At the end of Acts 2, we read the three essentials that contributed to a fruitful body.
They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Acts 2:42 NASB
That word ‘devoted’ here in the NASB is translated ‘steadfastly committed’ in the KJV. The word devotion in my mind carries a more passive connotation than steadfastly committed. They were unwavering. Persistent. Loyal. These activities were not take-it-or-leave-it activities. They were priorities. They were habits. Out of all the things that would eat up time in their lives, these four activities took precedence over everything else.
The other aspect here is that there was a trust and a reliability factor. It was assumed that if you were part of the early church, these were the types of things you wanted to be doing with your life. It wasn’t lip service. It wasn’t saving face. It wasn’t to please your wife or your kids. It was genuine and unfaltering body life. I want us to keep that in mind when we look at these things.
The first was the dedication to the apostle’s teaching. This teaching was authoritative because it was the foundational teaching of Jesus Christ, communicated through men who had been with Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, for the purpose of the forgiveness of sin, and it was available to all who would believe.
The second was the fellowship/breaking of bread. This could have involved partaking in the Lord’s Supper but was most likely broader in scope. It involved entangling their lives together over a meal in the same way Jesus did with his disciples as they ministered together. No matter what era you study, the sharing of a meal has always been a staple of hospitality and friendship. There is much more taking place here than just the sharing of food.
The third was dedication to corporate prayer. It is significant that this time was shared. There is a time for private prayer and there is a time for us to come together corporately. Jesus begged his disciples to stay awake with Him and pray while He was in the garden just before His arrest. He taught His disciples how to pray. The act of gathering to share needs before the Lord was something that had been ingrained in their culture but was now enriched because of the work of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit.