The Bible Study Podcast, episode 140. Today, the Bible Study podcast picks up the study of Acts in the end of Acts chapter 2.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen.

Last week, we talked about the day of Pentecost, and we ended with Peter's sermon, and we're going to pick up the story in Acts chapter 2, verse 42. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the

apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions

and goods they gave to anyone as he had need. 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,

praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily

those who were being saved. This is an interesting paragraph. It is a small picture. We'll get a little

more later on of the church and what the church behaved like at this time.

And it's a fairly simple picture. There are no mention of committees. There are no mention of

councils, elders, yet at this time, not even deacons. That won't come until a couple chapters

later. They're not maintaining the grounds. The church won't have church buildings for a couple

hundred years at this point. And so I think this is a view of the church in its simplest

and in some sense in its cleanest form. So what are they doing? They're devoting themselves to

teaching, fellowship, the breaking up bread and prayer. Four pillars for any church to build upon.

Teaching so that you understand what is right and what is true, what is expected, fellowship

so that you know one another and can support one another. Did you notice in this there's a real

theme of a community? They are living

in community. They're sharing with one another. And I hesitate to say this. This doesn't look like a very

capitalist view of the church. It's almost that other C word in the sense that they're holding

everything in common and treating

each other equally and sharing their needs. But what they're doing is they're putting each other

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