Before we begin, let me emphasize that I appreciate the need to discuss biblical authority. Jesus, Himself, emphasized that He could not do or teach anything without the Father’s authority (John 8:28, 29). It is arrogant to think we could do whatever we want in religion or our spiritual/moral lives without authority from God (see Colossians 3:17).
So it is a pertinent question – Do we have authority to use the church’s treasury to pay for kitchens and/or other social activities in the realm of fellowship?
Follow my reasoning…
WE ARE TO FELLOWSHIP
We are to engage in fellowship or that which makes us one: Romans 14:19;
Acts 2:42; 1 Peter 3:8.
EXAMPLE
We have the example where “fellowship” can involve eating together. Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and seventy elders of Israel ate and drank in the presence of God in fellowship on Mount Sinai – Exodus 24:9-11 (see also the “peace offerings” – Leviticus 3; 7:11-21, 28-34).
By way of negative example, Paul corrected the Corinthians who were “associating” with a “so-called brother” and in that association, they were eating with him, a thing which Paul told them not to do (1 Corinthians 5:11).
Again, in Galatians 2, in the context of giving the “right hand of fellowship” (verse 9), Paul recounts how he had to rebuke Peter publicly because he had been eating with the Gentiles (verse 12) and then withdrew himself.
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It can be necessarily inferred that the first-century church both ate and worshiped in the same facility: Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:19; Colossians 4:15; Philemon 2; 2 John 10.
1 Corinthians 11.22, 34 is the one text some Christians use to show we can’t use the Lord’s money for “fellowship meals.” However, clearly it is the abuse of the Lord’s Supper which Paul rebukes and corrects, not an imagined abused of the church building. To put it another way, Paul is not saying in this passage, “Don’t eat in the building.” He is saying, “Don’t eat during the Lord’s Supper.”
EXPEDIENCY
So, the argument goes:
If Christians must engage in fellowship in order to fulfill a divine command, and
If the fellowship may involve eating together, and
If the church of the first-century ate in facilities in which they also worshiped,
Then any given congregation is authorized by the New Testament to take funds from the “church treasury” to provide such food, kitchen, appliances, utensils and other necessary items for their fellowship and/or social activities per the wisdom of that particular congregation’s leadership.
Finally, in the words of Woods: “Members of the church who regularly sit down to eat together do not usually engage in bitterness and back-biting” (Questions and Answers, 355). If that is the case, then we should do more of it!
–Paul Holland
