Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Acts 2:46

Acts 2:46. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple. The wisdom of the Church of the first days was conspicuously shown in their reverent love for the temple of their fathers. This no doubt, in no small degree contributed to their having (as we read in the next (Acts 2:47) verse) favour with all the people. They seemed from the first to have grasped the idea that Christianity as taught by Jesus was only the completion of true Judaism. They were therefore no separatists; they practised rigidly the rites and observances of the old national religion, only supplementing these in private with new prayers and hymns, and with a constant repetition of the sayings of their Master, daily breaking bread together in remembrance of His death and Passion. In distant lands, among great and splendid idol temples, in the midst of dissolute and careless peoples, the religion of the Crucified, unfettered by sacred or patriotic memories, rapidly developed, throwing off gradually but quickly the many restrictions which Judaism in its exclusive spirit presented to any wide and rapid development. Men like Paul and Apollos laid their rites and ordinances tenderly aside, never irreverently perhaps even sorrowfully: but the Spirit led them at last to feel these things had done their work.

And breaking bread from house to house. The remark of Neander admirably explains these words. A single room would no longer contain the present number of converts (in Jerusalem). In addition to their daily resort to the Temple, they met in smaller companies at different places, where they received instruction from their different teachers, and prayed and sang together, and as members of a common family closed their meeting with a meal, at which bread and wine were distributed in memory of the Saviour's last supper with His disciples.

With gladness. The calm, serene cheerfulness of the early Christian, even in times of bitter persecution, was ever a subject of much remark. The intense fervour of the faith of these early converts caused them to regard with comparative indifference everything connected with this life; indeed, the desire ‘to depart and be with Christ' at times led these devoted confessors so recklessly to court death and agony as to call forth remonstrances from their more famous teachers.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Acts 2:46

Old Testament

New Testament