The First Regime of the Body of Christ's Disciples as a Christian Community
P.C. Barker Acts 2:42-47 And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And they continued steadfastly... such as should be saved. It may be conceded that the history in these verses acknowledges to some appearance of repetition. This is appearance, however, rather than reality. The first of these verses gives in the highest possible form the headings of a subject which is developed a little more fully in the following five verses; and these same verses find room for a touch or two which antedate, though by a very trifling interval, the course of the history. The verses invite to an observation of the very first workings of Christian principle, craving, feeling, and practice. It is no more true that there are things most characteristic of infant life which drop away by process of time and the advent of maturity, than that methods appropriate to the actual infancy of the Christian Church will, as generations pass, inevitably be superseded by other methods, stronger, sterner, and to all outside appearance far less flexible. Yet, if the man cannot be forecast always in the child, for want of enough of the prophet's vision, he can be traced back to the child. And a wonderfully tenacious personal identity is the lesson in human nature that is impressed on the observer. And well it is for us in the maturer ages of Christian individual life, and the Christian Church's life, to refresh ourselves with the sight of the first facts of Christian Church life, and of the real principles that must ever be found in the last analysis to underlie it. Such a sight is here offered us. The following are the principal features of it: - I. THE INFANT CHURCH CRAVES INSPIRED INSTRUCTION, AND IS FURNISHED WITH IT. The call for this had been foreseen by the great Master-teacher himself. In the same commission in which he charged his apostles to "make disciples of all nations," he enjoined them to teach such disciples "to observe all things I have commanded you." Great stress must be laid upon Christ's own teaching. We cannot overvalue it. The stress he laid on it himself, by his unwearied labors in it, tells volumes of his own practical estimate of its importance. Meantime such an expression as that we find in Matthew 15:9, "Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men," differences for us most decisively not any mere question of style, and superiority of style, in the teaching that is from above, but the matter itself. The characteristic, then, begun with in the description of the new community was this: "They continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching." That was inspired teaching. And let the world stand in need of whatsoever else, it is to be laid down emphatically that the Church stands in need of this. Inspired teaching is the breath of the Church - its vital air, its light, and the alphabet of its knowledge. II. THE INFANT CHURCH DRAWS TOGETHER IN CLOSEST AND MOST REAL UNION. The "fellowship" spoken of in ver. 42 does not mark merely the fact of association with the apostles. Nor does it describe association with one another from the attractions of friendship, of new-born natures, or of worship. It marks a newer thing, and, considering the numbers of those concerned, a very new thing. Jesus, with the little circle of his twelve disciples, had suggested, possibly enough, the germ of this. But the number of twelve or thirteen living together on a common purse, and with no selfishly individual object whatsoever in view, was but the suggestion of a principle; and that now, as many scores, or possibly hundreds, should attempt a similar thing, was a bold thought; it was the daring of a high and unwontedly noble impulse, and best of all was the deed of it. Those who made up this new community first did a thing, that would have been called nothing else than utopianism while only talked about. It is something most reinvigorating to a Christian's faith in the hidden possibilities of a regenerate human nature, to think of the real proofs of sincerity and of utter earnestness that came out of the conduct of men who sold their lands and possessions, and brought all to one common stock. It was certainly a beginning of a "new earth," and none the less so that it was but temporary in the then form of it. It betrayed and it displayed a genius lying in the new-found forces of Christianity never to be forgotten. For a while there was no want and no wealth, except that best wealth, absence of want. The snare of wealth is vanished, and the charm of loving contentment smiles in the world. III. THE INFANT CHURCH BRINGS WITHOUT HESITATION RELIGION INTO DAILY LIFE. The "breaking of bread" certainly did not mean simply the taking of the ordinary meals of day after day. There could have been nothing remarkable in individual men "continuing steadfast" in this. The "breaking of bread" referred to was that of a united meal, and this was the particular significance of it. Again, the life of those few weeks in Jerusalem would have been a life of mere desultory and unfruitful idleness, except for an unusual reality in occupations, which would generally be counted as at most the luxurious enjoyments of religious service. But these evidently become the works of religious service, and then was the fulfilling of the admonition, given some years later to the Hebrews (Hebrews 10:24, 25), beautifully anticipated. They considered "one another, to provoke unto love and to good works," and they did not forsake "the assembling of themselves together" for that very purpose. Thus they assemble, and thus break bread day after day. On the one hand, we witness association "in breaking of bread" with its more or less of direct religious reference brought into the daily home and the daily life of those who composed the infant Church; and, on the other hand, we witness religious thought and religious purpose and religious work become for a season the staple occupation of "the common days." Perhaps all of us will agree that if ever works merited the title of religious, the works of those days did which had for their (secular) business the sale of lands and goods, to the end that "the price" of them (Acts 5:1) might go to the common treasury of the new-born Christian society. IV. THE INFANT CHURCH STILL OBSERVES THE TEMPLE HOURS OF PRAYER. The history of temple prayer was rightly charged with sacredness to the pious Jew. As up to the last Jesus paid all due reverence to both temple and even synagogue also, so the young community of his disciples do not forsake the temple prayers. Public prayer was offered three times a day: at the third hour (Acts 2:15); at noonday (Psalm 55:17), or the sixth hour; and in the evening, at the ninth hour (Acts 3:1; Acts 10:3). The general history of the nation's prayer must naturally have abounded in interest, and many a touching allusion is made to it (1 Kings 8:30-38, etc.; Daniel 6:10; Daniel 9:21; Psalm 5:7; Psalm 28:2; Psalm 55:17; Psalm 65:1, 2; Psalm 119:164; Psalm 138:2; Psalm 141:2; Isaiah 56:7; Luke 1:10; Luke 18:10; etc.). But not the least interesting fact in its history is that before us. While all things else - sacrifice, and feast, and ceremony, and priest, and the furniture of the temple, and its very stones - are doomed and about to disappear, its prayers bud out, blossom, bear fruit afresh. The point of living contact with God lasts. The old Church and the new join hands here. Prayer is the golden link between these, as it is between all earth and heaven. - B. Parallel Verses KJV: And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. WEB: They continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and prayer.