THE LORD’S SUPPER – WHEN? (No. 3.)

SUNDAY WORSHIP IN TROAS

            “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread.  Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight.”   (Acts 20:7.)

           

Jesus’ church met every Sunday to remember Him at his table.  The night of his betrayal, when He instituted the memorial supper, He ordained, “…that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom…” (Luke 22:30.)  Christ’s church, upon its beginning in Jerusalem, is reported to have “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42.) The apostles taught the church to meet together on the first day of every week (Sunday) to eat the Lord’s Supper.( Hebrews 10:25;  1 Corinthians 16:1, 2;  11:20-33.)

The Apostle Paul’s week in Troas (Acts 20:1ff) reflects this weekly observance of Jesus’ memorial feast.  Paul was enroute to Jerusalem at the close of his third missionary journey.  Luke, the inspired historian, joined Paul in Philippi (Macedonia, northern Greece).  He writes, “Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus to avoid spending time in the province of Asia, for he was in a hurry to reach Jerusalem, if possible by the day of Pentecost.” Acts 20:16.)  Paul had not arrived in Troas from Philippi until “…after the Feast of Unleavened Bread…” (v. 6)  There were fifty days between the feasts of Passover (or, ‘Unleaven Bread’, Cf. Luke 22:1.), and the feast of Pentecost, fifty days later.    The apostle had miles to go on his hurried journey, and five days had already been required just to sail from Philippi (Macedonia, northern Greece) to Troas (northwestern Turkey).

Two significant and helpful things in this report give us strong indication as to the day God has appointed for Christians to meet Jesus at his table.  Luke writes of Paul’s company (seven brothers in addition to Luke) in Troas, “…where we stayed seven days.  On the first day of the week we came together to break bread…” (Acts 20:6, 7.)  Paul “…was in a hurry to get to Jerusalem, if possible by the day of Pentecost.” (v. 16.)  Notwithstanding, he spent an entire week in Troas.  He evidently knew that the Lord’s Table would be prepared on “the first day of the week”.  If this were not the disciples’ habit, Paul could not have known whether the saints at Troas would commune that Sunday – or on another  “first day of the week”, a month, or six months, or a year later.  He knew that the churches communed with Jesus at his table the first day of every week.  

The other significant observation is that the disciples did not meet any other time to break bread.  Paul and his friends were in the city “seven days” an entire week. But, though they were hurrying in their travel to Jerusalem, the table of Jesus was not prepared on a Tuesday, a Thursday PM, nor upon any other day that week.  If the day of meeting “to break bread” were incidental, love and courtesy towards Paul and his travel plans would likely have chosen an earlier day and time, and allowed him to hasten on his journey. (He did that very thing leaving the next day after they had been brought together to break bread. (v. 7.) (Note: The verb we “came together” is a passive verb in the original text.  The disciples at Troas respected God’s authority which brought them together on that day.)

It would seem evident from this inspired account that the church of God in every place, led by the apostles, ate the Lord’s Supper on the first day of every week (Sunday), and only on that day.

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                              (Final Study: “The Testimony of Early Historians”)

Ted Kell

Brownwood, Texas