The Beginning of the Church

Acts 2

Acts 2:42–47 ESV

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

This passage gives us the earliest picture of the church. What an amazing picture this is as well. They were devoted and filled with awe, they were united around a common thing, they were caring for one another, they were welcoming each other into their homes, they praised God at all times, and they were ever growing.

I think all of these things can be summed up in that first verse, they were devoted to teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer.

They were devoted to the teaching. In this they desired it, they focused in on it, when it was teaching time everything else went away. This allowed them to grow in their faith and learn more and more about their amazing God.

They were devoted to the fellowship. Some of you are confused because there are separate things that talk about fellowship and food. Fellowship is having spiritual conversations with one another. Its discussing the teaching or what you are reading in the Bible, it’s getting guidance from one another and checking in on one another. It’s deeper than just a ordinary conversation.

They were devoted to the breaking of bread. They would share meals together to allow time to do life together. To converse about the things going on around them, to become friends. This further deepens our fellowship and draws us closer to each other.

Finally they were devoted to prayer. They would pray by themselves and they would pray together. They would make their pleas to God further deepening their relationship with him and in turn deepening their relationships with each other.

The early church was a devoted church. They did all these things and these areas of devotion built up the other areas. Today in our modern churches we need to learn from the early church, they did sit under the teachings of and were led by the apostles after all. Our personal devotion is important but we need to have the corporate devotion as well. Do you participate in all of these areas in your church? Is there ways that you can do more?

These were characteristics of the early church and I think we can agree that they need to be characteristics of our churches still today.