every detail carries weight and repetition carries more weight. Twice in this short passage Luke says that the first believers in Christ ate together. He wants readers to hear this. Eating together is part of the life of the church, of the fellowship of believers. We need to eat; we eat together. Christianity is not a solitary pursuit.

The Lord's Supper

~Matthew 26.16-30, Mark 14.12-26, Luke 22.7-38, John 13

Bread. Wine. Such important symbols of the Jewish and Christian faiths.

The Passover Meal is full of meaning, which I think will be better considered from the Old Testament explanations when I get to that point.

Now, I only note again that meals are an important part of life, sometimes setting for significant conversations and symbolism.

Wait. Who is serving whom?

~Luke 12.35-38 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak.

~Luke 17.7-10 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

Clearly mealtime is among Jesus' favorite metaphors for his Kingdom. In these two passages he makes an unlikely, maybe even unthinkable, picture of a master serving dinner to his servants. This weird change of circumstance would have caught the attention of hearers, both masters and slaves. He uses the incongruity to make two different points: 1) be ready at all times for the master's return, and 2) humbly do your duty without expecting commendation for it.

PS I admire Ben Hoerr for taking Luke 17.10 as a key verse in his life and his recent dramatic and unexpected change in circumstance.