Most of us are aware that all Christian Communion practices have their beginnings in the Last Supper of Jesus and His apostles. That Last Supper was actually a Seder meal, and many contemporary Jews would recognize many of the elements—the sharing of the cup, the blessing, the breaking of bread, the sop that was handed to Judas—as part of their Passover celebrations. The New Testament’s book of Acts 2:42 records that early Christians would gather together to worship, pray, and teach. In the years after the church was empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, there were two different but similar customs or early sacraments that are closely related to the more contemporary practice of Communion. These two sacraments could also be called meals, as one was the Lord’s Supper and the other was the Agape feast. In 1 Corinthians 11:20–22, the apostle Paul was critical of the church because they were getting too rowdy and even drunk at what others would later call the Agape love feast: Therefore, when you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s Supper. For at the meal, each one eats his own supper ahead of others. So one person is hungry while another gets drunk! Don’t you have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you look down on the church of God and embarrass those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I praise you? I do not praise you for this! (HCSB) Many scholars believe the early church would gather weekly for a common meal, often shared in the homes or house churches. Each meal would include a blessing, the breaking of bread, and a distribution of Communion. Over time this Communion (a Greek word for “fellowship”) became the Eucharist (another Greek word, meaning “grateful” or “thanksgiving”) and the central focus of the weekly gathering. Piecing various historical records together indicates that this weekly common meal, sometimes called the Agape feast, included the distribution of Communion. However, independent of the Agape feast, a separate liturgy developed for Communion that did not include a meal. The Agape feast was truly a feast (think potluck with wine), and, probably because of the abuses similar to those mentioned by Paul hundreds of years earlier, it disappeared completely by the fourth century.