Eucharistic Meditation, January 25

Eucharistic meditation for January 25:

Acts 2:41-47

In the book of Acts, we see the early church carrying out Jesus’ instructions regarding the proper use of wealth. After the Spirit was poured out on Pentecost, and 3000 were saved, the disciples begin to sell their possessions in order to share with other believers who were in need. In Acts 6, the church set up a regular system to ensure that there is no need among them, that there is no needy widow. At the same time, they are maintaining Jesus’ table fellowship. Jew and Gentile, Parthians and Medes and Elamites, Cretans and Arabs were sitting down at a single table.

These two practices of the church are inseparable. As we sit down at this table each week, and share bread, we are simultaneously committing ourselves to share our goods, our gifts, our lives with one another. If we share bread at this table, and then go our separate ways, then we are contradicting what we have done at this table. The word for this in Acts is “fellowship,” translating koinonia , or community. (The word for “common” in Acts 2:44 is the root of koinonia , the word koinon .) Fellowship means shared life, having our lives in common, living as if we belonged to one another and not to ourselves.

As we come to the Lord’s table, let us not only be diligent in holding to the apostles teaching and diligent in prayer, but let us also be diligent in breaking bread together and in fellowship.