At the Table

Some of the most important moments in the Gospels happen over food. Jesus feeds the crowds, eats with outsiders, washes his friends’ feet at supper. After the resurrection, two disciples on the road to Emmaus only recognise him when he breaks bread at their table.

And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him…

Luke 24:30–31 (KJV)

Greater love

On the night before he died, Jesus gave his disciples a new name for themselves:

Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

John 15:15 (KJV)

A few verses earlier he had said what that friendship would cost him: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

A shared life

Friendship with God was never meant to be a private hobby. The first believers “continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). They became friends of God together, and they became friends of one another.

That is the hope behind TPC: tables where friends of God can be encouraged, and where there is always room for one more.

For reflection

• Who has been “a friend of God” to you?
• Whose table could you sit at, or invite to yours, this month?