And Peter said to them, Repent, and be baptised, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for remission of sins, and ye will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Peter has just told the crowd at Pentecost that the Jesus they crucified is Lord and Christ, and they cry back, "Brothers, what shall we do?" His answer names four things — repentance, baptism, forgiveness, and the Spirit — and how they fit together is the question.
Peter preached Christ, and then he called for repentance. One writer puts that demand and its result side by side:
Listen to Peter's address on the day of Pentecost, at the opening of the book of Acts. It was the most fruitful sermon ever preached in this world. It ended with the glorious result of three thousand souls! And what did Peter preach? He preached Christ, and he called on men to repent. Yes, the great apostle to the Jewish people insisted on repentance — judging yourself — real sorrow of heart before God.
Repentance is more than regret, and baptism was the public test of it. It also reversed what these same voices had shouted weeks earlier:
"Repent" — a good word… What is repentance? It is judging yourself… Why be baptized? That would test the reality of their repentance, if it existed. Go, and publicly own His name in the waters of baptism, as seven weeks ago, in Pilate's hall, your voice was heard crying, "Away with him, crucify him."
This order is not the order found elsewhere in Acts. One writer explains why:
Baptism before remission! This is not God's usual order, but the very reverse. When Peter proclaimed Jesus to Cornelius and his friends, they first received the remission of their sins, then the Holy Spirit, and after that baptism was granted to them (Acts 10:43-48). God departed from the usual order on the Day of Pentecost for a very important reason. Only seven weeks earlier these people had been guilty of the murder of the Son of God… Their baptism put them outside "the crooked generation." God's judgment was about to fall on that generation through the Romans.
That separation is the point. Baptism marked a break from that nation. It did not buy salvation:
Baptism saves in a similar way, not for eternity but from a world that rejects the Lord Jesus Christ… By being baptized they publicly dissociated themselves from their own nation, which had rejected the Messiah. Of course, baptism is a symbol of burial with Christ in His death (Romans 6:4). So baptism saves outwardly, but it is only a picture of what saves for eternity — the precious sacrifice of Christ. That sacrifice becomes yours only through faith in Him.
The words read like a formula, and people have built far too much on them:
Peter's words, wrongly interpreted, have led to much confusion. People have built doctrines on these words, especially about water baptism. Those doctrines are taught nowhere else in the Bible, and they contradict the gospel… Remember that Peter was speaking to people who had openly rejected Jesus. So they had to admit their wrong in public. They had to own Him openly as Messiah — the one they had disowned when they handed Him over to lawless men.
The gift Peter promises is not a power but a Person:
The great point of the passage is the personal coming of the Spirit. The power to speak in unknown tongues, the power to do miracles, and the power to preach were only the signs and effects of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Receiving Him personally is the grand thing in Acts 2. The gift itself is infinitely greater than any effect it could produce.
Peter offered that gift to "every one of you." One writer notes the phrase:
There was no discrimination now.
One writer traces the order seen after Pentecost:
They heard of forgiveness of sins through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They believed on Him. They received forgiveness. At once, without a moment's delay, God gave each of them the Holy Spirit… Paul's teaching in Ephesians agrees perfectly with what happened at Caesarea, where Cornelius heard the gospel: "In him, when you believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit."
- Pierced — Peter preached Christ, then called for repentance, and three thousand were reached.
- Judged — repentance means judging yourself, not just feeling sorry. Baptism was the public test of whether it was real.
- Severed — their baptism cut them off from a nation under judgment. It saves outwardly, as a picture of the sacrifice that saves for eternity.
- Guarded — Peter spoke to people who had publicly rejected Jesus. His words are not a rule that water baptism buys salvation.
- Given — the promise ends in a Person, not a power. It was offered to "every one," and God still gives Him to all who believe the gospel.
For to you is the promise and to your children, and to all who [are] afar off, as many as [the] Lord our God may call.
Peter has just called the crowd to repent and be baptized. Now he tells them how far the promise of the Spirit reaches. He names three groups — the hearers, their children, and those far off. Then one clause decides who among them receives it.
The promise Peter points to is not vague goodwill. It is the specific blessing the crowd had just watched fall on the disciples, and it comes bundled with forgiveness.
Peter pointed to repentance and baptism in the name of Jesus Christ as the way to remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. As he points out in verse 39, the promise in Joel is to repentant Israel, to their children, and even to distant Gentiles. So the first Christian sermon already has in view the spread of gospel blessing to Gentiles. Remission of sins and the gift of the Spirit carry with them all Christian blessings.
This gift is one thing. New birth is another, and so are the various abilities the Spirit hands out.
The gift of the Holy Spirit spoken of here is the special and lasting privilege of the Christian and the church. It is as distinct from new birth by the Spirit as it is from the gifts we read so much about in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles.
The people standing in front of Peter had, weeks earlier, pressed Pilate to crucify Jesus by calling down the consequences on themselves and their offspring. Peter now addresses exactly that.
To win over the wavering governor Pilate, the people had lightly said, "His blood be on us and on our children!" (Matthew 27:25). Now the proclamation cancelled that vow for the repentant Jews and their children. They were admitted to a place of privilege on earth — the house of God. The promise was to the very people who had so blatantly abused God's approach to man in Christ.
"Far off" is not about geography. Israel held a nearness to God that other nations did not have. Peter's phrase marks those left outside — and in Christ that distance is gone.
In God's arrangements the Jews were near, as Peter declares (Acts 2:39), and Paul also (Ephesians 2:13). The Gentiles were far off. Now, for those of the latter who are in Christ, that difference is abolished for ever by the blood of Christ. For them there is now no privileged nation that shuts them out for ever. There is a privileged people, but everyone in Christ makes it up.
So two groups once kept apart now enter one new place by one way.
The Church — the dwelling place of God — has now been built, and the gift of grace is proclaimed to both Jews and Gentiles. God declared the way by which the Jew and the Gentile, in His sovereign grace, could pass out of the two outer circles into that new sphere formed that day. Both of those circles lay in the kingdom of darkness, where Satan reigned. In that new sphere the Spirit of God acted and dwelt.
Peter said more than he had grasped. His own later reluctance shows it.
His words seem to carry a sense beyond Israel: how far he entered into their force himself, perhaps none of us can say. We know that afterwards, when Peter was called to go to the Gentiles, he found it difficult. It is hard to suppose, then, that he fully understood his own words. However that may be, the words were according to God, whether or not Peter fully appreciated them when he spoke them.
The last clause decides it all. It leaves no one a claim, near or far.
The apostle closes by assuring them of Israel's share in the blessing. That blessing had a wider range, as Joel had declared about the day he spoke of. The promise, he tells them, is for you and for your children; but beyond these, for all that are far off — the Gentiles. Yet it is not a claim anyone holds. Even Israel could have no claim. Everything depended entirely on the call of God's grace — the call of "the Lord," that is, Jehovah, our God.
Because the call is God's, no human resistance can block it. Peter learned this in the house of Cornelius, a Gentile officer who believed.
The details of the conversion of Cornelius in Acts 10 and 11 show the ability of God to bring this about. Neither the prejudice of the Jew nor Peter's hesitation could stop God pouring out the gift of the Spirit on the nations.
- Promise — God promises forgiveness and the gift of the Spirit, and with them every Christian blessing.
- Pardon — He offers it first to the very crowd that had called Christ's blood down on themselves and their children.
- Reach — "Far off" names those outside Israel's privileged place. In Christ that distance is gone for good.
- Beyond him — Peter announced a scope wider than he yet understood; the words were still God's words.
- Call — Nobody, Jew or Gentile, holds a claim. The whole promise rests on God calling — and when He calls, no prejudice can stop Him.
And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, Be saved from this perverse generation.
The scene is Pentecost, and this verse is only a summary of how Peter closed his preaching. His last words raise two questions: what is the danger, and how can a person save himself?
Luke records the closing appeal, but tells us plainly that Peter kept going.
Then Peter urged them, solemnly and earnestly, to save themselves from that crooked generation. But here the historian has not reported everything Peter said. He spoke many other words of the same urging kind, and they have found no place in inspired Scripture.
What kind of words were they?
These "many other words" meant, I take it, good, sound, plain preaching, which had most blessed results. Peter was in splendid form that day, because he was full of the Holy Spirit.
Out of everything Peter said, the Holy Spirit kept this one line. Some translations put it, "Be saved from this perverse generation," as the quote below does. The line points to more than pardon for people one by one.
This was by no means all the apostle urged on that memorable day. But out of many more and different words, it was enough for the Holy Spirit to recall the exhortation, "Be saved from this perverse generation." For now God was about to separate as well as to forgive and deliver. At the very least, the salvation goes beyond guilt and sin. He would set them apart from that perverse generation, which was hurrying on to its quick ruin. It was rejecting the gospel, as it had rejected the Messiah Himself. Out of that set-apart people, now proved utterly crooked and rebellious, He would have His own saved, for His own glory and in a new way… For we too, though Gentiles by birth, belong to this new family of God and new testimony of Christ.
"This generation" is not a date on a calendar. It is the nation that had killed its own Messiah, and some of Peter's hearers had helped. A city of refuge was a town where someone guilty of a death could flee and be safe.
"Save yourselves from this crooked generation" was a call to cut themselves off from the nation that had killed its Messiah. It was a call to get into the city of refuge. In practice the Church of God became "the city of refuge" for every Jew who had stained his hand with his brother's blood — for everyone who had helped to kill the Lord.
So how was the break made? Baptism was the public act by which a repentant Jew stepped out of the doomed company.
The particular point Peter makes, both in his sermon and in his letter, is that baptism cut the link between the repentant, believing Jews and the unrepentant, unbelieving mass of that nation. That lies on the surface of Acts 2, and we believe it is involved in 1 Peter 3:21, for his letter was written to believing Jews. He tells them that baptism corresponds to the waters of the flood, which long ago cut the link between believing Noah and his household and the godless world… They suffered much from that godless mass. But they were saved from its fate, whether in this life, at the destruction of Jerusalem, or in the world to come.
Can a person save his own soul? The salvation in view here is of another kind.
In this verse the Jews were urged to save themselves from "this crooked generation." In being baptized they were saving themselves (not saving their souls) from a generation that had rejected the Lord Jesus.
The command still lands on a hearer today, and it is not a call to self-rescue.
Peter then adds, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." But you say, "How can I save myself?" By coming to Jesus, the living Saviour, and clearing out of the world that is under judgment. "You are in the wrong company today," Peter is saying in effect; "come out from among them."
Peter had three thousand anxious hearers in front of him. Notice the direction he pointed them.
When three thousand Jews became anxious enquirers, Peter said nothing about conquering the Jewish nation for Christ; he urged them in the opposite direction, saying, "Save yourselves FROM this crooked generation."
- Warned. Peter pleaded and testified far longer than Luke records. The Spirit kept this one sentence for us.
- Named. The danger is a generation, not just personal guilt — the company that had rejected its Messiah and was hurrying on to ruin.
- Separated. God was about to separate as well as forgive; this salvation goes beyond the question of guilt and sin.
- Marked. Baptism cut the link, as the flood cut Noah's household off from the ungodly world; it saved them from that generation's fate, not their souls.
- Gathered. The way out led into a refuge — coming to a living Saviour and clearing out of a world under judgment. Gentiles belong to this new family too.
Those then who had accepted his word were baptised; and there were added in that day about three thousand souls.
One sermon at Pentecost, and a small group of disciples became a crowd of three thousand. The verse raises three questions: what it means to receive the word, what the baptism meant, and who did the adding.
The ESV reads "those who received his word." Older English Bibles added the word "gladly." The oldest manuscripts do not have it, and that missing word says something about how these people heard.
'Gladly' is the reading of the Received Text. Textual scholars reject it on plenty of evidence, because the oldest and best manuscripts do not have it... The gospel may be precious and comforting, but deep seriousness would mark souls who had only just repented, and for reasons that searched them to the bottom. A 'glad' reception would fit better with a revival movement and its usually shallow results. The work at Pentecost was both deep and wide. Three thousand souls in one day was no small catch, and it was in every way fitted to prove that a Divine person had just come in grace as well as in power, both to save and to gather.
Peter had just told them to save themselves from this crooked generation. Baptism was how they did it — a public cutting of ties.
They were a separate company. Baptism, as we all know, presents the idea of separation. In that day, and in this day, there is the great world system, ruled by the power of evil and the will of men. But God also formed a new circle, and the Holy Spirit lived in that circle... Baptism took the converts out of this world's circle and brought them into the Christian circle. Baptism is the figure of death. In effect they said, "We are dead to the world we once lived in. We have left it so that we could come into that new circle of life and love where God dwells."
For these hearers the break was sharper still. They were Jews, and their nation had rejected its Messiah.
The Jews as a nation were like a sinking ship. To be baptized was to cut your last link with them, and that meant salvation from their national doom. So Peter said in Acts 2:40, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation."
The word translated "souls" here is not a technical term. It has more than one sense, and here it counts people.
First, the word psuche clearly means "life," as in Matthew 2:20... Next, it stands for the general fact of conscious feeling and existence — the activity of the inner man — without saying where it comes from or what it is... And it stands for persons, as in Acts 2:41, 43 and 7:14.
The verse says they "were added" but never says who added them. The end of the chapter answers that. There the older translations read "such as should be saved," where the ESV has "those who were being saved."
The last verse of the chapter tells us who added them and what they were added to. The Lord Himself added them, and He added them to the Church... The closing words, "such as should be saved," do not mean that they were unbelievers, or that He added them so that they might be saved. The nation had rejected Christ and was heading for judgment. Those who believed and were baptized would be saved from that judgment... This matters greatly, because Catholicism, and those who follow it, tie salvation to belonging to the Church, instead of making the Church the Assembly of those who are saved.
They joined a company that already existed, and the adding did not stop that day.
The same day three thousand souls received Peter's word of testimony and were added to this company already formed (Acts 2:41). And it became a daily event that the Lord was adding together such as should be saved (Acts 2:47).
The number three thousand had appeared before in Israel's story, on the day the law came down.
Moses brought down the law, carved on stone tablets, only to find it already broken. That day three thousand men died by Levi's sword. Three thousand law-breakers were thrown into eternity unblessed (Ex. 32:28). The Holy Spirit came down to bear witness to a Saviour who had gone up to heaven. That day three thousand souls were brought to that Saviour, and He blessed and saved them. Three thousand took their stand for the Lord. They had judged themselves, believed the truth, and received forgiveness of sins, and the Holy Spirit as the seal of their faith.
- Received — they took the word in with deep seriousness, not surface excitement; "gladly" is missing from the oldest manuscripts.
- Baptized — the sign of death and separation, a public break with the world and with a nation heading for judgment.
- Souls — the word here means persons; three thousand real people, counted one by one.
- Added — no man enrolled them; the Lord Himself added them to a company He had already formed.
- Reversed — under the law three thousand died the day it was broken; at Pentecost three thousand were saved the day the Spirit came.
And they persevered in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in breaking of bread and prayers.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And fear was upon every soul, and many wonders and signs took place through the apostles' means.
Luke pauses here to describe the mood in Jerusalem in the church's first days: awe fell on everyone, and God worked through the apostles in full view. Two questions follow — what was this fear, and why did God tie miracles to the preaching?
The awe here did not come from a disaster or a threat. One writer traces it to God's presence in grace, and says this makes the impression stronger, not weaker.
The moral impression was great and immediate (v. 43): "fear came upon every soul." It was not less, but more, because it came from God's presence in grace, not from judgments that alarm for a moment and then give way to a deadly reaction. "And many wonders and signs were done through the apostles." These displays of power were not only amazing, but meaningful. They revealed the One Who worked through His servants, showing His own character and ways.
The writers quoted here use an older translation, which says "fear" where the ESV says "awe."
Another writer notes how far that fear reached, and why it belongs with real blessing.
A powerful, though painful, witness to His presence! Fear fills every heart, both inside and outside. In fact, the presence of God is a serious thing, however great its blessing.
The awe did not fade after Pentecost. The miracles kept it alive, in believers and outsiders alike. Yet the record never tells us what those miracles were.
Nor were outsiders unconcerned. Fear came on all of them, and the apostles did many wonders and signs. These no doubt kept up the awe that the miraculous powers of speech at Pentecost had first stirred. But the historian has not told us what those wonders and signs were. Clearly the displays of the Spirit were many and striking.
Scripture uses three related words for miracles, and each carries its own force. A miracle is never only a spectacle; it points beyond itself.
These three words, chosen by God, explain what miracles are. They were "wonders," because they caught the attention of the people. They were "signs," because they showed that God had visited His people, and that what the Lord Jesus did marked Him out as the promised Messiah. And they were "powers," because they were beyond human ability.
The apostles carried a new message: salvation through a Christ who was crucified and then went up to heaven. Open, public proof left hearers no fair excuse for refusing it.
The gospel of salvation through a crucified and ascended Christ was a new thing on the earth. So God was pleased to confirm this announcement of His great salvation by outward, public signs. Then those who heard the apostles' message would have no fair excuse for refusing to believe it, or for turning down what it offered.
Another writer sees the miracles as God's own witness to a new beginning, and says that witness had its time.
The apostles also did many wonders and signs, as the Lord had foretold. In this way God bore public witness to the truth of what the apostles said (Heb. 2:4). It was clear proof that God Himself was bringing in this new era. Once Christianity was established, such signs and wonders were no longer necessary.
Luke says the wonders came through the apostles, not through every believer. One writer explains the limit, and notes that later preachers such as Philip saw signs too.
The signs that went with Philip's preaching were never given to everyone. They were meant to bear witness to the risen Lord, so they went naturally with the preaching of the word. At first, for the same reason, they seem to have been limited to the apostles, who were trusted with a special testimony to the resurrection.
- Presence. God had come to be among His people in grace. The writers trace the awe to that presence, not to any threat.
- Fear. The awe was serious because the blessing was real. It fell on believers and onlookers alike.
- Witness. The miracles were God's public backing for the apostles' message, so hearers had no fair excuse to refuse it.
- Words. "Wonders" caught attention. "Signs" showed that God had visited His people. "Powers" showed a work beyond human ability.
- Focus. The apostles carried this testimony first, and the record never lists the miracles. The risen Christ, not the marvels, stays in view.
And all that believed were together, and had all things common,
This verse shows what the first believers' life together looked like once money and property were involved. It raises two questions: what does "together" mean here, and does "all things in common" bind Christians today?
How could so many people be "together"? One commentator starts with what the word itself means, then weighs it against the size of the crowd that day.
The words themselves do not require a meeting in one place. Their literal meaning is "for the same thing." They express sameness of aim, not sameness of place. The same phrase comes again in verse 44: "And all who believed were together and had all things in common." We know how suddenly and widely the truth spread on that one day. Are we to think they were all gathered into a single room? The Spirit of God is describing their habitual life in unity, not merely their assembling, as it would appear.
The believers did not organise this themselves. It was an effect, and one writer names the cause.
First, we see the effect and blessings of the Divine Presence in the assembly. The believers felt the Holy Spirit's presence among them, and the blessed effect was this. It bound their hearts together in a holy and loving fellowship. It made them let go of earthly things. It led them to merge their personal interests in the common good.
Something had shifted in what these believers valued. The change started with Christ, not with their money.
Their hearts followed the One whom earth rejected to the place where He had gone. That made the things of earth of little value in their eyes. So they "were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need" (Acts 2:45). They did not understand union, because God had not yet revealed that mystery. But they practised unity in a most blessed way. There were no suffering poor in the early church in Jerusalem.
Many read the verse as a blueprint for shared ownership. One writer answers by looking at the conditions in Jerusalem at the time.
Some try to make this look like the socialism of our day. The effort fails once we see the unique position of the believers at Jerusalem. There were large numbers of strangers, and many poor. Needs were great and pressing; love was warm, faith was bright. Even then the giving was voluntary, never forced. That is the complete reverse of what socialism demands. The love and the faith remain for all time. Each believer decides the conduct, though generosity is always the mark of those who have learned from God.
The practice never reappears once believers spread beyond one city. What replaced it was not less love, but love with a longer reach.
This state of things suited the church perfectly while it was all in Jerusalem, in the full early bloom created by the ungrieved Holy Spirit. Once believers were gathered to the Lord in other places, we find it no more. Sharing of goods, where grace carried it out, could by its very nature only be right while all the members were in one place. When the Lord worked in other places, those believers were just as near in divine relationship as the ones in the same city. What was special to the assembly in Jerusalem then merged into wider, more ordinary forms of love toward all the saints, wherever they lived.
If the outward form belonged to that moment, the spirit of it did not. One writer carries the point over to our own giving.
As Peter says to Ananias, no one ever demanded that believers give their goods to the assembly. No one even mentioned it to them. It was the free power of the Holy Spirit working in love to others. They set up no community of people or goods at all. They freely gave up what was their own where it could be made useful, and most blessed it was. Acting in the spirit of it will always be blessed, though there are no apostles at whose feet I may lay what I have to give. Riches are as dangerous now as then, devotedness as acceptable now as then.
- Cause. The Spirit came first; the shared purse came after. Their unity was His work, binding hearts and loosening hands.
- Together. The word describes a shared way of life, not one meeting room — thousands of believers living as one.
- Free. No one demanded and no one claimed. The giving was free, the opposite of any system that compels.
- Local. Common goods suited a church still held in one city. When believers appeared elsewhere, the same love took wider forms.
- Lasting. The form passed; the heart behind it did not. Riches are still as dangerous, and devotedness still as welcome to God.
and sold their possessions and substance, and distributed them to all, according as any one might have need.
After Pentecost something new appeared in Jerusalem. Believers sold what they owned and handed the money to anyone who was short. The verse raises two questions at once — what moved them to do it, and whether it is a pattern the church is meant to copy.
No one ordered this from above. The selling and sharing came out of the believers themselves.
The world had never seen such a sight before. Never had love risen like this above the selfishness of nature — not only in that land and race, but in any other. It came through the power of divine grace, in the name of the Crucified One now seen by faith on high. It was sweet fruit of the Spirit. It was as far as possible from a claim or a command, however right the voice of divine authority may be in its place. But here was the flow of divine love, mighty yet unasked for, embracing everyone born of God, without reserve or limit.
No law took away private ownership. Scripture names the ones who sold.
There was no communistic law among these gathered saints; it would have spoiled everything if there had been. It was a unity of heart that allowed none of them to say that what was really his belonged to him. The sale of lands and houses was optional and unasked for, as we see by the very naming of those who did this. There was therefore no general surrender of personal title, but a love that held nothing back from another's need. Where the need went deeper, those who had possessions sold them, so that no one lacked. They laid the money at the apostles' feet. It is not that everyone necessarily sold all they had. This was simply how the need was met.
Some read the scene as an early form of socialism. But force is the one thing missing here.
The effort to make this look like the socialism of the day fails completely when we see the unique position of the believers at Jerusalem. There were large numbers of strangers, and many poor. Needs were great and pressing; love was warm, faith was bright. But even then it was voluntary, not forced — the complete opposite of what socialism demands. The love and the faith remain for all time. Each believer decides what to do, though generosity is always the mark of those who have learned from God.
Something had changed in what these people counted as wealth. One writer traces it to where their hearts had gone.
Their affections followed earth's rejected One to the place where He had gone, and this made the things of earth of very small value in their eyes. Accordingly, they "were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need." There were no suffering poor in the early church in Jerusalem.
Kelly points to who these givers were — the last people anyone would expect to let go of what they owned.
There was a remarkable form that the grace took as an outward sign. It appeared in the very thing a Jew would have been as unlikely as anyone in the world to part with. No one has ever thought of the Jew as remarkable for that readiness to lay down everything he has. But that was exactly what the Spirit of God worked within them. He had come to give men another being, another relationship, and that was the effect of it. The earth was nothing, and the things on the earth were nothing.
The arrangement fit one moment. Kelly notes that this way of sharing stops when believers spread to other cities. The letters written later assume something different.
Sharing goods in grace could, by its very nature, only be right while all the members were in one place... We then have instruction and encouragement of the most precious kind about giving. We find it in Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 16; 2 Corinthians 8–9; Galatians 6; Ephesians 4; Philippians 4; 1 Timothy 6; Hebrews 13, and elsewhere. Those passages assume no state of all things common. They speak instead to rich and to poor, and appeal to each accordingly.
The early sharing had a long tail. One writer traces later poverty in Jerusalem partly back to it.
There was a famine in those days (Acts 11:27-30). The believers in Jerusalem were also especially poor because of the "Christian communism" they practised at the beginning (Acts 2:44-45). Their poverty, however, gave Gentile and Jew the occasion to build practical bonds of Christian fellowship.
- Source — the giving was fruit of the Spirit, "as far as possible from a claim or a command."
- Freedom — no law required it. Selling was optional, and no one lost the right to own.
- Cause — their hearts followed Christ to where He had gone, so earth's things looked small. That opened their hands.
- Reach — love reached every believer in want, and each gift met a real need.
- Limit — the form belonged to one city and one moment. The love behind it stayed, and shows up again in the New Testament's teaching on giving.
And every day, being constantly in the temple with one accord, and breaking bread in [the] house, they received their food with gladness and simplicity of heart,
This verse shows the first Christians in Jerusalem at the temple and at home on the same day. Two questions follow. Why did they keep going to the old Jewish worship? And was the bread they broke the Lord's Supper or just a meal?
The believers had not yet made a visible break with the worship of Israel. Commentators see this as a stage of transition, not as failure.
There was as yet no clear break of the tie with Judaism, at least with the circumstances of its worship. We know that in principle the cross does make a break with all that belongs to the first man, and a break that cannot be repaired. But old habits were strong, and the joy overflowing in their souls was strong too. For the moment this made them, I may say, better Jews. There was something now within them far stronger than any drink that had ever filled the old skins of the law. Those skins were sure to burst before long.
But the temple could not hold what was now their own.
They still went to the temple every day. This came from the love that still waited on His ancient people. God allowed it and used it as a testimony to the nation. But the temple after all was not where they could enjoy what was peculiar to themselves. The bread in which they remembered what had made all things new to them was broken at home.
Some translations read "from house to house," as if the meeting moved from place to place.
They broke bread at home, in contrast with the temple. It might be the very same house in which the breaking of bread always took place. They would choose the most suitable place — near enough to reach easily, and large enough to hold as many brothers and sisters as possible.
The verse names two things: breaking bread, and eating food with gladness. Elsewhere in the Bible "breaking bread" can mean an ordinary meal.
Here the text draws a distinction between eating their food and breaking bread. It does so because elsewhere we do find breaking of bread used of an ordinary meal — in the last chapter of Luke, for instance. Here the breaking of bread was not the ordinary meal. It was the remembrance of the Lord Jesus, as He Himself appointed before He went on high. To prevent confusion, the Holy Spirit joins it with the ordinary taking of food.
The distinction is not only in the sense but in the sentence structure itself.
Two religious facts are stated in evident connection: their continuing with one accord in the temple, and their breaking bread at home. Both are distinct from their taking of food (which does refer to ordinary meals) with gladness and singleness of heart.
The verse says this happened "day by day." How often, then, should believers break bread?
Acts 2:46 is the clearest proof that when unusual circumstances call for it — and spirituality alone can judge that rightly — it is not an unauthorised thing to take the Lord's Supper every day.
Later in Acts the pattern changed. One writer traces the change to a cooling of that first zeal.
At the beginning they broke bread every day; Acts 2:42, 46. When gatherings had formed everywhere, and zeal had weakened, they met only on the first day of the week, the day of the Lord's resurrection. This was not a rule, but Luke speaks of it as a custom well known everywhere among the Christians.
The joy did not stay in the meetings. It changed the taste of plain daily routine.
Eating with gladness and singleness of heart tells us that the common routine of life had taken on a fresh, delightful fragrance because of their common joy in the Lord.
Older translations read "singleness of heart" where the ESV has "generous hearts." One writer names what filled those hearts.
And how happy they were! They had Christ, and that was enough. No system of theology, creeds, set of forms or anything of the kind that historical Christianity is full of — "Nothing but Christ." Joy and singleness of heart are two great marks of the true believer.
One writer ties the people's goodwill back to the way they had once viewed the Lord Himself.
Even ordinary meals shone with the happiness of His presence. How much more the meal where all His self-sacrifice was before their eyes! So they praised God. And all the people looked on them with the same favour they had once shown Christ Himself in His earlier days.
- Transition — they had not yet broken with the temple, and God still used their visits as a testimony to the nation.
- Home — they broke bread at home, not in the temple and not from house to house.
- Distinction — breaking bread here is the remembrance of the Lord, named apart from the ordinary meal.
- Daily — the first believers broke bread every day; meeting on the first day of the week came later, as a custom and not a rule.
- Overflow — the joy of their worship reached their meals too, and outsiders looked on them with favour.
praising God, and having favour with all the people; and the Lord added [to the assembly] daily those that were to be saved.
Luke ends his account of the church's first days with a scene from ordinary life. The believers praised God. Their neighbours thought well of them. The numbers grew every day. Two questions sit inside the verse: who did the adding, and who are the ones "being saved"?
This praise needed no organising. It came from people who had found everything they needed in one Person.
And how happy they were! They had Christ, and that was enough. They had no system of theology, no creeds, no set of forms — none of the things historical Christianity is full of. "Nothing but Christ." Joy and singleness of heart are two great marks of the true believer.
The neighbours could see a change in how these people lived.
People round about took account of them. They saw the kind of people they were. There was a change in those people, and they now had a good report. Before, they had been taken up with rites and ceremonies in the Jewish faith. Now all this was changed. They were showing love to each other. They were showing features of Christ in their daily walk — oh, what a change there was! People saw it, took account of it, and it made them think.
The goodwill was wide, but it was not universal.
Their praise to God was spontaneous and genuine. At this moment the people in general looked on them with favour. The leaders, of course, did not share it (ch. 4:1-2).
One Person does the adding here — not the convert, and not the preacher.
Christ adds to the Church... No one can "join" this Church. No pastor, however successful, can "add to the membership." It is Christ who does the adding. All merely voluntary "joining," or human "adding," is like waxwork apples fastened to a living tree. It is like an artificial limb attached to a live body. He is the One who "builds" His Church (Matthew 16:18). It is His body, and every true believer is a member. Now here is my little finger; it is a member of my body. But how did it become a member? Or when did it ever "join"? It did not join by any choice of its own, and no clever surgeon attached it. God, my Maker, joined it to my body.
The company stayed real as it grew. No one drifted in for the atmosphere.
The early Church had such power and holiness that the unsaved would not dare to join themselves to it. They felt they did not have what these born-again believers had. But when any were saved, they were added to the Lord, not to men or organisations. They found themselves naturally one with the believers, already joined to the Church of God.
Commentators differ on what this phrase means. One reading ties it to the judgment coming on a nation that had rejected its Messiah.
So the assembly was formed. Day by day the Lord added to it the remnant of Israel. They were to be saved from the judgments that were to fall on a nation which had rejected the Son of God, their Messiah. And, thank God, they were saved from yet deeper ruin. God brought into the assembly those whom He spared in Israel. He owned that assembly in this way, by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Others read the words as naming a class of people. They link the phrase to a question once put to Jesus about how many would be saved.
"And the Lord added together those that were being saved" — that is, a class of people marked out in this way, sharers in salvation. Someone had asked the Lord about that class during His life: "Lord, will those who are saved be few?" (Luke 13:23). Day by day people could now see that class growing in numbers.
What this verse describes did not stay that way for long.
At the beginning "the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved" (Acts 2:47). Soon "false brothers" crept in and weeds were sown. The house was filled with all kinds of vessels, and a faithful person was to keep himself clean from them. It was filled with a form of godliness without power, and the faithful one was to turn away from that.
- Upward. Praise came first. It needed no system of forms; Christ was enough for them.
- Outward. Changed lives won public goodwill. Neighbours saw love and the features of Christ where rites and ceremonies used to be.
- Inward. The Lord added; no one joined. Membership in His church is His act, like a limb joined to a living body, not a name added to a roll.
- Guarded. The company stayed real. Outsiders felt the difference and did not dare attach themselves.
- Warned. That beginning did not last. False brothers crept in. The verse now shows where the church started and measures what came after.