Potluck

It is common for the new believer to want to do whatever it is that Christians are supposed to do. The expectation is a list of daily disciplines that believers ought to adopt as a means of deserving grace, favor, blessing, or any of number of other desirable, spiritual impartations from God. And while there are New Testaments commandments that define the personal practices of the followers of Christ, the commandment given in John 13:34-35 is easily under-applied to our lives. 

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.¹

This is expressed in activities like building up one another, praying for one another, forgiving one another, greeting one another, serving one another, comforting one another, encouraging one another to love and good deeds, and admonishing one another. Christians have come to refer to these practices as simply the “one anothers.” 

Churches have come to facilitate such opportunities by organizing potlucks!² It’s humorously mundane—pedestrian, even—but opportunities for fellowship shouldn’t require novel reasons. Feasts are celebrations, and Christians have the greatest reason to celebrate: Jesus died on the cross as atonement for our sins, rose from the grave on the third day, ascended to Heaven, and is seated at the righthand of the Father in order to secure a place for believers in heaven for eternity. 

Jesus Christ paid the price for our sins and in John 13 he only asks us to love one another. Why not share a meal while your at it?

1. New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Jn 13:34-35. ↩︎
2. In North American English, this is “a meal in which all the guests bring a different dish to share.” Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson, eds., Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). ↩︎