“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” – Acts 2:42 (NASB)
I saw an error that wasn’t there!
Sometimes I’ll read a passage in the Bible too fast and when I do, I risk making a mistake. This will happen even when I double check things in the Greek text of the New Testament. If I’m not being patient and slow, I’ll read something that wasn’t there or else I’ll miss something that was.
This happened a short while ago and I want to share it with you.
As you can tell, it has to do with the verse I posted above. The title of this article describes the content of the verse: the devotional activities of the first Christians.
The NASB adds the word “continually” because the verb tense stresses that the early church engaged in these practices all the time. This is a lifestyle, not a “try it and see” approach.
So we know who is the subject of the sentence: the first Christians. And we know what they were doing: they were devoting themselves.
To what? What were they committing themselves to?
Luke, the author of the book of Acts, lists four behaviors. We could reformat the verse to look like this:
They were continually devoting themselves:
- To the apostle’s teaching
- And to fellowship
- And to the breaking of bread
- And to prayer
But did you notice my goof? I added an “and” to item number 3. Look at the verse above; “and” isn’t there.
Does that make a difference?
At first, I believed it did. If Luke wanted to make a simple list of four devotional practices, he could have (should have!) arranged them in similar fashion.
Also, Greek has no “apostrophe s” to indicate possession. It uses the word “of” instead. So the reference to the teaching that belongs to the apostles is, word for word, “the teaching of the apostles.”
I don’t bring this up because it’s a big deal; it doesn’t change the meaning of the first item. But it does make it look more like the third one:
- The teaching of the apostles
- The breaking of the bread
Did you catch that? I inserted “the” before “bread.” The NASB doesn’t do that, but the word is in the Greek text. Bible scholars make judgment calls about whether to translate the definite article, and in this case, they decided not to.
But perhaps they should have. Because the definite article is also attached to the second and fourth items, even though it goes untranslated.
Finally, as the NASB observes in a note, the word “prayer” is plural. This might connect it in some way to the other plural, “the apostles.”
Assembling all these details, Acts 2:42 now looks like this:
They were continually devoting themselves:
- To the teaching of the apostles
- And to the fellowship
- To the breaking of the bread
- And to the prayers.
That “the breaking of the bread” line is missing an “and” still bothers me! Adding one would make this phrase adhere to the form of the others. Nice and well-ordered.
But Luke didn’t do that!
So I have to accept the Bible as it’s written. Don’t we all?
Yet when we do, we get the privilege of learning the mind of the Lord. In this case, Jesus wants to teach us something about His first followers.
Rather than going with the form I preferred, the Holy Spirit guided Luke to arrange the verse as a chiasm. That’s a fancy term which means the bulk of the verse has an ABBA structure.
A: The teaching of the apostles
B: And the fellowship
B: The breaking of the bread
A: And the prayers
This means that the As have something in common, and the Bs do, too. A seems to deal with the relationship of the Christians to God. B concerns the relationship of the Christians to each other.
And other verses in Acts support this interpretation of devotional practices. In Acts 6:4, Peter declares as much for the apostles:
“But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
Yes, the word “devote” is the same verb that’s in Acts 2:42!
And a few verses down, Acts 2:46 connects fellowship and breaking bread:
“Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart”
“Day by day continuing” reminds us of “continually” in vs. 42. And what were the disciples doing in the temple? No doubt praying and listening to the preaching of the gospel! That’s A! But they also spent time in various homes. Sharing meals and spending time together. The early church lived their devotion to Jesus!
So Acts 2:42 is well organized, even if at first I didn’t think so!
But there’s more.
Instead of using an ABBA template, we can try another one, ABAB. This results in a zigzag:
A:The teaching of the apostles
B: And the fellowship
A: The breaking of the bread
B: And the prayers
The Bs supplement the As. From this perspective, the first AB pair shows us that fellowship was an opportunity for believers to discuss and work out the apostolic messages. And then the second AB pair suggests the integration of prayer and eating. There’s no better way to depict the Lord’s Supper!
This post started because I thought there was an “and” missing in Acts 2:42. Turns out I was wrong, and thank God I was! This gave me a chance to learn what Jesus instilled in His own from the earliest days. May our churches follow their example as we devote ourselves to Christ.
Continually.
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