Old Testament Foundations for Biblical Worship: The Breaking of Bread

Intro:

Today we are going to continue in our exploration of the elements of the New Testament worship that we find in Acts 2:42 and our seek to trace each of these elements back to their OT foundations.

As a way of review or for those who weren't here last week. In our church in Unalaska I have spent the last several years working through the Minor Prophets and one of the major points that has really stuck out to me is the centrality of worship in the life of the people of God. In fact I would make the case that the gathering together of the people of God to worship is one of the central elements of what God is seeking to do in this world. It is through this regular gathering of God’s people that He is glorified in this world. Not the only way but certainly one of the central ways.

Another key that you see throughout the OT is that it is God and only God who decides how it is that His people are to worship Him. God’s people are not given the creative freedom to add to the elements of worship that God has commanded.

The people were to worship God only in the ways he had prescribed and in all of the ways that H had prescribed and they were to be devoted to and consistent in this worship.

Now I argued that one of the things that has caused a lot of difficulty in worship in the Church is a failure to realize that when we gather for worship now there is a deep connection to the worship that has been offered by the saints of God from the beginning and especially as it developed in Israel.

Many modern day Christians seem to believe that while God did indeed prescribe how it was that He was to be worship in the OT that because we worship on this side of the cross and because some of these elements of worship have been transformed in light of the cross that there is a break between the Old and the New and that there is a bunch of freedom to sort of worship God however we feel like worshipping Him. This attitude we mentioned finds its worst expression when we become more concerned with what we are getting out of our Lord’s Day worship than what is pleasing and honoring to God. The question we shoudl ask ourselves when attending a Lord’s Day worship gathering is not what does this church have to offer me and my family but rather is this church seeking to lead us in faithful biblical worship!

This is the whole point of this series , to seek to understand what it is that the Bible calls us to in our worship and even more so to see how deeply the central elements of the worship of the church as expressed in Acts 2:24 are connected to their corresponding elements in the OT. To see these OT foundations for our NT worship.

Last week we looked at the element of the devotion to the apostles’ teaching and how foundational that the teaching and preaching ministry of the word is to the gathered assembly of God’s people. Today we will continue on and see what I might call the twin pillar of NT worship or of the NT worship gathering, that is the Lord’s Supper.

Now before we do that lets take a moment to pray.

PRAY

Lets read this text again:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

This is Luke’s divinely recorded summary of the practice of the early church. We see here in this verse what it was that they had devoted themselves to and then in the following verses what this devotion looked like as it worked its way out through their lives as a church.

Now we are just focusing on the elements that we read they were devoted to and I think that we need to be reminded again that these elements were what became central to their weekly gatherings on the Lord’s Day and that this weekly worship gathering then is what became so formative for the rest of their life as the church.

Now you'll notice that we are jumping a bit ahead in the list. We are skipping over fellowship for now and heading right toward the breaking of bread.

Now we do need to consider for a moment how it is that these things all fit together.

The word used for fellowship, Koinonia, has the basic meaning of association, or communion, or a close relationship and in the secular Greek it could also be used to describe communion with ones god in the context of a sacred meal. In this way it could be here that the breaking of bread and the prayers help to serve to describe and define what Luke means by the devotion to fellowship. This also helps to point us in the right direction then for understanding this devotion to the breaking of bread.

We most readily associate the breaking of bread with the Lord’s Supper and the breaking of the bread of the communion bread but there isn't any contextual reason to limit it to just the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper but it actually can represent an entire fellowship meal that is shared.

We see then at part of the fellowship of the local church was the sharing of meals together meals that could also be described as sacred meals and communion with God.

Now we made the point last week that we need to acknowledge and seek to understand the development of these elements within the early church and this is one of the main areas in which I think we see considerable and quick development in.

It is likely that when these 1st century believers gathered together on the Lord’s day they did indeed share a meal together and in the context of that meal they would then administer the Lord’s Supper.

We know this because in 1 Corinthians 11 we read:

English Standard Version Chapter 11

When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. 21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.

This church was observing what they had been taught and was taking a meal together and were observing the Lord’s Supper in the course of the meal but they were not giving the due respect to the Lord’s Supper but rather speeding off into the rest of their meal and then in that some would eat and drink in abundance while others would go hungry. The whole situation is not pleasing to the Lord because they had taken then very thing that we will see was meant to turn their attention toward Christ and making it just another opportunity to seek the satisfaction of their own fleshly appetites and that at the expense of other less fortunate believers.

Now there is obviously much more that could be said about this text but what I believe is likely to have happened is that as a result of what we read here that the element of the Lord’s Supper which was to be the primary focus of the fellowship meal, the breaking of bread from Acts 2 was, as a result of this tendency toward error in the churches finally broken away from a meal and we see in the early patristic period, the first 300 years of the church, that the Lord’s Supper becomes its own thing.

I say all that to make the case that what we are talking about here when we consider the “breaking of bread” isn't just a fellowship in meals but most specifically speaks of the celebration together of the Lord’s Supper.

Why The Lord’s Supper

Now that we can confidently assert that it was to the taking of the Lord’s Supper together that these early believers devoted themselves to and that this was in large measure definitional of their Christian fellowship we need to ask the question of why, why do we celebrate this thing called the Lord’s Supper.

Now there is much that could be said about the Lord’s Supper and its importance and its function in the gathered body of believers. There are some very specific instructions and admonitions in the NT involving the taking of the supper.

My purpose though this morning is to trace this thing back to its Old Testament roots and seek to encourage us to be as devoted to this element of worship as was the early church!.

In our day the Lord’s Supper has fallen on hard times. The modern period of the church gave rise to a thought that was foreign to all of church history, the thought that if the Lord’s Supper was observed with too great a frequency that it might become mundane and so we ought to limit the access to the Lord's Supper within our congregations so that its doesn't get old and stale.

Now, while I can understand this from a pragmatic perspective you have to know that this was a great departure from the entirety of Church history. Many arguments were throughout church history about the Lord’s Supper and its purpose, meaning, and substance but none of these arguments revolved around limiting the taking of the Lord’s Supper so that it didn't become a rote practice.

No, we must be honest with this, if we are tempted to limit the taking of the supper as many churches do or if we are prone to self limit our participation in the Lord’s Supper as many other believers do by not regularly attending the Supper then we are out of step with the vast majority of Christians since our Lord First uttered the words “this do in remembrance of me!”

Now, I think that, perhaps, one of the main contributing factors to this whole issue is a failure to see a continuity between the types and shadows of the OT that direct us toward the practice of the Lord’s Supper in the new.

There is a very tangible connection between the worship of God as prescribed in the OT and the worship of God that is now prescribed under the New and when we see that connection in the Supper we will hopefully see why it is that we are to regularly and often gather for the Supper.

To start this connection we need to peak into the upper room and see what it was that Jesus does when He institutes this remembrance feast.

We could pick any of the gospel acounts but lets take Matthew, there we read in chapter 26:

English Standard Version Chapter 26

17 Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?” 18 He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’ ” 19 And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover.

Now we all likely know this, Jesus and His disciples were celebrating the passover there in the upper room. This was the meal dedicated to remembering the night that the people in Egypt had slaughtered the lamb and placed its blood over their doors and windows so that the angle of death would pass over their homes and their lives would be spared. This feast was then ordered to be remembered throughout all of their days as a memorial to that event and it was during the days of this particular feast that Jesus would be crucified.

Well in the course of eating this meal that these disciples had prepared we read:

English Standard Version Chapter 26

26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

So we see that as these disciples were participating in this Passover meal that Jesus took up this bread and wine and instituted for them a new feast the feast of the Lord’s Supper. Now it is not insignificant that Jesus does this during one of the prescribed feasts for Israel where they would gather together and worship God through the passover meal. It is also not insignificant that Jesus institutes this Supper as a memorial in remembrance of His own impending sacrifice on the Cross.

The following day he would become for us the full and complete sacrifice for the forgiveness and cleansing of all of our sins. This is why in the providence of God this sacrifice on the cross took place around the same time as the passover sacrifice, when we are covered with the blood of Christ the wrath of God is passed over us. In other words Jesus is the passover lamb.

However, we ought to see that not only is Jesus the passover lamb but that each and every one of the OT sacrifices in some way points to Christ. This is so important!

As the law was given to Moses we find that provisions are made through sacrifice that not only is God going to passover sin but that he is going to, through a bloody sacrifice, satisfy the wrath of God, He is going to through sacrifice, make atonement for our sins, He is going to through sacrifice cleanse us from the stain and guilt of our sin, we are to be reconciled to God through the death of a perfect sacrifice, to be made holy and be granted admission into the Kingdom, family, and presence of God.

We read in Isaiah 53:4-12

Isaiah 53:4–12 ESV

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

This passage is just drenched in the sacrificial language of the OT and we know that in each and every respect it points to the one sacrifice of Christ.

Now in the book of Hebrews we read:

English Standard Version Chapter 10

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

The law with its sacrifices and offerings was but a shadow of the good things to come! Meaning that the light that emanates from the cross casts a shadows back across all that we see in the OT sacrificial system and when we allow our eyes to follow that shadow we will find that we are looking directly at the crucified Son of God, our Savior hanging there on that tree, the sacrifice toward which all of the blood of all of the sacrifices since the moment that God killed those animals to cloth Adam and Eve had pointed.

And so it is we read a chapter earlier in Hebrews:

English Standard Version Chapter 9

11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13

Christ carried His own blood as our High Priest into the holy of holies in heaven and has with that blood secured an eternal redemption.

Now we know all of this, or at least I hope that you do! But what we need to realize is that when Christ provided His disciples with His supper, with His remembrance feast, He was giving us what now for us, serves, in the gathered worship of God, serves the same purpose as the feasts and sacrifices did in the OT.

Remember, there was nothing with saving power about offering the sacrifices and keeping the feasts, they were intended to drive the hearts and minds of those saints in faith forward to what God had promised would come. The same goes for us now, there is nothing in the keeping of the Lord’s Supper that saves us but rather it is intended to drive our minds back to all that Christ accomplished for us there at the cross! It is in this way that we can see all of the feasts and sacrifices of the OT united here in this one thing, united for us in the Lord’s Supper.

Temple

Now there is one other key truth that I need to make mention of here as we draw this all together. One of the astounding truths that we see established for us in the NT is that as a result of what Christ did we as God’s people are now being built up together as the Temple of God.

In Ephesians 2 we read:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

The Apostle Peter adds to this in his first Epistle:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

and:

English Standard Version Chapter 2

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

We find in the NT that what the Temple and the Tabernacle before it had always pointed to as a shadow of its own was a time when God was going to unite his people together and so come and dwell in and amongst them that they could rightly be called the Temple, or the place where God dwells among men and as this Temple His people now serve the purpose of being the place where He is worshiped together rightly.

When we do this, when we gather together and are built up together as the Temple of God through the right and proper worship of God it is in this way that we proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us!

This then becomes the touchstone for this morning. It would have been unthinkable for a Jewish believer to come to the temple without his sacrifice. The Jew who truly understood the nature of their own sinful condition could not have come into the temple to worship without taking there a sacrifice for their sin.

Well, I maintain that as it would be nearly incomprehensible for an OT Jew to come to worship in the temple so it ought to be nearly as unthinkable for us to gether together as the Temple of God in worship of Him without taking part in the very thing that He has instructed us is to be the continual memorial among us to the sacrifice of His Son!

This, I believe, is why for the vast majority of Church History the Lord’s Supper has been the element of worship around which all of the other elements have been arranged. And while I would not elevate the taking of the Lord’s Supper above the preaching of the Word that we considered last week I would say that these two elements form the two main elements of what are to be our regular gathered corporate worship.

This ought not be a burden, I am not trying to bind on anyone a heavy burden that is too great to bear, I am trying to drive us back into the very thing that Christ established to be a paramount blessing to His people!

Closing

As we close I would like to suggest a Lord’s Day worship rhythm that might be helpful for you. I cant remember where I heard this but one writer in discussing how it is that we are to approach the Lord’s Day worship and how it is that this worship takes a place in shaping and driving our Christian lives suggested the following worship pattern which includes all of what we see in Acts 2: 24.

First we come to God in the Lord’s Supper and we meditate on the sacrifice of Christ for our sins and we worship him in song for His glory and greatness but we also consider our own lives from the past week, we praise God for the times when He has helped us to live faithfully and we repent and seek forgiveness for the times that we have failed to live out the holiness to which He calls us.

Once we have done this our hearts have then been made ready to receive the Word and we joyfully submit ourselves to the faithful preaching of the word of God, preaching that doesn't blunt truth or try to avoid hurt feelings or tickle itching ears but preaching that seeks to faithfully set before God’s people the Word of God and give its true sense and help the Christian apply that word to their lives. We then leave the worship gathering with truth the seek to apply to our lives in the coming week and when we come together again in worship it happens all over again. We again approach the Lord’s supper and praise those areas where He has enabled us to live faithfully to what we have learned before and we seek again repentance and forgiveness for the weeks failures as we meditate on the glory and wonder of our crucified Lord in the supper.