community of goods. For many humble members of the church it was their best meal of the week. Gluttony and clannishness contradicted the whole spirit of such occasions.”

Tertullian, an early Christian writer, gives a description of the love feasts, recounting that the participants, before reclining to eat, offered prayer to God. They would eat and drink with moderation, only enough to satisfy hunger and thirst, remembering that even during the night they must worship God. Their conversation was as those who knew that the Lord was listening. Each sang a song, and the feast closed with prayer.

That these feasts were originally held with good intent is indicated by the word used to describe them. A·gaʹpe is the Greek word used for the highest form of love, love based on principle. It is the kind of love that the Bible says “God is.” (1 John 4:8) It is listed as a fruit of the spirit at Galatians 5:22 and described at length in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.

NOT THE “LORD’S EVENING MEAL”

There does not appear to be any basis for connecting such love feasts with the Lord’s Evening Meal (Memorial), as some have done, saying that the love feasts took place either before or after the observance of the Memorial. The Lord’s Evening Meal is an anniversary taking place yearly on the same day, the fourteenth day of the lunar month Nisan, whereas the love feasts seem to have taken place often and not necessarily on a regular schedule. The apostle Paul condemns the making of an ordinary meal out of the Lord’s Evening Meal and adds: “Certainly you do have houses for eating and drinking, do you not? . . . If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home.” (1 Cor. 11:22, 34) This was an evening to be observed with seriousness and meditation on its significance and not an occasion for eating and drinking at the meeting place.

Neither are these love feasts the same as the “taking of meals” (“breaking of bread,” AV) mentioned at Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7. Bread in those times was usually made in thin cakes. Unleavened bread would be crisp as well. Bread was not cut, but broken, which gave rise to the phrase “breaking bread,” with reference oftentimes to the partaking of an ordinary meal.—Acts 2:46, AV, compare NW.

MISUSED BY SOME

As a literal meal, love feasts became subject to various abuses by those who did not have the proper spiritual outlook, and not being commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ or his apostles but being only a custom, they were later discontinued. Jude’s words indicate that some associated on these occasions with bad motives: “These are the rocks hidden below water in your love feasts while they feast with you, shepherds that feed themselves without fear.” (Jude 12) Peter indicates the infiltration of evildoers and those teaching false doctrine among true Christians, saying: “They consider luxurious living in the daytime a pleasure. They are spots and blemishes, indulging with unrestrained delight in their deceptive teachings while feasting together with you.” (2 Pet. 2:13) While Christians up to and including the present time have continued to have pleasurable fellowship and have helped one another materially as far as it is within their power, there is no basis for the revival of love feasts as a custom in the Christian congregation.—Jas. 1:27; 2:15.

LOVING-KINDNESS

See KINDNESS.

LOYALTY

Faithful adherence to a sovereign or government, or to a leader, a cause, or the like. It connotes devoted attachment, the feeling of devotion to something or someone, trueness to any person or persons to whom one owes fidelity.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, the adjective hha·sidhʹ is variously translated by the English words “loyal,” “kind,” “holy,” and similar terms. The noun hheʹsedh has reference to kindness, but contains more than the thought of tender regard or kindness stemming from love, though it includes such traits. It is kindness that lovingly attaches itself to an object until its purpose in connection with that object is realized. Such is the sort of kindness that God expresses toward his servants and that they express toward him. It therefore comes into the field of loyalty, a righteous, devoted, holy loyalty.

In the Greek Scriptures the noun ho·si·oʹtes and the adjective hoʹsi·os carry the thought of holiness, righteousness, reverence, being devout, pious; the careful observance of all duties toward God. It involves a right relation toward God.

There appear to be no English words that exactly express the full meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words, but “loyalty,” including, as it does, the thought of devotion and faithfulness, when used in connection with God and his service, serves to give a close approximation. The best way to determine the full meaning of the Bible terms in question is to examine their usage in the Bible.

JEHOVAH’S LOYALTY

Jehovah God the Most Holy One, devoted to righteousness as he is, and exercising unbreakable loving-kindness toward those who serve him, dealing in righteousness and trueness even with his enemies, is eminently dependable. It is said of him: “Great and wonderful are your works, Jehovah God, the Almighty. Righteous and true are your ways, King of eternity. Who will not really fear you, Jehovah, and glorify your name, because you alone are loyal?” (Rev. 15:3, 4) Loyalty to righteousness and justice as well as love for his people prompts him to act in judgment, about which an angel was moved to say: “You, the One who is and who was, the loyal One, are righteous, because you have rendered these decisions.”—Rev. 16:5; compare Psalm 145:17.

Jehovah is loyal to his covenants. (Deut. 7:9) Because of his covenant with his friend Abraham he exercised long-suffering and mercy for centuries toward the nation of Israel. (2 Ki. 13:23) Through his prophet Jeremiah he appealed to Israel: “‘Do return, O renegade Israel,’ is the utterance of Jehovah. ‘I shall not have my face drop angrily upon you people, for I am loyal.’” (Jer. 3:12) Those who are loyal to him can rely fully on him. David, in prayer, asked for God’s help and said: “With someone loyal you will act in loyalty; with the faultless, mighty one you will deal faultlessly.” (2 Sam. 22:26) In an appeal to the people, David asked them to turn away from what is bad and do what is good, “for,” he said, “Jehovah is a lover of justice, and he will not leave his loyal ones. To time indefinite they will certainly be guarded.”—Ps. 37:27, 28.

Those who are loyal to Jehovah can count on his closeness and his help to the very end of their faithful course, and can rest in full security, knowing that he will remember them no matter what situation arises. He guards their way. (Prov. 2:8) He guards their lives or souls. (Ps. 97:10) He counts the death of those loyal to him precious, for they have died, not merely as sinners dying on account of Adam’s sin; rather, theirs is a death of integrity in answer to Satan’s challenge of God’s sovereignty.—Ps. 116:15.

JESUS CHRIST

Jesus Christ when on earth was greatly strengthened in the knowledge that God had caused to be foretold of him that, as God’s chief “loyal one,” his soul would not be left in Sheol. (Ps. 16:10) On the day of Pentecost, 33 C.E., the apostle Peter applied this prophecy to Jesus, saying: “[David] saw beforehand and spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that neither was he forsaken in Hades nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God resurrected, of which fact we are all witnesses.” (Acts 2:25-28, 31, 32; compare Acts 13:32-37.) The Expositor’s Greek