The text names four elements as expressive of the variety in unity of primitive Christian life. They continued steadfastly—

 I. In the Apostles’ Teaching.

 II. In the Fellowship.

In the Breaking of Bread.

 In the Prayers.

The great Christian thinker and preacher of Protestant Lausanne, as he compared the splendour and enthusiasm of the Roman Benediction with the shorn and meagre rite of Genevan Calvinism, exclaimed in melancholy tones, “Rome has worship without the word, we have the word without worship.” But the earliest Church, as delineated by its great historian, combines all these elements, and appeals to man through all his faculties. It appeals to his intellect by its doctrine. It awakens his social feelings—whether towards contemporary Christians, or spirits waiting in the world unseen, or great predecessors in the faith; nay, something higher still—“And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his son Jesus Christ.” It deals with the soul in its most mysterious depths by the consciousness of a Presence at once awful and blessed. It has treasures, and it opens for every one of its children a language of sobs and rapture, of penitence and joy—a wealth of words that set themselves to some far-off music, which linger along fretted roofs, yet nestle in our hearts, and in our last hours sing us into the sleep of death as if with the lullaby of God. Thus, as in the description of her first structure, the Church is doctrinal, social, sacramental, liturgical. She is a school of teaching, a centre of social unity, a shrine of sacraments, a home of worship. The child of heaven, destined to an inheritance so splendid, was strong and radiant in her cradle. All the possibilities of her history and her being lay folded in her heart from the very first.

The Teaching of the Apostles

1. “The teaching of the Apostles” was the necessary instrumentality for bringing the new converts to full discipleship. Their rudimentary faith needed a careful and continuous instruction, an instruction which replaced that which the scribes were in the habit of giving, so that in the most literal sense the Apostles might now be called scribes become disciples to the kingdom, bringing out of their treasure things new and old, the new tale of the ministry and glory of Jesus, the old promises and signs by which Law and Prophets had pointed onward to Him and His kingdom.

2. But, further, the teaching of the Apostles had a far wider range when their disciples were not converted Jews, but converted heathen. Then they had to create a new morality, to lay firmly that foundation which the Jews had received from their long tradition of legal righteousness, to adapt the principles to the novel conditions of Gentile life.

3. Can we tell what the teaching of the Apostles chiefly consisted of?

    (1) Even a superficial study of St. Paul’s Epistles enables us to understand the magnitude of the task which rested on the Apostles as religious teachers. Take, for sufficient example, the First Epistle to the Corinthians. We find clearly indicated there a teaching extraordinary in depth, range, and variety. St. Paul brings to the Corinthians the knowledge of Christ’s life and death, and the substance of His revelation. He interprets the Old Testament in the light of Christian belief; he develops a detailed doctrine of the person and work of our Saviour. Consider how large a background of theological knowledge, built up in the Corinthians by systematic teaching, is implied in such a verse as this: “But of him (i.e. God) are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” Is it not suggestive that we should find the great keywords of the Pauline theology in the least theological of his Epistles? In this same Epistle to the Corinthians we find a very definite and rich teaching about the Holy Spirit, an eschatological doctrine of great range and richness, the most careful moral teaching, and the delivery of practical rules, customs of the Christian society, which the Apostle does not hesitate to impose on the Corinthians. No doubt St. Paul stood out from the apostolic company as a great constructive theologian, and we cannot suppose that the other Apostles, with the exception of St. John, were able to bring to their converts so rich and varied a volume of sacred science; but then we must remember that St. Paul, to use his own phrase, “laboured more abundantly than they all,” and that, even in the apostolic age, his Epistles were widely disseminated. In the New Testament, then, alone we have abundant evidence of the active vitality of the teaching of the Apostles.

      (2) But we can also bring evidence outside the New Testament. Two documents have come down to our own time with the claim to embody “the teaching of the Apostles,” and though neither can vindicate an apostolic origin, yet both do certainly perpetuate aspects of the work of the Apostles as the teachers of the Christian society. The oldest of these documents is a curious moral treatise dating probably from the first half of the second Century, though it may be much older, and actually entitled The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. It illustrates the work which, especially among the Gentile converts, fell on the Apostles as creators of a Christian morality, which should replace the depraved and perverted traditions of heathen life. The other document, later in actual composition, is not less apostolic in character. It is known throughout the world as “the Apostles’ Creed.” Of course we must be watchful against the anachronism which would credit the Apostles with precise dogmatic forms, such as were afterwards received in the Church on the authority of their names. But though the so-called Apostles’ Creed did not exist in apostolic times, we must admit that the substance of its teaching was primitive. The Ignatian Epistles, which are the connecting link between the Pastoral Epistles and the Apologists of the second century, prove that instruction was given in Antioch on all the points characteristic of the teaching of the developed creed.

      (3) But by the “teaching of the Apostles,” in which the first Christians continued, we are not to understand a detailed moral code, or an elaborated creed, but rather a progressive instruction, which included both morals and doctrine, which addressed itself with rare versatility to the novel and ever-varying requirements of a quickly expanding society; and always laid the emphasis on the things which were fundamental.

I like the advice which Mr. Birrell gave at Whitefield’s Institute: “Do not worry too much over the many things you are in doubt about; hang on with all your weight to the things, however few, about which you are certain, and on the top of these certainties pile up work, work, work!” May I take a little liberty with one of the great sayings of Shakespeare, a liberty which does no fundamental violence to the text, “The truths thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy heart with hoops of steel

 4. Thus from the beginning, the Church has possessed and depended upon a “teaching ministry”; and, though in later times the reason of that dependence may seem less evident, and though, for obvious reasons, the functions of the ministry have taken a less exalted character, yet, when we consider that every generation comes fresh to its problems, and that the unalterable principles of the Gospel have to find application to circumstances which are always novel, we shall be little disposed to question the title which the teaching ministry can still advance to the regard and consideration of believers. It is still the case of loyal and prudent Christians that “they continue steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching,” when they impose on themselves as a standing obligation of a well-ordered Christian life, the regular and devout attendance on the work of the Christian preacher.

The Fellowship

The word translated “fellowship”  comes from a root which means literally sharing in common. The practical nature of the fellowship is very clearly seen by comparing the ways in which the same word is translated in other places in the New Testament. As a rule Scripture is its own best interpreter. In Rom 15:26 the same word here translated “fellowship” is rendered “contribution”—“It hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem.” In 2Co 9:13 it is “distribution”—“Your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men.” In Heb 13:16 it is “communicate”—“To do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” In 1Co 10:16 it is “communion”—“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ.” While in Php 1:5; Php 2:1; Php 3:10 it is plainly used in the sense of “participation.” From all these Scriptures, the meaning of the word is clearly defined. It was the word used for the collection of money for the poor saints, and for the share which believers took in transmitting these alms to those in need. Fellowship in this sense is a most exalted and noble thing, and a privilege not to be lightly esteemed. It showed the oneness of the whole body of the faithful in state, in privilege, and in Obligation. Sharing thus in common there was created a spirit of mutual recognition, a manifestation of common interests, and a closer partnership with each other in the blessings and privileges of the Gospel—leading them to share joyfully their goods with others. Taking the word in the meaning thus given, we cannot fail to see that the contribution or collection became a regular, an abiding institution in the Church of Christ.