They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42)
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (2:46-47)
On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. (20:7)
These three passages were proof-texts I often used to show to people why I observed the Lord’s Supper in the manner that I did. For the most part when I read of these disciples being “devoted to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42), breaking bread in their homes (Acts 2:46-47) and gathering to break bread (Acts 20:7) I assumed that what they were doing was what I did along with my local congregation every Sunday. But was it?
The first thing we need to realize is that this text, we call the book of Acts, is actually the second of two letters written by Luke to a man named Theophilus, the first being what we call the Gospel of Luke. It is important to consider what Theophilus would have understood when he read of the early church “breaking bread” in the passages we call Acts 2:42, 2:46-47 and 20:7. In order to see what Luke means when he writes of Jesus’ followers breaking bread, we will trace the subject of bread and table throughout his first volume (The Gospel of Luke).
In 5:27-32 we find him at a banquet at Levi’s house, surrounding himself with tax collectors and sinners. Then in 7:36-50 He is invited to have dinner at the home of a Pharisee where he reclines at the table until a woman comes in crying on his feet, wiping them with her hair and pouring oil on them. Later in 9:10-17 the crowds, which included 5000 men, following Jesus were hungry and he made them satisfied with five loaves of bread and two fish. In the next chapter, Jesus is welcomed into the home of Mary and Martha for a meal (10:38-42). 11:37-54 is where it is recorded that a Pharisee invited him to eat with him, Jesus reclined at the table, and refused to wash before the meal. Turn the pages to 14:1-24 and find that on a certain Sabbath, at the house of a prominent Pharisee, there was a meal where Jesus healed a man and taught two parables about wedding feasts. Then of course there is the Last Supper, a Passover meal where Jesus breaks bread (22:7-38). In 24:13-35 Jesus was eating with two disciples after he was resurrected and was “made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” And then, in the final meal scene in Luke’s first book, he ate a piece of broiled fish in the presence of more of his disciples (24:36-53).
When I saw this for the first time, I must say, it was kind of shocking. It suddenly seemed very clear to me that Jesus’ favorite place to teach was not from a pulpit, behind a lectern, it wasn’t in a special religious building that he had constructed, it wasn’t even in the temple…It was at the table!
He healed and spoke parables at the table.
Although that might seem strange to our ears in our rushed, disconnected modern lives, it was very appropriate considering the world in which Jesus lived. The table was where stories were told and lives were shared. The table was where certain groups decided who was included and who was not. This is what was so remarkable about Luke mentioning Jesus “eating with tax collectors and sinners” (Luke 5:30, 7:34), and why that was so appalling in the eyes of the scribes and Pharisees.
In his first volume, Luke presents the meals of Jesus as having the atmosphere of festival meals, bringing to mind the Messianic banquet written about by Isaiah (Isaiah 25:6-8). These are described as being community forming events that broke the accepted social boundaries and formed new ones.
Jesus was claiming to be the Anointed One of God, giving a taste of the Messianic banquet and he was including all of the rejects of society (all of the people the scribes and Pharisees, as well as the community at Qumran, rejected), the poor, crippled, the lame and blind.
John Mark Hicks had this to say regarding Luke’s theme of the table:
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus compassionately “broke bread” with five thousand males as he proclaimed “the kingdom of God” to them (Luke 9:11, 16). As Jesus ate his last Passsover with his disciples, he “broke” bread with them while at the same time declaring that he would not eat this meal with them again until the kingdom of God had come (Luke 22:16, 19). And, then, after his resurrection, Jesus “breaks bread” with two disciples at Emmaus (Luke 24:30) and the church continues to “break bread” as a community in the book of Acts (Acts 2:42, 46; 20:7, 11)…The early church, as a community, celebrated the presence of Christ through the breaking of bread.
The following chart is from Hicks’ book, Come to the Table:
The Gospel of Luke Hinge Text The Book of Acts
| Luke 9:16 Jesus took bread, blessed, broke and gave it. | | Acts 2:42 The disciples continued in the breaking of bread |
| Luke 22:19 Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke and gave it. | Luke 24:35 Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of the bread” | Acts 2:46 The disciples broke bread daily in their homes |
| Luke 24:30 Jesus took bread, blessed, broke and gave it. | | Acts 20:7 The disciples gathered to break bread |
Ok, so, imagine you are living in the first century, you are somewhat familiar with Jesus of Nazareth and the movement that has spread like wildfire since he was crucified on a Roman cross and his followers claimed he was raised from the dead. And so you don’t have the preconceived ideas, prejudices or traditional beliefs that we have today. But you do have this acquaintance named Luke, and Luke has written two long letters to you, the first telling you about some of the things Jesus of Nazareth did and taught and the story surrounding his death and resurrection, the second telling you about some of the things he continues to do even after he has been “taken up.” And you read, in the first letter, about all of the time Jesus spent around the table, you read of him breaking bread at the Last Supper, and then being known to his disciples while they were breaking bread after he was resurrected. And then you begin the second letter, you come to the end of the second chapter when thousands of people have just decided to follow Jesus and became part of the community of Jesus’ followers there in Jerusalem, and “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer”…What are you going to think about the phrase “breaking of bread?” What was it that they were they doing? Was it a mysterious, sacred ritual that consists of eating a microscopic piece of cracker and drinking a thimble of juice (Which by the way did not even begin until at least a hundred years after Luke wrote about this)? Of course not!
No doubt you would see these events as following in the line of Jesus’ meals (banquets) with his followers. Meal events that celebrated God coming and dwelling with man, and his ultimate victory of redeeming his people once and for all.
So are we to conclude that they did not take the Lord’s Supper in Jerusalem?
Certainly not. This WAS what Paul called the kyriakon deipnon or Lord’s supper in 1 Corinthians 11:20, part of a passage we will examine in the next post.
Sources
The Holy Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2011.
The Mishnah, Translated from the Hebrew with Introduction and Brief Explanatory Notes by Herbert Danby. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933.
The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament by Craig Keener. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1993.
The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English by Geza Vermes. London, England: Penguin Classics, 2004.
From Symposium To Eucharist by Dennis E. Smith. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2003.
Come To The Table by John Mark Hicks. Abilene, Texas: Leafwood, 2002.
Making a Meal of It by Ben Witherington III. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2007.
The Challenge of Jesus by N.T. Wright. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1999.
The Eucharistic Words of Jesus by Joachim Jeremias translated by Norman Perrin. London: SCM Press, 1990.
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