but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and we came to them to Troas in five days, where we spent seven days.
This travel note gives a date, a route and a stop: a Jewish feast sets the season, the crossing takes five days instead of two, and the company stays at Troas for a week. Why does Luke bother to count the days, and why would Paul — racing to reach Jerusalem — spend a whole week in one port?
The small word "we" shows that the writer of Acts is travelling with Paul again. The "them" he joins at Troas are the companions who sailed ahead.
Verse 4 gives us the names of his travelling companions on this journey back. They went ahead across the sea and waited for him at Troas. In verse 5 Luke again uses the pronoun "us," which shows that at this point he again made one of the party. Paul, Luke and others had a five-day voyage. It brought them again to Troas, where not long before "a door was opened … in the Lord."
The phrase fixes the time of year. One commentator reads the longer stay at Philippi as care for fellow believers.
No doubt Luke, who had spent time at Philippi before (after Acts 16:40), wanted a longer visit there. That visit took in "the days of unleavened bread," that is, the week after the Passover. As a Gentile, Luke would himself attach little importance to this. But his care for the consciences of his Jewish brothers and sisters is beautifully clear (See Romans 14:1-6).
They had made this same crossing far faster once before. Something went against them at sea.
The voyage from Philippi took five days. That was probably longer than anyone expected the ship to take. We know that when they crossed into Europe on an earlier trip, they made the journey between the same towns in two days only. Two days stretched into five proves almost beyond doubt that contrary winds, or something like them, badly held the ship back this time.
A slow voyage need not be a waste. One writer hears God's kindness in it:
Was the Lord saying to His servants, "Come away by yourselves … and rest a while"? For the Lord tenderly cares for His servants, and knows when we have need of rest; and a sea voyage may be a great rest.
Seven days sit oddly beside Paul's hurry.
Why did Paul stretch out his stay in Troas, when we know he was hurrying to be at Jerusalem by the day of Pentecost (Acts 20:16)? He avoided Ephesus on purpose, because he would not let anything delay him on the way. Yet here at Troas he spends no less than seven days.
The delay at sea cost them one meeting. The week was the price of catching the next.
Unexpected delays on the voyage brought the travellers to Troas just too late for the usual weekly gathering of the disciples to break bread. So to share with them in the customary remembrance of Christ, they had to stay a week for the next one.
The seven days also show which day the early disciples gathered, and why.
In Acts 20 Paul and his company are at Troas, where he stayed seven days. He may have stayed to spend the first day of the week with the brothers and sisters there, so that they might break bread together. If that is so, the first day of the week, or Lord's day, was above all the day set apart for the Lord's supper. One thing is clear, even from this Scripture: the apostles and the early disciples had the habit of coming together on the first day of the week for the express purpose of breaking bread. Not for preaching, though Paul did preach, but specially to remember the Lord in His own appointed way.
The same length of stay turns up later in the journey. One commentator reads that repeat as a clue.
The apostle goes on his way, finds disciples, and stays among them at Tyre for "seven days," as we are told. This seems to have been a common length of stay, and we can easily see why. One great reason, I do not doubt, was to enjoy the fellowship of the saints together. It was to spend with the Christians in a new place that day which has the strongest possible claim on a heart that is true to Jesus — the first day of the week.
Commentators differ here. Some say Paul "possibly" stayed for that reason. Others read the breaking of bread as the plain motive of the story.
- Count the days. Luke dates the trip by the feast, counts five days at sea, and marks seven on shore. Each number carries weight.
- Days given to others. The stay at Philippi over the days of unleavened bread shows care for the consciences of Jewish believers. Luke, a Gentile, had no stake in the feast himself.
- Days lost at sea. A crossing once made in two days took five. Contrary winds held the ship back — and a forced delay can be the Lord's rest for His servants.
- Days redeemed on shore. Paul landed too late for one gathering to break bread. He waited a week for the next, though he had just avoided Ephesus to save time.
- Days that set a habit. Seven-day stops keep recurring. They point to the first day of the week as the set time when disciples came together to break bread.
And the first day of the week, we being assembled to break bread, Paul discoursed to them, about to depart on the morrow. And he prolonged the discourse till midnight.
The scene is Troas, a stopover on Paul's journey. Luke slips in one sentence that has shaped Christian gathering ever since. Believers meet on the first day of the week, and the reason given is to break bread. Why that day, why that purpose, and why does an apostle's preaching come second in the sentence?
(Older translations read "the disciples came together to break bread." The writers quoted below use that wording.)
The choice of day is not casual. One writer compares the first day with the seventh, and says what each one marks.
There was no transfer from the seventh day to the first, and the first day is never called the Sabbath. The Sabbath, not the first day, was the memorial of creation rest. In due time the law imposed it as a most holy commandment, bound up in a special way with God's authority and honour. The resurrection of Christ has brought in a new creation, after He had by Himself purged our sins on the cross. So the first day is the day of clear and triumphant life in Christ, who is our life. On it our hearts go out in worship, communion and service. A rest for the body, shared with the ox and the donkey, does not rise to the blessed associations of Christ risen from the dead. The New Testament does not close without stamping this day as "the Lord's day" (Revelation 1:10). That is not the prophetic "day of the Lord", which will bring ever-increasing and solemn judgments from God on the earth. The Lord's day is a day of heavenly grace. It brings us already into the victory of His resurrection, the pledge of our own resurrection or change at His coming.
Another writer points to what marks the day out, and to what it is not.
The first day of the week is marked out for the Christian, not as law, but as blessing. Christ rose; Christ met His disciples on it, and again the following week. On the first day of the week the disciples met to break bread. On the first day they were to lay aside their profits for the poor saints.
Paul was in a hurry. That makes his week-long stop worth explaining.
Why did Paul stretch out his stay in Troas? He was hurrying, as we know, to reach Jerusalem by the day of Pentecost if he could. He deliberately avoided Ephesus because he did not want to be delayed on his journey. Yet here at Troas he spends no fewer than seven days.
The same writer gives the reason for the week's delay.
Unexpected delays on the voyage meant the travellers landed at Troas just too late to join the usual weekly gathering of the disciples to break bread. To share with them in the customary remembrance of Christ, they had to stay a week for the next one.
Luke does not only say that they met. He says why.
This passage implies that this act was the object of their meeting, though other things might go along with it.
The same verse also settles how often they did it.
The early disciples came together not once a year, nor once a quarter, nor once a month, but on the first day of the week to break bread. It is no new theory, no notion of moderns or ancients, but what God has written in Acts 20:7.
One writer weighs Paul's preaching against the supper, and notes the hour they met.
Even the apostle's teaching, precious as it was, is spoken of as a secondary thing. The remembrance of the Lord's love in dying for us, and all that He has brought us into as risen again, was and is the first thing. If there is a chance to minister the word in a way that gathers up the thoughts and affections of the worshippers to Christ, it is good to take it. But the breaking of bread ought to be the first consideration, and the main object of the assembly. The Lord's Supper on this occasion came after sunset.
Luke names who came, and what they came for.
Then it was "disciples" who came together. That suggests people who had followed the Lord faithfully during the week before. They came "together to break bread." Hymns and thanksgiving must have their place. But they are not the reason we come together. We come to "break bread."
So who may lead it?
The New Testament never says that a man must be ordained to administer the Supper. It is clear that Christians came together on the Lord's Day to break bread.
The long speech had a reason behind it.
He knew that dangers were looming ahead. No doubt that made him all the more anxious to give the disciples everything he could in his parting words. So he continued his speech until midnight.
- Day — The first day is the resurrection day, the mark of a new creation, not a transfer of the Sabbath.
- Purpose — On that day the stated object of the gathering is to break bread, not to hear preaching.
- Frequency — The pattern is weekly, not monthly, quarterly or yearly.
- Priority — Preaching, even an apostle's, is secondary to the remembrance of Christ.
- Proof — Paul, in a hurry to Jerusalem, spent seven days at Troas to be there for it.