`Breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness' (Acts 2:46)

shows that the term simply meant taking a meal. The same expression is used in the following passage relating to

the shipwreck, where Paul exhorts those on board to take food for their `health':

`And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all: and when he had

broken it, he began to eat' (Acts 27:35).

Without their contexts, we might readily believe that Acts 20:7, and Luke 24:35 related to the partaking of the

Lord's supper, yet the contexts preclude such a belief. The development known later as `the breaking of bread' is

but one of the traditions of the elders.

`And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed

were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as

every man had need' (Acts 2:43-45).

In these few lines we have compressed that which is expanded in Acts 3, 4, and 5. In those chapters we have

recorded the prophetically significant miracle of healing, and the equally significant miracle of judgment that caused

`great fear' to come upon all the church. There is also a fuller statement concerning the having of things in common

in Acts 4:32-37, which compels us to ask whether the selling of possessions and community of goods was not a real

part of the meaning and purpose of Pentecost. There have been companies of believers who, taking Pentecost as

their basis, have sought consistently to follow out its practice, but the having of all things in common does not seem

to have captured their mind in the same way as has the gift of tongues. Yet how can one speak of continuing `in the

apostles' doctrine and fellowship' without realizing that this koinonia (fellowship) refers to and is expressed

by the having of all things in common (eichon hapanta koina)?

Turning to Acts 4:32-37, we observe that there is a restatement of this `fellowship', and as in Acts 2:24-46, so

here, the account of this new state of affairs is punctuated by reference to the witness of the apostles to the

resurrection of the Lord. The reader will see that verse 33 of Acts 4 is, as it were, slipped in and breaks the flow of

the narrative. This however is as intentional as the equally strange insertion found in Acts 1:13. The resurrection of

the Lord, as testified by the apostles, was intimately associated with the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel, and to

the time of the restitution of all things which had been spoken by the prophets. No Jew would need to be told, that

just as the feast of Pentecost with its emphasis upon the word `fifty' was a recurring annual reminder of the day of

Jubilee, so the final prophetic fulfilment of all that Pentecost stood for would be the real, great Jubilee toward which

all prophecy pointed. Believing therefore the `apostles' doctrine', these believers put their faith into practice. If the

Jubilee was near, all would receive their own inheritance, all forfeitures would be cancelled, all buying and selling

of land and possessions would come to nought; consequently, although no one could sell or buy his inheritance, he

could sell whatever else he had purchased, and use the proceeds for the common good, while awaiting the Lord from

heaven. The case of Barnabas is specially mentioned. He was a Levite, and `having land, sold it, and brought the

money, and laid it at the apostles' feet' (Acts 4:37). In Jeremiah 32:6-14 we have the case of Jeremiah (who, like

Barnabas, was of the priestly tribe). He bought land to demonstrate his faith in the Lord's promised restoration (Jer.

32:15), and Barnabas sold land to demonstrate the same conviction. The law that governed the sale of land is found

in Leviticus 25. The voluntary act of Barnabas in selling his acquired land and placing the proceeds at the apostles'

feet is in direct contrast with the action of Ananias. He, too, sold a possession; he, too, laid the proceeds at the

apostles' feet, but with the difference that he kept back part of the price, while pretending that he had given all. The

apostle makes it quite clear that there was no compulsion about the selling of the land when he says, `While it

remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?' Ananias sinned in that he

lied to the Holy Spirit. The sin of Ananias was the sin of Achan. The reader will find that the very words of Achan

in Joshua 7:1 are used of Ananias. The LXX reads enosphisanto apo tou anathematos, `appropriated for themselves

a part of that which was devoted'. Acts 5:2,3, twice applies this peculiar expression to Ananias and Sapphira: `kai

enosphisato apo tes times` `and kept back part of the price'. This is no place to discuss the passage in Joshua, but

the interested reader is urged to weigh over the arguments contained in the article on Achan, the troubler of Israel in

The Berean Expositor, Vol. 26, pages 37-41, which show that the word `accursed thing' should be understood as `a