Good morning and welcome to our first e-Service this year, on the 9th January 2022.
In Acts 2:42, the members of the first church devoted themselves to 4 things:
1. the apostles’ teaching
2. fellowship
3. the breaking of bread
4. prayer / the prayers (depending on which version you’re reading)
1. The apostles’ teaching. Luke doesn’t tell us exactly what the apostles’ teaching was but we can be sure of two things – their teaching was centred on Jesus and based on Scripture. Read the first 2 chapters of Acts, especially Peter’s speeches and think about how he uses the Old Testament and focuses on Jesus.
Between Christmas and New Year I was watching part of a seminar on evangelism by Rico Tice at Keswick last year where he was talking about 4 aspects of our use of the Bible:
a. Public preaching/teaching.
b. Small group study.
c. 1:1.
d. Individually at home.
2. Fellowship. The Greek word is koinonia. Its origin is in koinonos, which means partner, sharer, companion. Fellowship is much more than a chat over a cup of coffee and a biscuit at the end of the service. It’s a shared life, Acts 2:44-46, “All the believers were together and had everything in common” – koina, the same root as koinonia. “They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together.” This is not the acquaintanceship of people who go to the same club; this is the relationship of best friends. People who freely lend each other their tools, furniture, cars. People who never tire of each other’s company, eating together, worshipping together, doing things together, even on a daily basis. People who care for each other so much that they will give very practical help to the other if they are in need, even if they have to sell their possessions to do it. That’s what fellowship is.
3. The breaking of bread. Does Luke mean the Lord’s Supper or a shared meal? I don’t think it was the Lord’s Supper as we know it. It was only 7 weeks after Jesus’ resurrection, only 10 days after his ascension. The apostles and other disciples were still working out what it all meant. Very early days for there to be an established sacrament. In vv 46,47 Luke tells us that they, the believers, “broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God.” Jewish practice was to say grace as they broke the bread at the beginning of a meal. No doubt the apostles would remember Jesus in this grace and other disciples would then pick up on that and do the same. Eventually, the remembrance of Jesus became separated from the meal and turned into a formal ceremony, the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, Eucharist.
4. Prayer / the prayers (depending on which version you’re reading, but the Greek has ‘the’). So does Luke mean individual private prayer at home, corporate prayer with the other believers or the set times of prayer at the Temple?
There was an established pattern of daily prayer for the Jews. David in Psalm 55:17 says, “Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice.” Daniel prayed “three times a day” (Daniel 6:10). In Acts 3:1 Peter and John went to the Temple about 3 p.m. for the time of prayer and in Acts 10:9 Peter went up to the housetop to pray about noon.
Most, if not all, of the 3000 new believers were Jews and they would be used to this pattern of prayer, which could be private or with others, at home or in a religious building. Protestant evangelical churches are not very good at this pattern of prayer. Many churches used to have a midweek prayer meeting, but many have abandoned that over the years. I’ve never come across a church that teaches its members, especially new believers, to have a consistent routine discipline of prayer.
It struck me as I was preparing this sermon that the purpose of the first church was to turn believers into disciples. The first purpose of the church was to turn believers into disciples. These 4 things - Bible study, fellowship, shared meals and prayer - are the basics of the church; they are also the basics of discipleship. If a church is not engaged in these 4 things, it’s not going to make disciples; in fact, it’s likely to drive people away. Stephen J Cole, an American pastor, wrote …
Many years ago, John Stott met a group of Christian students in Argentina who had visited all of the Protestant churches in their city, but could not find any that satisfied them. They had dropped out of the church. He asked them what they were looking for that they could not find. He was startled when, without realizing what they were doing, they went down the list of Acts 2:42 in order.
They said that they wanted a church where the pastor faithfully expounded the Bible and related it to where they lived. They were looking for warm, loving, caring, supportive fellowship. They sought a sense of the living God and His greatness in worship. And, they were looking for compassionate outreach. (in Christianity Today [6/12/81], p. 21). Stephen J Cole click link
If, as individual Christians, we are not engaged in these 4 things, we’re not going to make disciples; in fact, we’re not going to be disciples. Discipleship is lifelong; we should always be learning, growing, becoming more like Jesus in our attitudes and outworking of our faith. The Greek in v42 means they continually devoted themselves to these 4 things. It was not a one-off, it was ongoing and became a way of life for these first believers individually and as a group. The challenge to me is “how devoted am I to these 4 things?” The honest answer is “not very.” So then the next challenge is “How am I going to devote myself more to these? How am I going to develop the spiritual disciplines and the relationships with my fellow-believers?” Maybe you’d like to ask yourself the same questions.
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