Breaking Bread

February 1

(Acts 2:42 NIV) "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread…"

(Acts 2:46 NIV) "Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,"

(Romans 12:4-5 NIV) "Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, {5} so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others."

(Ephesians 4:4-6 NIV) "There is one body and one Spirit-- just as you were called to one hope when you were called-- {5} one Lord, one faith, one baptism; {6} one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all."

There is a difference of opinion among Bible scholars as to whether the phrase “breaking of bread” speaks of the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, or of the practice of eating together in one another’s homes as family would do. Either way, the early church lived in a state of constant communion. Whether they broke bread in the church or in their homes becomes secondary to the fact that they bonded as family around their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They were in a holy communion with one another, and being together in community around a common table became central to the life of the early church. In our fragmented age, where individual agendas take priority over the common good, we could use a dose of this communal thinking. Having a common Lord should move us toward a common life. Christ founded the church to be His body: one Lord, one faith, one body. -- Friar Tuck’s Word of the Day