“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
Church function has taken many forms in time and many rituals and practices have been implemented. They have then evolved for the good or the bad, they’ve been discontinued and in some cases reinstituted later; they have differed many times having to do with denomination and affiliation and even according to culture, region or nation.
I think you would know intuitively what I am talking about. There are churches that conduct foot-washing ceremonies on a regular basis. There are churches where the congregation frequently moves out of the pews and marches around the inside perimeter of the sanctuary while singing “Onward Christians Soldiers” or “We’re Marching to Zion”, when in reality they’re only marching round and round and back to their seats.
There are entire denominations of churches laden with so much liturgical ritual that most congregants have forgotten or never understood what most of the calisthenics they do symbolize.
But the initial life-response of the brand new church, the one born on the day of Pentecost following the resurrection of Jesus Christ, was Holy Spirit-born and led, and it was simple, and it was what God used powerfully to begin the process of sending the good news out to the world through His spoken Word and the testimony of His people.
DEVOTION
I am often perturbed at the tepid, weak, uncommitted brand of Christianity we see in our churches today, and I have to shake my head and wonder to what degree the Holy Spirit is working or even present in many of them, when I read these New Testament accounts and witness the amazing and immediate changes in people when they are suddenly given spiritual birth and filled with the Spirit of Christ.
Keep in mind that these people, these three thousand that were saved and baptized on the day of Pentecost, had only about 52 days earlier been the ones shouting, “Crucify! Crucify Him!” and had seen Jesus of Nazareth scourged and taken away to the cross. We know this because Peter says so in verse 36 of this same chapter we’re studying.
But the Spirit granted them repentance, verse 37, and they immediately wanted to make amends if it would be possible – they asked, ‘what shall we do?’, and Peter told them to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sins and he said that they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Then in verse 39 we read:
““For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.”
So they obeyed in faith, and those whom had begun the day dead and ignorant and guilty of putting to death the Prince of Life, immediately became those who “…were continually devoting themselves…”
See? Isn’t it amazing, the instantaneous change God makes in the human heart when once He draws it to Himself?
They were murderers, they were ignorant, they were God-haters, they were spiritually dead, then suddenly they were alive, they were sorry, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, they were devoted.
Yes, continual devotion to spiritual duty is one of the initial and lasting changes wrought in the human heart when it truly belongs to Christ.
That is the truth taught in the New Testament of the Bible, and no matter what excuses men make today, citing culture, society, influence of sin, the removal by time and space from those first Christians; no matter what we can come up with, God hasn’t changed, His Holy Spirit hasn’t changed, Christ hasn’t changed, and the human heart is the same, deceived, diseased thing it was then, and the truth remains to this day that when God truly comes with new life, the heart changes, behavior changes, and steadfast devotion is one initial evidence of the change.
Therefore the ‘many’ in today’s church to whom we alluded earlier need to be invited to consider whether they have really received life from above or if they are deceived pretenders. Let God be true and every man a liar.
THE TEACHING OF THE WORD
They continually devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.
If we are to take this short list of Luke’s in this one verse today as being written according to priority then we’d have to say that the Holy Spirit puts a very high premium on preaching, wouldn’t we?
I don’t think that would be appropriate however. How can we compare preaching with praying, for example, when neither one can ultimately be done very well without the other?
I think it might be more helpful to say that this list of Luke’s – teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer – is more like saying ‘right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg’. For it is together that they make up and demonstrate the life of the true church.
They devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching. They devoted themselves to the Word of God; to hearing it, learning it, letting it do its work in their hearts and set their feet to action – which is evidenced in the following verses to the end of this chapter.
Jesus preached and taught about Himself and about the Father, and He preached it all from the Scriptures. He pointed out to the Pharisees that while they diligently searched the Scriptures thinking to find there the way to eternal life they were missing the fact that those self-same Scriptures bore testimony of Him. During another confrontation He reminded them that the Scriptures cannot be broken. On the Emmaus road Jesus told His disciples all the things about Himself, found in the Law and the Prophets – the Scriptures.
Jesus taught the primacy of preaching the Word of God and the Apostles, when they were filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, began immediately to preach Christ and Him crucified and risen bodily from the tomb, and they preached it from the Scriptures.
You can find it in the first 36 verses of the chapter we are studying today.
There are many verses in the New Testament epistles expounding the imperative of preaching and the primacy of the Word of God in that preaching.
In 1 Peter 2:2 the Apostle exhorted his readers to long for the pure milk of the Word like newborn babes seeking nourishment.
In 1 Timothy 4:6 Paul encouraged the young preacher that in holding forth the Word and prayer to men around him he would be a good servant of Christ, nourished in the words of the faith and in sound doctrine.
Then in 2 Timothy 4:1-2 are words with which most of us are very familiar; again, Paul to the young man of God:
“I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.”
Now in case you have never noticed this, let me enlighten you to the fact that Satan works overtime trying to twist or deny the truth pertaining to God and Christ and the cross. Anything the Bible sets forth as necessary for healthy spiritual life is constantly under attack of the enemy.
That is why early preachers were martyred. That is why through the centuries it is the men who have devoutly held forth the Word of Truth and sound doctrine who have been scoffed at, hounded, threatened, black-listed, imprisoned, hanged, burned at the stake, and suffered many other trials and deaths.
For decades another, insidious trend has plagued the church in that men within ecumenical circles have drifted away from true preaching of the Word of God; decrying it as unnecessary, old-fashioned, ineffective, ‘in the shadows’, as one man put it – until we have finally come to a time when on a grander, larger scale than ever in church history the ‘in’ thing, the ‘chic’ thing, the ‘trendy’ thing, is to remove pulpits, pace a stage with microphone in hand, Bible – if it is used at all – laying open on a nearby stool incase the speaker needs to refer to some scrap of verse he has plucked out to support his point, and like never in history the words of 2 Timothy 4:3-4 are being fulfilled.
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”
People are incapable of enduring the truth. They are looking for nice, comfortable, ego-boosting platitudes that feed the self and shore them up against the onslaught of another coming week in the dreary work-a-day world, and for the sake of worldly gain and acclaim that is what so-called ‘preachers’ are giving them; and I am saddened to tell you that it is not only on television and in books at the supermarket checkout line; it is in church buildings all over our society, and it is one of the reasons I believe the Lord is coming very, very soon for His true church, and that if He does not there won’t be much left to come for.
It should strike us as very ominous, considering who is speaking, when in Luke 18:8 we see Jesus asking, ‘…when the Son of Man comes will He find faith on the earth?’
The first Christians were continuously devoting themselves to the Apostles teaching and it had immediate and remarkable influence in their lives and their witness.
KOINONIA
They were devoting themselves to fellowship. This is another sign of life in the church.
Now this is not just talking about getting together for coffee and pie on Thursday evenings. The word that is translated ‘fellowship’ throughout the New Testament is ‘koinonia’. It has to do with association, communion, community, mutual participation, partnership, sharing.
I had occasion recently to hear a pastor outwardly wondering why the people in his church seem content to come Sunday after Sunday, and sit and sing and hear a sermon and go home, but show no desire to become a part of the lives of Christians around them.
They have no contact during the week, they demonstrate no desire to learn one another’s needs or interests; in one case he was amazed to learn that a woman who had been in his church for years did not know the names of anyone else there.
Now I know there are local church congregations in which the people are very active in one another’s lives and they do much together as congregations outside of the church structure, involved with one another and impacting their community. But I also know that the other church I described is common in today’s society also and where that is the case, the true life of the church is not in existence. That is not a Holy Spirit-led body.
We’re supposed to have one another’s back, Christians. You know, there’s a camaraderie that exists in military and para-military organizations which has always been there but is more widely known by the general populace in these days through movies and television programs.
The Marines have a credo stated simply, ‘no man left behind’. If another Marine falls in battle his fellow warriors will pick him up and move him out of harm’s way, and if he is dead they will take the body with them when they move on.
In Police work when two officers are paired up as partners they become ferociously dedicated to one another, defending, trusting, honoring one another against all others.
They have each other’s back.
Christians, we are not of this world. The moment we are saved we become partners with all other Christians, made for another place, walking in enemy territory, fighting a spiritual battle and waiting for extrication from this place to our true home. We’re supposed to be ferociously dedicated to one another.
As you look around you at the church today is that what you are seeing? I’ll leave you with your own thoughts on that.
Look how they immediately began taking care of one another; verses 44-45
“And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.”
Now I’m not advocating we copy them in this; it was a different culture and not only were their needs different but their available resources were different and they lived under a very different form of governmental rule, so this is how they made certain everyone was supplied with the basics.
The point is, before Pentecost they didn’t even know one another and in most cases couldn’t have cared less who had how much or how little, as long as they were supplied and happy. Now, they had the same Spirit of Christ, and they had agape (love) and they had koinonia (fellowship) that separated them from the rest of the world and the spirit of the world. This is the life of the true church.
THE LORD’S TABLE
The next item on Luke’s short list is ‘breaking of bread’. Now I think most scholars agree that there is an element of the pot luck sort of thing in that. Simply because it would make sense that if they were going from house to house in their fellowshipping – their koinonia – there would be the frequent partaking of meals together.
But the primary meaning of Luke’s inclusion of this term is what we now call the Lord’s Supper or the Lord’s Table or Communion. Jesus had instructed His disciples to use the wine and bread as symbols of His broken body and shed blood in remembrance of His atoning sacrifice on the cross, and He had said to do so as often as they desired until His return. In this He was instituting an ordinance He obviously intended, not only for the eleven in the Upper Room, but for all in His church throughout history until the Rapture. I say obvious because Paul taught the Corinthians to do so in remembrance of Him ‘until He comes’. 1 Cor 11:26
Let me state the obvious here just to be sure it is in the foreground of all our thinking at this point: all four of these activities listed by Luke are group activities. It was together that they devoted themselves to the teaching of the Apostles. It was together that they had fellowship and the breaking of bread and of prayer.
True Christianity is not being a hermit or a loner or a recluse. True Christianity, true religion, is participated in corporately. We make up the body of Christ and we are made one in Him.
In Ephesians 2:14-15, talking about Jews and Gentiles who had always been opposed to one another, Paul explains that through the cross Christ broke down the wall between the two groups, making them into one new man, one body as it were, thereby establishing peace.
Again in Ephesians, chapter 4, listen to the wording of verses 1-5
“Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, 3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism,”
Where am I going with this? Well, we’re talking about the breaking of bread; the Lord’s Table, remembering Him until He comes.
The cross of Christ has made us into one body in Him. The body of believers which is made up of all of His elect from the beginning of time until the end of time and everlastingly when there will be no such thing as time but only life.
When we partake of the Lord’s Supper we are indeed doing so to His glory and in remembrance of His suffering and death for us. It’s not about us, it’s about Jesus.
At the same time though, there is a spiritual dynamic in the partaking of that ordinance together, believers, that draws us nearer.
It is something sacred that we share together and the Holy Spirit is in it, strengthening the bonds that have made us one in Christ.
The newborn church continually devoted themselves to the frequent partaking together of this act, this ordinance, that reminded them as one that Jesus was crucified for them. And of course, in the remembrance of His suffering and death we cannot help also think of His glorious resurrection and exaltation to the Father’s right hand. Because, after all, we are doing it in remembrance of Him ‘until He comes’, and in that phrase is the implicit declaration of belief that He is alive and powerful and returning for those whom He purchased at so dear a cost.
The next time you take Communion, just sneak a peek around you and those partaking with you. You’ve been joined to them for eternity through the shed blood and broken body of your common Redeemer. That’s why you are doing this act of remembrance together. This is church life.
PRAYER
The fourth thing on Luke’s list that they devoted themselves corporately to is prayer.
To the Colossians, Paul wrote, “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it, with an attitude of thanksgiving” Col 4:2
There is something I have recently had occasion to mention in Bible Study locally which I will repeat here.
Jesus, during His earthly ministry, being fully Man and fully God, was omnipresent at the same time as being physically restricted to one place. God is God and cannot be less than God. Jesus chose not to exercise certain of His divine attributes for the sake of His identification with us and the atoning work He came to do; but we see evidences in the Gospels of His omnipresence. One example is in John 1 where He tells Nathaniel that before Philip came to fetch him, He saw Nathaniel sitting under the fig tree.
While being with Philip and the others in another place, yet He was also with Nathaniel under the tree.
Now we also know, without me having to have you turn there or citing Scripture references that Jesus prayed often. There are places in the Gospel record where we are told He prayed all night. So here is the point I’m going for.
If Jesus, who in all of eternity has never been separated from the Father except for that one split moment that the Father had to turn His face away when Jesus became sin for us on the cross, and if Jesus, being always intimately in the presence of the Father, spent much time in prayer, how much more should we be drawn to prayer, whether in private or corporately if for no other reason than to sense the presence of the Lord with us and feel His joy and give Him glory?
Now I’m not going to go into a rant about lack of prayer in the church, or start citing guilt-trip aimed statistics. But you who have been in the church for some time will know as well as I, that the most unattended and short-lived gathering in all of our church rituals and practices is the prayer meeting. Throw a pot luck and everyone and his neighbor will come marching in with a dish and a dessert. Call for a prayer meeting and a small handful of warriors will show up.
Why? Well, that’s easy. Prayer is powerful. Corporate prayer among a gathering of Christian soldiers agreeing with one another; very powerful.
“For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” Matt 18:20
“Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. “ John 14:13-14
Now I know there are those who say Jesus was talking to His Apostles there and this grand promise was only for them and for the establishing of the new church. I would agree that there is an element of truth in that. But I do believe also that Jesus was making this promise for all believers who obey His commandments and have the mind of Christ through study of His Word, fortification with prayer, and through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
This is the life of the church. We could not pray without the Christ-life in us, and the corporate prayer of those who are one in Christ is powerful and tends to ask things that Jesus would ask because it is led by the Spirit of Christ.
Listen to this example of church-life praying in Acts 4:21-33
“And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, “O Lord, it is You who MADE THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH AND THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IS IN THEM, 25 who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David Your servant, said, ‘WHY DID THE GENTILES RAGE, AND THE PEOPLES DEVISE FUTILE THINGS? 26 ‘THE KINGS OF THE EARTH TOOK THEIR STAND, AND THE RULERS WERE GATHERED TOGETHER AGAINST THE LORD AND AGAINST HIS CHRIST.’ 27 “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur. 29 “And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence, 30 while You extend Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.” 31 And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.”
Christians, when God’s people gather together and pray according to God’s will and for God’s glory, Heaven hears and Heaven acts, and God’s people are emboldened to live for Him and for one another.
That is church life. That is the life of the church.
They were continually devoting themselves to the Apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that for the true church to manifest and glorify the Life that has given her life.
