For those churches using the Revised Common Lectionary, this will be one of the Scripture readings for this Sunday.
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Acts 2:42-47
Here,
we have a picture of the Church in Jerusalem in the days after Pentecost. Note
the four activities that defined that Church, ‘the apostles’ teaching and the
fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers’. Let’s take a quick look
at each of them.
The apostles’
teaching:
This is about the apostles instructing in (and the saints learning about) God’s
way of living. Or to say that differently, the apostles were helping the saints
to understand life in the way that God meant it to be lived. Teaching the
saints these things included ‘unteaching’ the saints the faulty understandings
of life that they brought with them when they became part of the Church. This
Church was known as a place of teaching.
The fellowship: To use the language
of the Apostles’ Creed, this is about ‘the communion of the saints’. Being the
Church is being a group of people whose lives are deeply intertwined with each
other. This is something supernatural that the Spirit brings about. This sense
of communion that defined the Church showed itself in many different ways.
Living this life together not only benefitted the saints, but it also attracted
some of the people around them who were watching what was going on. It revealed
something of the power of the Gospel to change people’s lives so that these
others might come to hear that Gospel explained and thus discover Jesus.
The breaking of bread: This is, likely,
about enjoying the Lord’s Supper together. (Getting together to share daily
meals would be an expression of ‘the fellowship’.) It makes sense to highlight
this as a basic part of Church life since the Eucharist is one key way that the
Spirit feeds the souls of the saints with the life of Jesus. In this way the
truths of the Gospel take root in the hearts of Christians so that they can
grow and mature into whole people.
The prayers: This sounds like it
is referring to specific, written prayers that were used by the saints. The
Jewish traditions that these saints all grew up with included written prayers
so it wouldn’t have been at all odd to them to have some distinctly Christian
prayers to offer to God. This doesn’t have to mean that the old Jewish prayers
were completely replaced. It might have been that clearer aspects of the Gospel
were added to the older prayers to make them suitable expressions of the
Christian faith of the saints.
These
are the four activities that Luke highlights to describe the Church in
Jerusalem. There is, however, one more word here that warrants some special
attention: devoted. This says
something important. It isn’t that those saints happened to participate in
these four activities of the Church along with the other things of life that
they also participated in. They were devoted
to them. These Church activities were priorities that they devoted themselves to.
A
good question for each of us to ask at this point is simple. How am I doing at
being devoted to these things in my church? This is not about stirring up guilt
feelings. Taking a look, every once in a while, at what’s going on in your soul
can be very helpful. So, let me suggest something. I think that it might be
good for you to ask the Father for the grace that you need so that you can
accurately evaluate how you are doing here. And then, if it is necessary for
you to work on these things, you can ask the Father for more grace to do that.