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.