Video Transcript: The Role of Food and Hospitality in a Bible Study

Henry - So here we are. We've just talked about prayer in Bible studies, but I  suppose No, Bible study should not be Bible stuy lessons should not be talked  about it unless we talk about right now, it's weird, food has something to do with  Bible study. Yeah. Well, the early church, Acts 2:46-47 every day, they continue  to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate  together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all  the people and the Lord edged their number daily those who are being saved.  

Steve - So that this is very I think this is very insightful. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. In other words, they had a church service, yeah? In the temple courts, that was a big group, right? So they had big groups,  big group meetings, big group meeting, church meetings. Well, then they broke  

bread in their homes, yeah. So now they have these home Bible study, and  that's where the breaking of the bread took place. And it was both a meal, but it  also was a communion service. So it was a meal with purpose. All right. So this  has some history to it. The history is in the Passover, right,  

Henry - Exodus 12:3-4, tell the whole community of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. If  any household is too small for the whole lamb, they must share one with their  nearest neighbor.  

Steve - Okay, so if you know, here God is, you know, trying to teach his people.  The people were slaves in Egypt, right? And they didn't know who God was,  who was God. And here, here's this incredible salvation moment. He's going to  save them from the saveless slavery of Egypt, bring them into the Promised  Land. And he does it with this sort of sacrament, and it's food. It's related to  food. Jesus is going to, you know, sort of bring the Passover forward into  communion, meeting with his disciples, and he's doing the Seder service, but he transforms it into this communion service. And again, it's done with food, the  wedding banquet. You know, the end of the world, the imagery is this banquet,  and people gathering around food. So much of the ceremonies in life are around food.  

Henry - So my wife and I did the hospitality and fellowship mini course, and both of us commented on how powerful food is. Food at the center, communion at the center of it all. Why do you think that is? Well, it's a basic need we all share. And I think, I mean, I reflect that when we share that basic need together, we feel  

connected. I think going out to eat with someone, you feel that there's a passage in the Old Testament how enemies, through the work of Elisha, Raiders, were  actually attacking in the end of the day, they had a feast in Samaria with the  king. And then it says, And they raided Israel, no more. So they changed 

everything, right? You know, so there is some powerful thing about hospitality  and fellowship that transcends all of us, right?  

Steve - Luke 15, starts out with the problem of Jesus. The self righteous  teachers of the law had a problem with Jesus because they said he's with the  sinners. And not only is he with them, he's eating with them. And in that culture,  eating with someone is like, intimate. It's an intimate experience, right? That's  powerful, and I think it's representative of the intimacy, but it's also leads to  intimacy, right? That's powerful. So there's options, and I we just put three down  here. You could have a dessert only sometimes, you know, sometimes, if you go too big and you you know, food and someone has to prepare and it's all this  work, then people don't want to do it because it's too much work. Dessert only is fine, depending on the time that you meet. Coffee other times, like a potluck.  Hey, everyone brings something, and so it's not a burden on not on everyone.  Or you can have it catered, just pay a little money have it brought in.  

Henry - You know, you know, I always talk in our church planting, and I would  say this to like any church planter, if you can get really amazing at food and  having people over. You know, one of the I remember a story in Oregon where,  you know, I felt always called every day to talk to someone. And remember one  time I just put my finger in the phone book, this was back in the 1990s called  that person up and talked as a little uncomfortable, and I said, Would you as  your husband? Wife who answered, want to come walk to our house for a  cookout? And amazingly, she said yes, and they both became believers. He was an accountant, became their accountant and bookkeeper for the church, mainly  because a cold call, which went to warm food in five minutes, occurred. Right?  Sure, right? Okay, it all starts, right. 

Steve - And then the fellowship, sometimes groups start off with a game, like a  sort of like game, like the kind of games we did when we did Young People's  Church, you'd have a fun little game. There's all kinds of different things. You  can look up little games, little house warming kind of games. And the reason  these can sometimes be important is because, especially in the beginning, if you get people that don't know each other well, and then you launch into the Bible  study, and they're, you know, all of a sudden, it's personal questions, especially  for guys, right? Okay, the guy culture is like, you know, it's not ideal for the Bible  study setting, you know, right? We're gonna meet in a small group and bare our  soul, yeah, another and the guys are like, oh, you know, let's just watch a  football game, right? Okay, so that's what a game does. What guys do is, like,  what we're doing right now, we're sitting side by side, and we can have a  conversation together. And once in a while, we'll look over here and say  something, but we don't have to sit like that's too intimate for most guys. And so 

that's what games do. Games do are like, there are things on the side, but what  happens in the middle of the game? You're joking, you're laughing, you're saying things, you're learning about each other. Trust is being warming us up. You're  warming us up. Now, another thing that can work, but again, often in the  beginning, you know new person isn't going to know songs, but it used to be our culture, we would sing at every occasion, right? There were folk songs, there  were patriotic songs, there were all kinds of different songs, and we sort of  gotten away from that. Maybe a modern version of this is YouTube videos where people get together and they share. We did that the other night. Yeah, it was  hard. We shared songs that meant something to us, and we had why? Yeah,  why does it interest you? Yes, what interests you? Why isn't God save you? But  it was, it was really cool. In other words, we didn't have to be great singers,  right? Because we're letting the YouTube video do it, but our interest in music  could be used. So the point is, the whole point of food and and games and  fellowship is, is to create an atmosphere where where relationships can take  place, where there's a lot of talking and listening, right, there's, there's a thing  called snow on the mountain. Maybe we'll put it in the link here. And what it is is  every person coming over is encouraged to bring one item. You have to bring  the the the walnuts, crushed walnuts, right? Someone else has to bring some  coconut, right? Someone else has to bring. And then there's a whole list of  things, and they have no idea why they're bringing these things, right? And then  the host makes this sort of chicken based something or other. And then  everyone puts their ingredient that they brought. There's diced tomatoes, and  there's all these different things, and they put them in bowls in a row, and then  you create this snow on the mountain. The rice is the snow. You start with the  base, and then you go and add all these weird, different things that you've never put together. The people like, how's this gonna work out? And it's amazingly  good. Have you ever done that? No, no, it's amazingly good. But what's cool  about that is everyone is involved. They bring the thing. And when they come  over, they're preparing things and getting bold and chopping up things, and  again, in the cracks of doing things, fellowshipping, lot of communication  happens, which now makes it possible to have a better, more meaningful Bible  study.  

Henry - So these are just a few ideas. Yeah, I mean food. Do you like sous vide? Do that? Do you like, do you like to cook? If there is somebody within the group  that loves hospitality, I've known over the years, some people, there's a few  people that just, you know, my gift is this, I want to cook, and then I you do. But  the. The power of eating together is really what we're saying, and so we're  encouraging you to put that into your Bible study plan.