The Early Church
Acts 2:41-47

New Testament scholars regularly point to these verses as a major passage describing the early church and its nature. Notice the sudden tsunami of new believers – 3000 in one day! What if your church, whatever its size, held an evangelistic service in a stadium and had 3000 new members in one day? Can you imagine the administrative logistics problem? Assume each of the original 120 could teach. That would give each one 25 new converts to train. If each of the 12 supervised, that would give him a leaders' class of 10 that in turn teach 250! Of course we have no idea how they managed that crowd. I point it out to remind us that they did handle it very successfully. The first sign of a problem doesn't show up until chapter 6. We do know that many continued to worship in the temple. The first Christians likely considered themselves a continuation of Israel, still Jews, and many thought them a branch of Judaism. Gradually, the differences became apparent, and Christians became a separate movement. One group of the new Christians believed that Christianity was for Jews only, and therefore one had to convert to Judaism and keep the Jewish laws before also accepting Christ. A good deal of Acts deals with the movement from a Jewish sect to a worldwide faith.

In verse 42 – the church, old and new, focused on at least four things Luke mentioned:
    The apostles' teaching – listed first. Primarily, they would tell the stories and teachings of Jesus from the sources that led to the gospels. In light of the resurrection, they would interpret those stories as God's saving act in His world. They would have taught the emerging doctrine as they understood it in those days. Underlying the teaching was the belief that followers needed to understand their faith and where it came from.
    The fellowship – Erase any ideas of a religious social gathering or party. Instead think of the closeness of a good athletic team, the bond between workers who have labored together for years. Add to that the binding power of the Holy Spirit and the common experience they shared in Christ. A few churches and classes here and there have such a fellowship. You cannot over-emphasize the importance of fellowship in the NT. It should be considered a doctrine along with any other.
    The breaking of bread – This could mean two things or both. Some believe it refers to communion, the Lord's Supper. Others think it means the fellowship meal eaten together. If you look in 1 Corinthians 11:17ff, you will see that the Lord's Supper was usually eaten in homes perhaps like our covered-dish suppers, and was part of the overall meal. This makes us aware that the growing Christian worship was divided between the Temple and house churches, probably in different parts of the city where a believer was willing to host the meeting and dinner. By the time the faith migrated to Corinth, apparently some people were arriving early and gobbling more than their share and were drinking enough wine to get drunk. Paul makes explicit one cannot observe the sacred part of the meal with that attitude and an intoxicated state of mind. Indeed, the Jewish attitude toward meals was that breaking bread together in itself had a sacred bond attached.
   Have you noticed that those who come only to worship, however faithful, do not become a really thorough part of the church as those who are involved in a Bible study class and come to the fellowship meal.
    The prayers – We do and we don't know what this means. We know the importance of prayer, but we don't know the exact ritual they used. Did they have a period of silent prayer, all praying aloud together, or – as we do – have one person lead and the others follow silently. Nevertheless, nail it down that in Luke's mind prayer was one of the four most notable things the church did.

Verse 43 – Fear came on “everyone,” presumably the outsiders who witnessed the “wonders and signs” the apostles were doing. We see more of these in the next few chapters, but they were continuing and expanding the work of Jesus. And they gave the Lord the credit, not attributing it to themselves.

Verse 44 – The believers shared whatever they had with whoever needed it. They even sold property to donate to the church. Some have  pointed to this as communism. Not so for several reasons. Communism involves government and the theory that the government owns everything with no private property. Government had nothing to do with this. Their giving was of their personal property, often inspired by the Spirit, but still their choice. Now we have also found from the Dead Sea Scrolls and related documents, that the Essene community did practice a form of communism. An entrant to their sect put up all his property in escrow for the community for a year while he was a probationary member. If after a year, he was accepted and still wanted to join, he would sign over all his property. How much the early Christians knew of this is not recorded, but this was not their practice. People gave as they do today, but were apparently more enthusiastic than most of us are now.

Verses 46-7 – We see that they did indeed worship in the temple and in homes. There was an excited, happy group of believers. They were joyful, praising God, and living the new life before the people. The joyful life attracted others, and the Lord added people to the church as they were converted. Notice a point of church polity here. Baptists and other congregationalists believe that the church is a group of believers, who have knowingly professed their faith in Christ. This is why we don't count children nor “baptize” them. Baptizing children originated in the belief that the holy water had power in itself to cancel original sin. Thus if you baptize the baby, no matter how much or little water you use (Greeks use more than Romans), the baby doesn't understand. In the NT, baptism came to new believers as a symbol both of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and the death of the Christian to an old way of life and  his resurrection to the new life in Christ.