3891—Breaking of Bread
By Editor
Please let me know if the words found in Acts 20:7 refer to the Lord's Supper. It says plainly, "On the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread." It looks to me as tho that was their custom, as we never read of their breaking bread in the meetings on the Sabbath day in which Paul preached in the synagog. Granted that the expression "breaking of bread" refers to the Lord's Supper. Certainly the text does not show that it occurred at a customary time. It does show that that gathering was upon the first day of the week, and among the incidents which occurred was the breaking of bread at that time. "And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them, intending to depart on the morrow," reads the American Revised Version. Luke simply declares that as we were met together on that evening, Paul preached to them; but on that occasion we also broke bread, and it is when we were gathered to break the bread that Paul preached. That might have been a meal for the Sabbath day. If the expression refers to the Lord's Supper, Acts 2:46 clearly shows that it had no fixed time for observance, for "day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart." It clearly seems to refer to the common meals in this passage; but if it refers here to the Lord's Supper, it shows that the frequency or infrequency of the bread breaking was determined entirely by circumstances, and that it was not held upon any set day; and therefore the apostle Paul, in giving instructions upon this, declares, as we read in 1 Cor. 11:26, "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord's death till He come." This meeting would probably not have been recorded at all, had it not been for the noted miracle which was wrought on the occasion. Paul seems to have been with them the entire week; and having closed his Sabbath service with them, they partook of the Lord's Supper before departing. And yet Paul, eager to instruct them in the way of truth, preached to them on this occasion also. While he was preaching, Eutychus fell down, and was taken up for dead. Paul brought him back to life, went up with the disciples and broke bread—partook with them of the Lord's Supper, then preached again, even until the break of day, and spent the rest of that Sunday in his journey to Assos. We can well believe—devout Christians can—that the daily breaking of bread in Acts 2:46, and in this passage also, was the communion service, was a bringing to remembrance the death and sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ; and it was a preeminently fitting thing, as the apostle was departing, to solemnize the last meeting with an ordinance of this kind. But there is absolutely nothing whatever in the text or context which fixes the ordinance to the day, except on that one occasion. In the record given in Acts 2:46, it would seem that these celebrations would occur on the Sabbath as well as on the first day of the week. The Bible limits them to no day. There were doubtless a great many occasions of this kind that are not recorded at all.