Acts 2:42-47--The Fellowship of the Believers

Acts 2:42-47
English Standard Version
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The Fellowship of the Believers
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

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Note what comes first here--"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers."  None of what we see following this happens without these new disciples first being devoted to these things.  They also had seen many marvelous things done through the work of the Holy Spirit by way of the apostles.

Now people get hung up on verses 44 and 45 when they take them out of context to try and read them as a prescription for how countries and governments should operate.  There is no such thing as a Christian nation or government, but we see that these Jewish believers returned to obeying the Law from the Old Testament.  These are not new ideas that neighbors were supposed to take care of each other as well as anyone who was a stranger in their midst.  Only those who were rebellious against God and refused to submit to Him and committed high-handed sins of rebellion were thrown out of the community (and often times were put to death in the Old Testament).  It is because they understood the Law that they knew what God expected of His people--both the Jews and the Gentiles.  What's new here is that we will see the Jews welcoming Gentile believers into the congregation and calling them "brothers" and "sisters" and taking care of them like they were their neighbors.

This is how we should treat each other in our local assemblies.  Many of the reasons we come together as members of a local church are right here in this passage:  We gather around sound teaching, we gather together for fellowship, we gather together to pray corporately (though we should also pray individually) and we gather together to be benevolent to one another as our tithes and offerings are used to take care of the needs of those in our congregation.  It would be beyond challenging to try to have every individual take care of every person in need in their community and know who in the community was "brother," "stranger" or excommunicated.  We first have a responsibility to take care of our "brothers" and "sisters" even before our responsibility to those who are in need outside of the church, though we are also to be on the lookout for anyone in need in our community, but as we will see in the very next section we study, giving someone money is not always what they need--they first need the gospel and they may need physical healing.  This does not mean though that we are not benevolent to those we see in need as we are out and about--again, that is tomorrow's text.

They gathered together every day to worship together.  Now that is something we certainly don't do anymore.  It's hard enough to get people to come to one service on Sundays now, and most churches have had to end their Sunday night and Wednesday night services or prayer meetings because they can't get people to come back.  We show what is important to us by what we make time for and they made time for the Lord and for each other.  They also gathered together in each others homes on a daily basis for fellowship, but this fellowship seemed to still be centered around the Lord as the phrase "broke bread" probably refers to what we call Holy Communion or the Eucharist, as they were told as often as they do this to do it in remembrance of Him.  We see the Church also acting in a way where they were expecting the return of Jesus at any time, so they were giving all their efforts to evangelism, sitting under sound teaching, fellowship, and benevolence.  That being said, there would arise an issue that many of these Christians stopped working and providing for their families and that was wrong.  We see that the apostles had to correct that because "He who does not work should not eat."  We are to live every day like Christ may return at any moment but also as if he may take a very long time to come back as we are to be responsible to take care of our families and dependents.

The Lord continued to bless them and give them more than enough to take care of themselves and others (for now, but that would not continue to be the case, as there will be famine that will lead to the need for dispersion later).  God also was adding to their number daily.  Notice even in this though that it is the Lord doing the work.  He is the One causing the addition (and later multiplication).  While they are being obedient to go and tell, it is God doing the work of granting those whom He would redeem both the fatih and repentance to become born again.