Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Acts 2:42-47, The common life
The first believers devote themselves to teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers, share their possessions, and meet daily in the temple courts and in their homes.
Acts 2:42-47, in every translation this tool compares.
Luke pauses to show what the new community looked like day to day. They stayed close to the apostles' instruction, shared meals and prayer, and sold goods so that nobody went without. They kept worshiping in the temple while eating together in homes, and outsiders thought well of them as their numbers kept growing. The picture is of Israel's hopes for a people of God being lived out in a small group in Jerusalem.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/eating-together\/","n":"Eating together","s":"Sharing a table made a bond of friendship, so who you ate with told everyone whose side you were on.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/jewish-prayer\/","n":"Prayer in Jesus' day","s":"Set prayers, set hours, standing to pray, God addressed as Father, and prayers for his name and his kingdom. Jesus taught his own disciples a prayer inside that world.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/holding-all-in-common\/","n":"Holding goods in common","s":"The first believers in Jerusalem shared their possessions and sold property to meet each other's needs. Ancient writers used the same words for ideal communities, and only a few groups, such as the Essenes, tried it.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/temple-and-courts\/","n":"The temple and its courts","s":"Herod's huge rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, believed to be God's dwelling, laid out in courts that kept Gentiles, women and Jewish men at set distances.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/house-churches\/","n":"House churches","s":"For their first three centuries Christians met in homes, the way some Jewish groups and private clubs did. A host with a large house gave the church its room, its table and often its protection.","r":""}
Most special groups ate together, but Greek associations typically met once a month; a daily shared meal is unusual in antiquity and most resembles family life (Keener and his notes). The CSB Study Bible thinks the breaking of bread included both fellowship meals and the Lord's Supper. Keener notes public prayer at the morning and evening offerings, and that temples made good public gathering places. Luke's wording echoes ancient descriptions of ideal communities (Keener and his notes). Wright likens the believers to a family firm with three generations sharing one purse, and notes that they sold extra property, part of an ancestral inheritance, while keeping the houses they met in. The ESV Study Bible insists the sharing was voluntary and no abolition of property, while Keener warns against reading it as a mistake and calls it valuing people above possessions. The CSB Study Bible says the earliest evangelism seems to have happened through gatherings in the temple and in houses.
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Acts 2:44-45 and 2:46
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Acts 2:42, 2:43-45 and 2:46-47
- CSB Study Bible, notes on Acts 2:42 and 2:47
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Acts 2:44
- N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone, Part One, comment on Acts 2:42-47
