Quote:
Originally Posted by DistantStar
I've never heard of this before. What is it exactly?
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Where I'm from, and I saw this practiced in various LC's, they will call a lunch after a meeting a
love feast. The question that was always in the back of my mind was why they made such a point to be particular about their vocabulary. Why not just call a potluck a potluck? In the context of the LC, the term
love feast wasn't anything more than a synonym for a potluck, yet they throw around this kind of terminology as if it were to indicate that the LC is something more than it really is.
In Jude 1:12, where the term
love feast is found, the context seems to indicate the term is descriptive of a practice among early Christians, as opposed to just being a name for a practice. Other groups like the Brethren have instituted a practice of
love feasts, but from what I've read, the term describes a more specific, type gathering. Here is what Wikipedia says regarding what the Brethren practice:
"A Lovefeast seeks to strengthen the bonds and the spirit of harmony, goodwill, and congeniality, as well as to forgive past disputes and instead love one another."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovefeast
Also, for further reading on the subject, here is an interesting discussion about what was practiced in the early church:
http://www.earlychurch.com/LoveFeast.html
So if you consider the other groups who have "love feasts," the term is actually descriptive for something they do, rather than it being a phrase thrown about just because. So I think that the point I was trying to make to Evangelical earlier in the discussion is that just because the LC labels their practices using terminology found in the Bible doesn't mean what they are practicing is anything more legitimate than what anyone else does.
This goes back to the discussion of calling on the Lord. We have been told that only the LC has 'recovered' this practice, yet Christians have always had a practice of "calling on the name of the Lord." They just practice it through prayer, not the way that the LC claims it should be done, so what others Christians practice has been deemed invalid in the eyes of the LC. But the LC seems to try to assert their position partially because they take a phrase found in the Bible (a phrase which Christians don't use on a regular basis), and then the LC claims that because they have a practice of X (that supposedly no one else has), that they are better than everyone else.