Threads Church

Last Sunday, we looked at the way of life Jesus calls His followers to live.  It's a "table life".  That is a way of life focused on building community.  This revolutionary community is not based on who we are, but instead is rooted in whose we are.  So in the community of grace, we will find people radically committed to each other that are the least likely to be in the same room!

In reading thru the Bible, it seems that the table is a strong symbol of our spiritual journey.

Throughout the Bible, the meal plays a very prominent symbolic role. The first sin is about eating a forbidden food in Genesis 2 and 3.

Abraham's servant used hospitality as one of his most important criteria for the selection of a wife for Isaac (Genesis 24:10ff.).

Jacob teaches us of the important role which the meal played but in a very different way. He perverted the table, using it not as a means to serve others, but as a means to serve himself by taking advantage of his table guests. Thus, Jacob used his stew to obtain his brother's birthright (Genesis 24:27-34), and he used a meal to deceive his father so that he received his blessing as though he were Esau (Genesis 27).

In Exodus 12, the climax of the contest between God and the gods of Egypt was the judgment of God on the first born of the Egyptians, and God's "passing over" all those who celebrated the first "Passover."

In Exodus 32, when Aaron fashioned the golden calf, the Israelites engage in their idol worship with a meal (32:1-6).

The Israelites are seduced to engage in idol worship with the Moabites when they accept the dinner invitation of the Moabites (Numbers 25:1-5).

In Judges 19 those far from God are hospitable (verses 3-9) and the people of God are not, and they seek to rape the stranger in their midst (verses 10-26).

David shows his love for Jonathan by making Mephibosheth (Jonathan's surviving son) a guest at his table (2 Samuel 9). 

Psalm 23 describes security and blessing in terms of a meal.  God's care for the Israelites in the wilderness is poetically depicted as His preparing a table for them in the desert (Psalm 78:17-19).

While Daniel is willing to live in Babylon to serve the king and even be educated in a Babylonian school, he draws the line at eating from the king's table (Daniel 1).

In the New Testament, the Gospels continue to emphasize the significance of the dinner table. The feeding of the 5,000 is a huge symbolic event, one that Jesus uses to reveal Himself as "bread from heaven" (John 6).

The status-seeking of the scribes and Pharisees is seen by their quest for places of honor at the dinner table (Matthew 23:6; see also Luke 14:10; John 13).

Jesus surely shocks His followers when He speaks of serving them at the banquet table in the kingdom of God (Luke 12:37).

Jesus also angers the Jews by informing them that while many Jews would not be sitting at His "banquet table" in the kingdom, many of the Gentiles would be seated at that table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Luke 13:22-30; see Matthew 8:11; 15:27).

Jesus instructs His disciples about inviting guests to a banquet who can reciprocate, rather than those with real needs who cannot return the favor (Luke 14:12-14).

Those who reject Jesus and His kingdom are compared to those who turn down an invitation to a banquet (Luke 14:15-24).

The prodigal son is welcomed home with a banquet (Luke 15:11-32). Jesus promises His faithful disciples they will sit with Him at His table in the kingdom of God (Luke 22:30).

When Jesus rises from the dead, He reveals Himself to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus while seated at the dinner table (Luke 24:30-31).

In the remainder of the New Testament, the dinner table is still a very important symbol. Paul severely rebukes Peter for separating himself from the Gentile believers and sitting at the supper table with the Jews (Galatians 2:11-21).

In His letter to the Laodiceans, Christ compares their repentance and restoration to fellowship with Him to sitting with Him at the meal table (Revelation 3:20).

The final events described by John in Revelation 19 are described as a banquet. In verses 1-10 is the marriage banquet, which celebrates the marriage of our Lord to His church.

In Revelation 22, it is almost as though we have returned to paradise lost, for there the "tree of life" is found, and by sharing of it, the nations are healed (Revelation 22:1-2).