Biblical Essays
BREAKING BREAD
The term “Lord’s Supper” is found in 1 Corinthians 11 where Paul gives instructions to the Gentile believers in Corinth regarding how to behave at such a meeting. However, in Acts Luke uses a Jewish expression “the breaking of bread.” The term “breaking of bread” occurs many times in Jewish literature and especially in the Jewish literature of the Mishnaic period, which very often relates to practices in the final years of the Second Temple era.
The Community of the Notzrim
In order to understand the breaking of bread, we need to understand some things about the early Church. The early Jewish believers in the Land of Israel were called Notzrim.1 The community which is described in the first chapters of Acts was a community of Jewish inhabitants of the Land of Israel. All of their customs were rooted in the Judaism of the Land of Israel in the late Second Temple period. The difference between this community and the rest of the Jews in the Land was not so much between customs but rather between the principles of its faith, the Gospel it preached, and the life lived by its members.
The Principle Congregational Activities of the Notzrim
Acts 2:42 describes the three principle activities of the Notzrim in Jerusalem, and these were: the teaching of the Apostles, the fellowship in the breaking of bread, and the prayers. Many translations and even the UBS Greek text have a comma after the word “fellowship,” but the Greek grammar makes the fellowship an integral part of the breaking of bread. The Lord’s Supper in the breaking of bread was the means to, the center of, and the heart of fellowship in the early Messianic Jewish community in Jerusalem.
The large gatherings of the Notzrim were principally for the teaching of the Apostles. These early believers usually met in the Temple precincts in the same way that Jesus taught the crowds in the Temple. In 1 Corinthians, chapters 14 and following, we see some of Paul’s instructions to the community in Antioch. The large gatherings were public events where uninitiated persons could enter, listen, and observe. Paul mentions this possibility in 1 Corinthians 14:23.
The Nature of the Breaking of Bread Meeting
The other kind of meeting in the ancient Church was the breaking of bread. In Acts 2:46, Luke reports that the breaking of bread was one of the outstanding activities of the community of believers. In the Greek of verse 46, there is only one main verb “sharing” (metalambanon), and all the other actions are represented as participles that serve as modifies for the main verb. In other words, they were sharing their food in various residences whenever “they broke bread,” and they did this by “praising God with overflowing joy and in sincerity of heart.” Therefore, from the way Luke wrote his report, we learn that the breaking of bread was an integral part of their meals together. It is a mistake to think of the breaking of bread as a separate ceremony from the supper or from the fellowship.
One might mistakenly think that this description of the Lord’s Supper or the breaking of bread in Acts contradicts the proscription on eating food at the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians. However, a re-reading of 1 Corinthians 11 reveals that the last words and summary of the Apostle’s comments on the subject are: “Therefore, my brethren, when you gather to eat, wait for one another.” In other words, the stated purpose of the gathering was to eat. The Scriptures must be interpreted according to their plain, “simple” sense and in the context of the whole of the Scriptures. We must set aside our pre-formed opinions and attachments to traditions. In light of all the contexts which mention the breaking of bread, the cultural background, and the context of Israelite worship in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), Paul would never have forbade eating at the breaking of bread. Centuries of Church tradition make one think that Paul forbade eating at the breaking of bread, but that tradition began outside the Land of Israel after the First Century.
Paul wanted to correct an improper manner of eating at the breaking of bread. He wanted to point out that the purpose of their meeting was for fellowship and remembering the Lord and not merely to fill one’s stomach. This Jewish Apostle was aghast to learn that these Greek believers had turned the breaking of bread into an orgy of eating, in which, instead of sharing their food together, some were eating of the over-abundance that they bought for themselves and their family, while others of lesser means were going hungry. Such behavior was not “discerning the body.”
The Breaking of Bread in Rabbinic Literature
Rabbinic literature preserves a great amount of material testifying to the existence of the well-rooted custom of breaking of bread in the Jewish culture of the Second Temple and Mishnaic periods. One can find many of these sources in the Hebrew articles in the Talmudic Encyclopedia on be’tsial (“breaking”) and Havdalah (“division”) because the breaking of bread mostly took place at the Havdalah service at the end of Shabbat.2
The Form of the Breaking of Bread
The breaking of bread was the act at the completion of the blessing pronounced over the food in a ceremonial supper. The Notzrim in the Land of Israel broke bread in their homes because that was the extant custom. There is no reason to think that they broke bread in their homes because of lack of choice or out of fear because Acts 5 shows them openly meeting in large groups in Solomon’s Court of the Temple in Jerusalem. Rather, as was the custom and the rule, they reclined at the tables in their homes. They did this because Jesus Christ commanded them to remember Him every time they broke “this bread” and drank “from this cup.”
The fellowship mentioned in Acts 2:42 was an integral and inseparable component of their meetings because the breaking of bread was a supper where the believers shared their food with one another in private residences. In every culture, eating together is a ritual which promotes friendship and peace. There are a few situations in which people are willing to eat at the same table with their enemies. People do not readily eat with strangers, and if the situation does arise, they are quick to make acquaintance with the people who sup at the same table.
Jean Danielou reports that it was Greek speaking churches which were the first to separate between the Eucharist3 and the common meal that was characteristic of the early Church.4 In a graduate level essay, Dr. James E. Priest wrote: “Latin Churches were known to have a common meal at their ‘Eucharist’ until the period when the Church became a large movement, and it became difficult to distribute even a small bite to everyone even in one hour. The cessation of the custom to break bread in a love feast or common meal conducted in private homes and accommodations took place among believers outside of the Land of Israel and after the close of the first Century Apostolic period.”
The Breaking of Bread in Homes
In Acts 2:46, Luke reports that the believers were sharing their food together in their homes. In many translations, it appears as if all of them went together from house to house. However, logically this practice would have been impossible because the early Church in Jerusalem numbered in the thousands, and they could not have all fit into one single residence. The number of participants depended on the size of the residence, and that is why the text says “according to the home” (kata oikion), which is often mistranslated “from house to house.” Christ first invested new meaning into this custom in an upper room of a residence. In Acts 20, the believers gathered to break bread in an upper room of a residence. In no case was the breaking of bread conducted as an open meeting where observers, the curious, and others could enter and observe. Rather, it was an intimate celebration for the family of believers. In Jude 12, it is called the “love feast.”
The Role of Women in the Breaking of Bread
Dr. Priest further wrote: “In the breaking of bread meeting, women’s voices would naturally be heard because it was a home meeting isolated from the public with a different character than a public meeting. A meeting which is in the home or in a private place that involves believers sharing their food at a table is an entirely different context from a public meeting.”
It is significant that the only place in Pauline instruction where a woman’s voice was supposed to be heard occurs in 1 Corinthians 11, the very chapter where the instructions for the Lord’s Supper are recorded. It is possible that the participation of women in the breaking of bread ceremonies among the Notzrim was more progressive than all the other sects in Israel, for we have been unable to find in Rabbinic sources any record of women in breaking of bread ceremonies. In Christ, women receive respect and also the same Spirit that is poured out on the whole community. Therefore, logic points us to women being active among the Notzrim in the breaking of bread meeting.
On the other hand, Paul enjoins women to silence and submission in public gatherings of the community where there was ministry and teaching. His arguments for this restriction were:
1. That it is not customary in the Churches of God, i.e. those in the Land of
Israel
2. That it is contrary to the Torah
3. That such activities bring shame on the Church if done by women (1 Cor.
14:34-36, 11:16)
All these arguments represent the norm in Israel since ancient times. One should note that unlike all cultures of the ancient world, Israel uniquely did not have an order of “priestess.” Every other culture had priestesses, temple cult prostitutes, and the like. These are customs from Egypt, Phoenicia, Greece, Rome, Babylon, and the cult of Ba’al that plagued Israel and Judaea in the Kingdom period. Therefore, even though it may have been in keeping with Greek culture for women to take an active part in liturgy, the apostles set down the norm adhered to in Israel and forbade women’s participation in the liturgy of public gatherings of the Church.
The failure of believers to distinguish between the “Ministry Meeting” and the “Breaking of Bread Meeting” has caused confusion in the world of religion regarding the activities of women in the congregation. One whole segment of the religious world disregards the teaching of the New Testament regarding women leading in prayers, teaching and public ministry, while the other half silences women to the congregation’s loss and to the spiritual damage of women. The place for the voices of women to be heard is in the breaking of bread meeting, and in this context women can have a powerful influence for good on congregational life.
The Time of the Breaking of Bread
The earliest practice in the early Church was to break bread on Saturday evening (Motzei Shabbat). The believers in Troaz broke bread on Saturday evening, according to what Luke records in Acts 20:7-8: “And it came to pass on the first of the week (‘the first of the Shabbat’), when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul . . . spoke to them and continued his message until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where they were gathered together” (emphasis added).
The term “first of the Shabbat” is a Hebraism, which refers to the first day of the week. It is important to avoid the confusion between the Hebrew reckoning of days, which is from sundown to sundown, and the Latin reckoning of days, which is from midnight to midnight. After sundown of the Shabbat (Saturday), the first day of the week has begun. If it had been Sunday evening, Luke would not have been able to write “on the first of the Shabbat” (first of the week) because Sunday evening is the second of the Shabbat. That it was evening is evident from the mention of “many lamps” and that Paul prolonged his speaking until midnight.
A survey of Talmudic sources shows that the custom of Jews in the Second Temple period and continuing onwards at least to the end of the Mishnaic period in the Land of Israel was to always set the table on Motzei Shabbat for the purpose of Havdalah, a ceremony separating between the sanctity of the Shabbat and the secular days of the week. In those days, Havdalah was in the context of a supper at the table set for the purpose of breaking bread.
The Jewish custom of breaking bread on Motzei Shabbat, which is the beginning of the first day of the week, led to the Christian custom of meeting on Sundays. There is no evidence at all that the Jewish believers met on Shabbat. Somehow, by the Second Century, Christians started meeting on Sundays. The weekly meeting on Saturday night, after the Shabbat (Motzei Shabbat) was converted to meetings on Sunday morning.
The number of Notzrim (Hebrew speaking Messianic Jews) was not small in those early centuries, and their influence on the people of Israel was not small either. The Rabbi Yohanan Bar Naphha, founder of the Yeshiva of Tiberius, lived around the year 250 a.d. and was called one of the pillars of the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud – the amount of material attributed to him is great.5 He says in Ta’anit: “And on the eve of Shabbat people do not fast out of honor for the Shabbat, and on the Shabbat herself on the principle of deducing the weightier from the lighter, and not on the first of the Shabbat because of the Notzrim.”
The whole congregation of Israel avoided fasting on the first of Shabbat, i.e. the first day of the week, for the mysterious reason “because of the Notzrim.” These “Notzrim” were not Gentiles, but rather Jews who followed the Nazarene. Their custom was fixed on Motzei Shabbat, the first of the Shabbat, to remember their Lord and Savior Yeshua the Messiah in the breaking of bread.
