All About Feasting in the Bible

What do these Bible verses about feasting at God’s table have to teach you? How does God’s Word describe eating and drinking together? If you feel unworthy to sit at God’s banquet table of goodness, read on for what Scripture says about how you are welcome to enjoy God’s abundant goodness.

Table Of Contents

10 Scriptures about Feasting at God’s Banquet Table

Here are Bible verses about feasting, eating, and drinking.

1. Psalm 23:5 – You prepare a table before me.

“You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.”
Psalm 23:5, ESV

The 23rd Psalm is a Bible chapter that many Christians come back to over and over for comfort throughout life. (This is a reason why it’s a popular Bible reading at funerals.)

Verse 5 is a fantastic reminder of God’s goodness and provision for you. This passage creates a word picture of how God prepares a table for you. Your cup overflows with goodness and blessing.

While this passage is a metaphor of God’s goodness, I believe it’s also literally a Bible verse about food. God has given us food as a good gift to enjoy and savor. As someone who has dealt with weight issues all my life, and worked with thousands of women through my website, sometimes women come to me and say, “I just want food to be for fuel.”

Yes food is fuel, but it is also so much more. While I do believe we need to put food in it’s rightful place, that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it! The delicious taste of food is a wonderful blessing from God. Food gives us fellowship, connection, and nourishes us both physically and mentally.

2. Isaiah 25:6 – A feast of rich food and aged wine.

“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.”
Isaiah 25:6

This passage from Isaiah talks about how God prepares a feast with “rich food” and “well-aged wine”. This sounds like quite the banquet experience that God is preparing for you!

Later in the chapter (vs 8) it says that God will swallow up death forever and wipe away tears from all faces, which is later repeated in Revelation 21.

For any difficulties you are facing in life right now, be encouraged that there is a great reward coming for you in eternal life. God will shower you with blessings during your earthly life, too.

On our Thanksgiving tablecloth, our family writes our blessings for the year.

3. Luke 14:13 – Invite the pool, the crippled, the lame, the blind.

“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind…”
Luke 14:13

This passage in Luke 14 is part of The Parable of the Great Banquet. Jesus tells them that when you give a banquet, rather than invite your friends (because you will be repaid with invitations in return), instead invite the poor, crippled, lame and blind.

Jesus tells the parable of a man who prepared a banquet and none of the invited guests attended. They all made excuses for why they were too busy to come. So the master of the house invited people from the streets.

The parable is found in both Luke 14 and Matthew 22.

4. Luke 14:15 – Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.

“When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, ‘Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!'”
Luke 14:15

After hearing Jesus tell the Parable of the Great Banquet, one of the men who was with him gave this exclamation, and he was speaking truth. You will be blessed when you eat together in fellowship with other Christians at God’s great feast in heaven.

I love that this passage refers to eating bread, and Jesus refers to Himself as the bread of life. In our current food culture that claims keto or low-carb is the best, clearly people in the Bible ate bread on a regular basis.

5. Luke 22:19-2 – This is my body. This is my blood.

“And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.'”
Luke 22:19-20

In this passage from Luke (also recorded in Matthew 26:26-28 and Mark 14:22-24), Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper, also called Communion.

The Lord’s Supper is celebrated in churches across the world today. Communion is the physical means (bread and wine) with God’s Word. Through it, we receive the blessings of grace and forgiveness.

Jesus and his disciples were celebrating Passover on the night before his death, also called Maundy Thursday. Read more about Maundy Thursday here.

Celebrating the Lord’s Supper is the amazing opportunity we have here on earth to feast on God’s goodness.

6. Luke 13:29 – People will come from east and west and recline at table in the kingdom of God.

“And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God.”
Luke 13:29

Luke 13 gives us a beautiful picture of the fact that all people are welcome at God’s table. No race or nationality will be excluded. God calls all of us to new life in Christ.

7. Psalm 107:9 – The hungry He fills with good things.

“For he satisfies the longing soul,
and the hungry soul he fills with good things.”
Psalm 107:9

This Psalm about satisfaction is a favorite of mine. As someone who has struggled with food issues for many years, this passage brings me peace. I feel anxiety when I get hungry. Even though I’ve never been without enough food, I have felt hunger. I’ve worried that in order to lose weight, I wouldn’t be able to eat enough food and I would get up from the table still feeling hunger pangs or lack of satisfaction.

I’ve been caught in a cycle of binging and then restricting. I’ve used food to deal with my emotions.

In this passage, I get the awesome reminder that God will nourish and fulfill me. I don’t have to worry or be anxious because He will fill my hungry soul and give me His good gifts.

8. Revelation 19:6-9 – The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

The Marriage Supper of the Lamb
“Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,
‘Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
    the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
    and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
    and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
    with fine linen, bright and pure’—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
And the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These are the true words of God.'”
Revelation 19:6-9

The book of John’s Revelation gives us a metaphorical picture of what the end times and heaven will be like. In this passage from Revelation 19, we are given a picture of a multitude of people around the throne exclaiming praises to God.

Included in this vision is a description of “the marriage of the Lamb”. Jesus compares Himself to the bridegroom and the church as the bride.

At the end of days, Jesus (the groom) will come and His bride (the church) has made herself ready.

When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper during worship, we are getting just a taste of what the ultimate feast will be like when Jesus comes again.

9. Luke 5:29 – Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners

“And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.”
Luke 5:29

During His time on earth, Jesus didn’t do what was typical or accepted in the current culture. He surprised and sometimes shocked people by His acceptance of people who were considered outcasts.

Tax collectors were often cheaters and thieves. They were hated and looked down upon.

Yet Jesus ate at the home of Levi, a tax collector, and another time at the house of Zacchaeus. This passage says that many tax collectors were there eating with Jesus, too.

The Pharisees (teachers of the law) did not like how Jesus went against their culture’s code for what was acceptable. Luke 15:2 says, “But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.'”

Jesus came not to cater to the elite, the rich, or those high in society. Jesus came for the people who needed Him and were open to his teaching.

10. Song of Solomon 2:4 – He brought me to the banqueting house.

“He brought me to the banqueting house,
and his banner over me was love.”
Song of Solomon 2:4

Song of Solomon gives us a beautiful picture of earthly love and has a deeper meaning in how God loves His bride, the church. In this passage, you can see how God brings you into fellowship with Him and treats you not as you deserve because of your sin, but as His special, honored guest.

Picture God bringing you into a great banquet hall with banners and ribbons. Imagine that He welcomes you to a table with fancy decorations and golden dishes. Picture the table filled to almost overflowing with delicious food of all kinds, including your personal favorites. This is how much God loves you and takes care of you.

How to Feast at God’s Table…Even if You Are Overweight – Video

What Scripture Says about Feasts and Banquets

The Bible is full of verses about food, feasting, and God’s provision for His people. God’s Word clearly provides direction for both the physical food we eat and the ways God provides for us spiritually.

1. God provides us literal food and fellowship.

Sometimes people are quick to assume that the Bible is talking about the figurative ways that God feeds us, and while the Bible is full of those, there are also plenty of references to physical food and drink.

God knows that we are created in human bodies that need food. (After all, He created our bodies.) There is nothing wrong with needing food or even desiring food. This physical drive is what keeps us alive.

Here are some of the important places in the Bible that talk about food:

In the very first chapter in the Bible, in Genesis, God says the garden is full of food for Adam and Eve to eat (Genesis 1:29).
To commemorate God’s people leaving Egypt, the Feast of Passover was established (Exodus 12).
The book of Leviticus lists 7 feasts that God’s people celebrated. Leviticus 23 includes the Feast of Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of the Harvest, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot).
Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding banquet (John 2:1-11).

2. We feast on God’s Word

As much as we need physical food, even more we need to feast on God’s Word and continue in relationship with Him.

Here are some verses that talk about how we are nourished by God’s voice in Scripture:

Deuteronomy 8:3 says that just as God’s people were fed with daily manna when they wandered in the wilderness, so we live by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Jesus referred to this passage later in the New Testament when Satan tempted him to turn stones into bread.
Jesus refers to himself as the bread of life in John 6:35 and says that we will never hunger or thirst when we believe in Him.
In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount when He spoke the Beatitudes, he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” (Matthew 5:6)

You are Worthy to Feast at God’s Table

Do you feel that are unworthy to sit at God’s table? Maybe you feel like you don’t deserve God’s goodness because of past sins and mistakes you have made.

All of us have felt this way at times. We continue to commit the same sins again and again, even though we say that we will stop. We allow our selfish desires to lead us astray. We give in to temptation.

Lately I’ve been considering how difficult it is for those of us with food issues to feel like we are worth to sit at God’s table. How can we enjoy a feast when we know we have misused food and the bodies God has given us?

The truth is, you are unworthy. All of us are. You are sinful, and your sin separates you from God because God is perfect.

Yet because of Jesus and His saving work on the cross to pay the price for your sin, you have a place at God’s table. You don’t earn this place because of obedience or good things you do.

You have this place at God’s banquet feast as a gift freely given from your Heavenly Father.

You are worthy to feast at God’s table – even if you are overweight, even if you are addicted, even if you yelled at your kids this morning, even if were lazy this weekend, even if you gossiped, or even if you cheated someone in business. Jesus makes you worthy.

There is a seat with your name on it at God’s table because of His mercy and grace.

Why Food and Fellowship are Important in God’s Kingdom

Clearly, food and fellowship are important concepts in the Bible.

God desires to feed you, both literally and figuratively.
God wants you to be in fellowship with other Christians.
God desires for you to regularly partake in the Lord’s Supper.
You have a place at God’s table, both today and into eternity.

Isn’t that incredible? God’s desires for you to have an abundant life (John 10:10) filled and overflowing with His good gifts. Reflect on these Bible verses about feasting as a reminder of all God is giving you.

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