Troublesome Topic: The Priorities of the Early Church

Lesson 1 of 7

Acts 2:42

Translation

And they were showing a steadfast strength

regarding the teaching of the Apostles and fellowship and the breaking of bread

and prayer.

Paraphrase

They persisted in giving constant attention to the teaching of those who had heard Jesus teach many times, to gathering together to encourage one another, remembering the sacrifice of Jesus for them, and praying.

The Priorities of the Early Church

This verse tells us what their priorities were and what they spent their time doing. We can list these priorities as:

1. truth – the teaching of truth by those who had been with Jesus, and the learning of truth by the rest,

2. fellowship – connecting with fellow believers in order to encourage one another (not just to hang out),

3. Remembering what Jesus had done for them,

4. Prayer

5. Helping the needy (Acts 2:45)

We do well when we focus on the same set of priorities.

Footnotes

1

The root idea behind this word is “to show persistent strength” in a matter. From there it gained additional usages such as “to persist, to persevere, to pay constant attention to something, to stay fixed in one direction, to be devoted to something, to be steadfastly attentive to something.”

2

Did “the breaking of bread” refer to eating normal meals together, or to replicating the last Passover meal of Jesus (what we call “the Lord’s supper, communion, or the eucharist”)? I believe it was what we call Communion for two reasons: 1) fellowship is mentioned in this list, and fellowship is the main reason for eating together, and in verse 46 it will mention breaking bread and eating together in a way that I think indicates two separate activities. Therefore, in order to be consistent, it seems best to take the phrase “breaking of bread” as code language for the Lord’s supper.