table fellowship
Eating together ritually
Table fellowship is the practice of sharing meals as a form of social bonding and mutual acceptance.
The term appears most often in religious contexts, where eating together signals spiritual communion and equality before God.
In biblical scholarship, who Jesus ate with—tax collectors, sinners, outcasts—carried theological weight: Table fellowship with Gentiles was controversial in the early church.
The concept extends to any setting where sharing food creates or affirms relationship.
- communionProfound shared closeness
- breaking of breadCommunal food sharing ritual
- breaking breadSharing food communally
- bread and wineSacramental food and drink
- common cupDrinking vessel used collectively
feast · gathering · hospitality · meal · supper · sharing · intimacy · kinship · banquet · guests · welcome · blessing · abundance · conversation · ritual · warmth · belonging · wine
- Shared Mealscommunal meal, potluck, feast, banquet, dinner party
- early churchapostles, early church, Church Fathers, apostolic fathers, Acts of the Apostles
table fellowshipexclusion
Being barred from participation
ostracism · excommunication · shunning · banishment · social rejection
table fellowshipestrangement
Emotional separation between people
alienation · enmity · discord · hostility · division
table, tables, tabled, tabling, tabular, tabulate, tabulation, tablet, tablature