Acts 2:42-47

The Religious Life of the Brethren. The four items in Acts 2:42 should be taken in two pairs; (a) the believers adhered steadfastly to the apostles as their teachers and to their common life with each other, the formal manifestations of which were (b) their common meals and their common prayers (Acts 1:14); this is further shown in Acts 2:46. The fear of Acts 2:43 did not drive the people from the Church, but marked its authority, as did the wonders and signs wrought by the apostles. Paul speaks of the signs of an apostle (2 Corinthians 12:12) which he himself had furnished sufficiently; our author attests the same of the older apostles, though the instances he gives are few. The common life (Acts 2:42) is further described in Acts 2:44. The believers all held together, and even regarded their property as common, selling their possessions and their movables to meet the needs of the poorer members. This is enlarged on in Acts 4:34 f.* (cf. p. 767). They visited diligently the Temple, the place of prayer of their race (Luke 18:10; Luke 19:45 f.), and held religious meals in one house and another. Thus their meals were sacraments to them, held without guile. They were full of God's praises, and afforded an attractive spectacle to the Jews round them. Those who joined their company they regarded as saved, and the Lord added such daily to their number. On early Christian worship, see pp. 638, 641, 643, 647 f.

Acts 2:46. The kata in kat-' oikon would have no meaning if it did not refer to domestic meetings at which the breaking of bread was reminiscent of the Master's practice (Luke 24:35).