Published: March 30, 2025 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Worship 2 - Part 12 | Scripture: Galatians 2:11-14; Acts 2:42; Ecclesiastes 7:10
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We pray that you would grant health during this uh season of high pollen. We pray for Anelise, that you would give her relief from the sinus affliction, the pollen, that
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she might sleep, and that Josiah and Mary might get a good night's rest. We pray this for Stephen and Judy as well. for Wolf Gang that you would grant him
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relief and parents that you would grant them wisdom as to how to best help their children through this season. We do thank you
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for the colors and the green of spring, but perhaps because of the fall, we know what accompanies it. And so we do pray that you would grant us good health as a
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body and protect us. We pray. We also ask that you would feed us, that you would nourish us on your word, that as we consider worship, we consider the
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assembly together. And even this morning as we consider breaking bread, that you would give us the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, the one who seeks the heart of God. That
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you would give us the mind of Christ as you say in your word that you have. that we would we would understand what your word says and that you would show us what our part in your
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purpose may purpose may be. And so we ask that what we do today might bring glory to you, might bring edification and joy to us, might unite
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us as a body of brothers and sisters in the Lord, and turn our hearts and our minds toward you, the author of our salvation. For we ask this in Jesus
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name. Amen. So, in in our study of of worship, uh we're moving on to the third of the
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four kind of u bullet points as it were in Acts 2 verse 42 if you want to turn there. Um we spent quite an uh we spent the
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first part of this session talking about fellowship coinia and now we're moving on. I'm going to read that verse again. Verse 42 of Acts chapter
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2. And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
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Now, I'll tell you right now, I don't think I'm going to get to prayer. That one actually, I think, is is a lesson unto itself. The whole concept of what prayer means um and what it encompasses as
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well. I think we we are aware if we've been in the Lord for any length of time and read the Bible um that that um the Psalms are themselves prayers. And in
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fact at the end I don't remember which psalm it is but at the end of David's psalms he says these are the end of the prayers of David the son of Jesse. So uh
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what we sing is also a form of prayer. So we we will get to that Lord willing in another session. But um we're going to look at this idea of
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breaking of breaking of bread. And it seems fairly straightforward, but there are uh a couple of things that kind of
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factor into the standard interpretation. Uh certainly culture is is a a major influence on how we uh
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think of breaking of bread. Some people simply consider it to be the Lord's supper, what we call communion. And we'll talk about that. So let's let's get started with this idea.
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And I want to start in a more general and actually cultural framework. I I came across a kind of humorous article entitled You'll Never Get Off the Dinner
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the Dinner Treadmill. And the author talks about the um the unavoidable stress of planning meals for dinner.
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She says, "Breakfast, you can eat the same thing for breakfast for years. When I was young, it was a bowl of Cheerios for years. Now it's an egg and a piece of toast every morning." And for
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some reason, that does not bother me. I'm I'm good with that. But if I had the same dinner every night, I don't think we would be happy. You know, I don't think our
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home would be at peace. Um, lunch she mentions is also take it, leave it, grab it on the run. You know, it's not really something that um that people think
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about as a as a as an institution, but institution, but dinner is something that has to be planned and prepared. And that's her point. And what her most of her article
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is talking about how our society, our modern technological society has tried and failed to make dinner stressless. I mean, how many recipes
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have you seen that can be fixed in two minutes? Fixed in two minutes if you have an entire commercial kitchen staff preparing all of the ingredients ahead of time, right? Uh the TV shows are the
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same way. They're already laid out. All of the the onions are diced and everything is ready to throw in and you don't ever see anybody actually doing all of that. So, the preparation of the
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meal is one thing she points out. But then there's the planning of it. How many of you gotten to six? She actually mentioned that you get to six o'clock in the evening and you've been thinking about what you've been doing all day and
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then all of a sudden you realize, oh, I have to make dinner. What am I going to make? Now the point of her article is it's definitely tongue andcheek. Um she
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concludes this way. I'll just read her conclusion. She says dinner resists optimization. Can I get an amen from the
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women? It can be creative and it could be pleasurable. None of this negates the fact that it is a grind. It will always be a grind.
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There is freedom in surrendering to this that even in this golden age of technological progress dinner refuses to be solved. Okay. Um I guess my question
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in reading some again this is somewhat it's tongue and cheek. It's it's humorous. Uh and yet there's a great deal of truth in it and really truth that that everyone experiences at least
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in the western world. I don't know what it's like in in the what they call the third world. Um, I I don't know. I just know in our day and for a very long time, I don't know if any of you have
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watched any of the Downtown AB Abbey or the um or even Jeieves and Worooster. I mean, there was a time when when you dressed for dinner in formal wear.
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That's where we get the phrase the dinner jacket. Okay. Um, and and so everybody came. Now, I'm sure the poor didn't really do this, but we never watch shows about the poor, do we?
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Um, so you but you see them dressing for dinner in in their dinner attire. Well, we don't do that anymore. Uh, but even um, uh, Leave it to Beaver or My Three
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Sons, if any, some of you remember those. They the father came to the dinner table in a suit jacket and a tie. So, dinner has always been something in
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our culture. And really, it's only been in the past generation or so that the atomization of the family has really started attacking that idea of sitting
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down to dinner again. And at least within evangelical circles, you one of the things that uh marriage counseling books and family books like uh James
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Dobson and whatnot, what do they say? Eat dinner together. Have dinner together. Okay. Whatever your wherever your path may lead during the day, make
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sure it leads back to the dinner table in the evening. And I I think there's a lot of truth in that. But what I want to talk about is just this whole idea of a
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meal and its role within the the human family, society, but also within the human community as well. Okay. So, we're
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going to we're going to start really at the basics and talk about just what what is this that we call
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dinner. Even in our Leviticus study, especially the first seven chapters that lay out the different types of sacrifices that were brought to the tabernacle, the ultimate one, the peace offering was essentially a family feast
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before the Lord. The the idea now several of the offerings provided for the the dinner for the priests. So really only the burnt offering was
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entirely the Lord's, but it was treated itself as as it were a meal that was being prepared for the Lord to eat. And how did he consume it?
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He consumed it by fire. So, um, the the idea of eating a meal, eating a meal together, eating a meal in the presence of the Lord, that's one of the reasons that we ask the Lord's blessing before
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we eat is not because we think the food is poisoned or we might choke, but rather we're eating a meal in the presence of the Lord as his children, as
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his family. But we don't have to go to Jewish or Christian heritage. This is common. This is this is this is tribal. This is
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communal. I don't know that there's any society that anthropologists have ever uh encountered where the the meal or at least a meal is both the center of daily
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family life and then regularly during the year the center of community life. So when we talk about breaking
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bread, I think that that's all part of it. It's behind that phrase is what's in a meal. Now the answer to that question,
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and this is getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, but the answer to that question is question is indirectly in Paul's letter to the
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Starting in verse 11. But when Cphus came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. For prior to the coming of
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certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof,
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fearing the party of the circumcision. Now, what is, Lord willing, we'll get into this passage more detail next week, but what is really significant about
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this passage is that Paul was not actually I mean he was upset with Peter's hypocrisy. Peter's hypocrisy. Yes. But as you read on, Paul saw this
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as a direct attack on the gospel. It wasn't It wasn't just prejudice or discrimination or bigotry that he was upset with, but what
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that bigotry said about the gospel. So within the Christian context, the meal has taken on an even broader and deeper meaning being tied to the gospel itself,
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which I think is one of the reasons why it's listed in Acts two as one of we might say the essential points of Christian assembly, breaking
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bread. So what is what is this meal thing? What what do we you have any input? Any thoughts on the meal? in your own experience or
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teaching how I I shouldn't no show of hands but hands but just how many of you have dinner together as a family you know is that something that is uh important to you as
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parents and and
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Yeah, we call that grazing. Yeah, occasionally we do that when when some other things just come up, but we don't do that very often.
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boys. I think it's a big deal as well. Um, and I do think it's it's been fairly well documented that it's it's to a large extent it's gone away. Um, I I wouldn't be surprised if it's
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recovered hopefully certainly within evangelical Christian families, we should understand. But I the question I want to kind of dig into is
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why why is it a big deal? I if we're going to pass this on to our there there was never any need to pass this on to from generation to generation
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until the very current time. It was always just a a part of human social life in the family and in the community. This this idea of a of a
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meal. It it wasn't every meal of the day. Growing up, we didn't have, you know, we didn't have breakfast together. Uh we've never had lunch together because some of us were in school, some were at work, but we almost always had
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dinner together. Um now that that actually from a from a personal perspective that actually started breaking down even during my teenage
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years and it was it was a manifestation of a breakdown in our in our family. Uh, so it's it's not a good thing, but why is it so important? It
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just seems like I mean the younger younger generations don't seem to think that it's important. So, but it has been and it still is in so many societies. What is it about the meal
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that just calls to us to participate? The question would be since it's normal in the history of
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ago what got lost in the motivation as opposed to
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sit maybe we don't want to do That's too That's too hard to really to really be arrested in the presence of other people with it some difficulty. That's
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true. The meals are intimate. At least they're supposed to be. Of course, you you always have the the comical view of the husband and wife sitting across the table, him behind a
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newspaper, right? Um, that's not comical, but you have that image uh in the comics and in the um some of the television programs.
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Cell phones. Now, uh we we um we often see that when we we go out to eat, you know, you see people over at that table, four people, four cell phones.
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Well, thank you. Because I think that breaking of bread now, I think we're we're dealing we're dealing with as I look at these four points, I think we're dealing with a um Russian doll type situation. Okay, we we talked
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about coinia and and I said that is is meaningless if it is not under the rubric of the teaching of the apostles. If it's not guided by and oriented
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around the word of God, then it's nothing more than socialization. But then we talked about coineia. Well, he goes from coinia to breaking of bread which which is
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actually the actually the uh quintessence of coinia that there are other aspects of coinia to be sure but it really does
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distill down in human culture to the breaking of bread. Now you you all understand that the word bread in many languages uh really is just food meal.
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Okay. Uh in the Italian culture of course it is the meal but um that's that's what Italian definition of a meal is something to go with the bread Japanese rice rice okay yeah so you have
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a staple that then becomes um what's the word uh like circumucans for the whole thing a metamy or something like that uh there's
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a word for it so we're moving from as I said we're moving in somewhat of a of a a descending order, but maybe more of a concentrating order. So, we have the
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teaching that that's where it all starts. That that's really the the ambiance of the whole thing is the teaching of the word of God, the revelation of God's nature and purpose.
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That's that's it. You you can't get rid of that. You can't just have one of the four or or or have like Queen Ania groups, you know, we're going to do
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Queen Ania now or we're going to we're going to break bread now. Like these are four separate things that the church did. No, this is this is the main rubric and within
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that and around that you have biblical coinia where where we are doing the one another's according to the Holy Spirit's guidance through the word of God. We are admonishing one another. We are speaking
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to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. You can hear Paul as he talks about the inter relationship of believers within a community. He's speaking biblical
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speaking biblical language. So the coinia is is under the the rubric the umbrella of the apostles teaching. But then the the quintessence of coinia is
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this. Now the epitome of that. So this is like the heart of coinia in in all cultures. The meal in the family and in the society that feast that annual
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Passover feast or whatever it may be that is the the heart of the society itself. That's the heart of the family.
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Now within the church, the epitome of that is what I think too many commentators think these this phrase means and that is the Lord's supper. It is
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I I don't know. Yeah. I don't know how, as I said, it's somewhat like nested dolls. It's It's more like Yeah, maybe I should have done it that way, but it's more like um this is over all of it.
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then this is the this is where as you were saying we look at each other but it's also where we listen to one another Susan I just thought of
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hours through the night and people are just barely surviving.
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Did we do this or did it happen to us? That's a very good point and I appreciate you bringing that up because
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um I think we have to recognize that as as we talked about with Coinia, there's very little in our modern society that that is conducive to biblical
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coinia. But when we talk about this idea of having a a a family dinner, just just that we also have to recognize that our our families have been driven apart and
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not just women in the workforce, but also public also public school. That's that's something that is a relatively new phenomenon in in Western civilization is public school
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with all the children going to school together. Um normally what you had your well of course in the agricultural societies whatever education you did get
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was oriented around the har the planning and the harvest schedule right or the milking schedule. Those were the important features for most of human
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history and and still today in many cultures. the family will continue to work in the same business as it were
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whether it's a farm or even a blacksmith shop or a grocery store. That that is their that's their kind of their world. And then the village and the community
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is much more stable over time in the past. We don't have any of that. We don't have much of that anymore, do we? And and that's that's that is what it is
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to some extent. We're not going to go. I'm not suggesting that we go back. I'm not I'm not suggesting all of us watch all episodes of Little House in the Prairie and then go back to that. Don't That don't get me wrong, Lauren.
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Well, we tend to store up our stories for dinner. for dinner. I'll tell you at dinner that that's kind of our storytelling time. But um the the thought came to me that you know just as
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example Paul River's silver shop was downstairs. Uh and he wasn't nearly as famous but so was my grandfather's
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bakery. You've all heard of Philip Kalkagno, right? The midnight ride, the midnight glass of wine of Philip Kaggno. Um, yeah, it was right there. It was all
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in the same place. Normally, the store was on the first floor, the living quarters were on the second floor, and you you were much more of an unit that we're not going to go back to that. the
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idea and and I say that not only that you not misunderstand me but but also uh to battle against a very common error within not just Christianity but
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all conservatism and that is yearning for and trying to bring back the good old days. Okay, those good old days were just as full of sin and corruption as
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ours that they they were just as full of trials. Um there were also days when uh infant mortality was very high, life expectancy was very you know we have
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certain blessings in education was almost non-existent. So we have blessings in our day that they didn't have in theirs and and so there's is never a solution to go
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back. Okay. And so whenever you hear some organization wanting to try to bring back turn back the clock and and make us the way we perceive a an earlier generation whether
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it's the Puritans or the pilgrims or whoever it may be first of all that's our perception our perception right often oftentimes uh in not so much
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anymore but oftentimes that perception has been molded by Hollywood. Okay. Michael Landon is not Moses. Okay. Um and and so we we have to
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be careful. We have a very limited understanding of the past and I don't think that there's any solution going back to it. I think the
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path is always forward which means what are the principles involved in breaking of bread and how can I incorporate those principles into my
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life which is providentially in the 21st century right I was I was born at the time not the fullness of time that was someone else but I was born at the time
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that God intended for me to be born a sense in a sense if I try to live like a Puritan I'm in I'm in rebellion against the time in which God,
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you know, I have been raised up for just such a time as this.
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Yes. Yes. the meal. That's a good point. Thank you. You We're We're not going to replace it. Even if we say, "Okay, I'm not going to try to go to the past and wear a suit to dinner table." Um not
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going to do that. But we're going to do something different. We're just going to gather play board games. That'll be our fellowship or something. That's not going to cut it. There is something about the meal, the breaking of bread
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that is central to this whole principle that we're trying to to uh to unpack.
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When we sit down, I I worked to purchase what we have. My wife worked to make the meal. So for both of us when we sit down with our family to share our food with these
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children it is a
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we are giving it to these children who did not did not but who hopefully as they get older will clean the dishes afterwards. That's right. But but it's a sharing. That's a good point. Yeah, this is and and many many
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of the psalms, many of the biblical prayers talk about how the Lord will provide our daily bread, right? And the Psalms, the Lord's prayer. It's like it
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it's it's not what you hear in the modern prosperity movement, you know, our Lord will provide the mansion or our Lord will provide the the the um the Rolls-Royce. It's no, our Lord will
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provide the harvest. And and you're I think it's a good point. It's not only the the fruit of our labor which has been cursed by our
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sin. So that that's a that's a contextual reality there that in a sense the meal is a is an in yourrface
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Satan. It's this will not destroy the human society even though we now uh we now make our bread by the sweat of the
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brow and and plant and grow our wheat within the weeds because of our sin and because of that curse. Yet the meal every day the meal is like a statement
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of new creation. Abe did you have a comment? Okay. So, thank you. That that's a very good uh point. And I I'll go ahead and just kind of put this. The
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small I'm going to put it this way. Hopefully, it's not too it's kind of a counterc that we are now enjoying the fruit of our labor and the and the blessing of God on the table. And again,
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that's our society now is is so automated and automated and mechanized that I mean there's fast food. Um there are pre-prepared and
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we've had pre-prepared meals for a long time. We had TV dinners back in our day. Um they were disgusting. They tasted like the aluminum foil that covered them. But and oh the carrots. Does
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anybody remember the carrots? they that they have not discovered the discovered the element that is in that cares and I am guarantee you it's radioactive. It's
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awful stuff. Uh but we had you know we were getting in we were getting into that efficiency cooking efficiency meals. Um and so we have lost sight. Most of us are not in
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agriculture. So uh we pay we buy our food now. Someone else is growing it. So there's there's a lot of contextual cultural factors that that kind of
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interfere with our understanding. So I think our understanding just has to go back to
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Thank you. That's good. Yeah. It it is nourishment. It it actually sustains our life. Um and I think we know that but we don't give that much thought as we eat.
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Um, and perhaps this can help guide our our own attitudes toward that meal and toward our thankfulness for that meal as we understand that that God is the one who gives us the power to make wealth.
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He is the one who provides the bread for our table. Um, but then we return thanks to him for that gift. So, I think we're starting to, you know, get an idea that
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this this is an important facet of human life. Our humanity is what we have in common with all
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generations. The world in which that humanity lives, the culture as they call it, is where we have our differences. And what we try to do, as I just kind of touch on what I said earlier, what we too often try to do is
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to regain the culture of a community that we think, oh, they got it right. But we ought to understand that our common humanity tells us they didn't get it any more right than we did. And we
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haven't gotten it any more right than they did. Okay? Our common humanity is divine defined by scripture, which means we were all created in the image of God and and bear
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God's image, but we're all influenced by the fall of Adam. So there's both the the positive of being the Amalo Day and the negative of being fallen in sin. And
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so that common humanity tells us, well, yeah, there are there are truths that transcend time and culture. And you will not arrive back at those truths by trying to resurrect the
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culture. A lot of church groups try to do that. do that. Okay? And and even within the family, we're going to try to reverse the cultural trends and then we'll find that
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peace that we were are seeking. God is the God of culture. He he's not less sovereign now than he was 400 years
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400 years ago. And in every culture, if you will read the writings of that time, you will find the same lamentation of the good old days.
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Everybody's yearning for the good old days. Even in the good old days, that should tell us something. Okay? And I I just wanna I want to say that because as
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we talk about these things, especially as we get into the breaking of bread and and dinnertime and whatnot, um I I'm not going to be advocating, well, you know, let's look at how the Puritans did it or
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even how the agricultural culture did it. That's not the solution. The solution is God's word, which is
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timeless. And and I think it's a in a sense it's a little bit of a rebellion against God's providence. Not only to against the era in which you were born and we were born.
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That's providential. But also it's it's kind of saying that God's not really in charge of all this. That all this happened when God was sleeping or something. You know that the culture
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changed and got bad because God wasn't paying attention and we just need to bring it back. No, that's blasphemous. Nothing happens apart from his will. So, um we have to accept that
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we live in the age in which we live. How can we glorify God in it? How can we attain to the truth of his revelation in not only our minds but in our lives from
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the word that he has given us which is timeless? So, whatever we come up with, if we come up with anything, it it's going to fit our time and our
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culture. Any thoughts on that? Erin, thank you. I I can't drink my tea if you don't have any comments.
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Oh, yeah. I don't think you'd love the fact that you don't have toilet paper. I don't think you'd love the fact that um uh probably at least two or three of your children would be dead by now. I
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mean, there's a lot that we wouldn't love. Yeah. I would I don't think I would love the fact that um we enslaved back black people, right? Glory to God.
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And and so do we. Yes. I I just think that having lived in the culture that we have lived in, I've often thought about this. What is the new earth going to be like?
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I hope it has GPS and and CarPlay. Okay. But I but but think of Paul. What do I do with
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this? I mean, I'm being, you know, I'm not a standup comic, but sometimes if you think about the new earth, what's the new earth going to be like? We all are going to have our own idea of what
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the new earth is going to be like and it's going to be conditioned our idea of it by what we think we're going to subtract the bad out of what we know and that's the new earth. Okay. Um but
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there's a whole 6,000 years of years of humanity who have experienced different things in their life. And yet the new
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earth for the believers among those will be perfect. And yet, you know, so I I don't know. I think that we can admire how
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they lived in certain eras and I do. I love history and and I love the reenactments. I love Williamsburg is one of my favorite places to go. Okay. Um because I just I love that that just
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seeing the re but they are reenactments. You know, these people are all going home to their air conditioned houses in their automobiles, you know, and firing up their their ovens and cooking their
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dinner. And they have their teeth. Yes. I mean, and they're not of wood. Did you have a comment? I was just going to said this before.
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I think we all understand it's not and and I I um I kind of agree with I I agree with Aaron in the sense that that I I do sometimes I do yearn for that what seems like the simplicity of of the
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era and I I'm with you there. I mean, just the quietness and the the the regular rhythm of life. But that regular
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rhythm of life often had a crescendo of death, you know, a lot more than we realize. I'm I'm reading a biography of of Thomas Clemson, who I I just found
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out was the son-in-law of John C. Calhoun. Um, and already two of his children have died. Okay. Um, so you
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know, then John Owen had 11 children. He outlived them all. 11. He buried 11 children, you know, and that's that's just the 1600s.
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I would just simp I see the simplicity in
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history when I read when I read journals and thoughts from people. No, it wasn't simple. It's simple because ours seems so complex.
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Well, I've I've shared this before uh and and most of you know that 10 years ago I had a ruptured appendix. Um but I was reading uh a book about the muck rakers. It's called the bully pulpit. I recommend the book. Lincoln Stephins was
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one of the leading investigative journalists of the early 20th century. And I I had the habit of having just googling people just to find out what happened to them. And Lincoln
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Stephins I think was 38 years old when he died from appendicitis. You know, it was I had never really noticed that before. But before. But um even 50 years earlier, I would not be
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here right now. And that's true of of of moms, you know, who child birth. U so we have a lot to be thankful for. They had a lot to be thankful for. We can see
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aspects of their life that just seem so much better. But wisdom, as Ecclesiastes tells us, wisdom reminds us that our humanity is common all the way through.
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Which means struggles, bad marriages, dying children, recalcit rebellious children. Um, all of that was just as prevalent then as it is now. The
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stresses were there, just different. the stresses were better rain or I'm not going to have a harvest or better stop raining or I'm not going to be able to harvest, you know, and that's year after year after year. So, um,
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Susanible says
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So, and that's actually that's exactly what Paul means, I think, when he says that when you break this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim Christ's death until he comes. Our meals, the Lord's supper premier among them. But our our
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meals, I think, are actually prophetic. you know that they are biblically they are looking forward to that feast that we will celebrate with the Lord um in in
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the kingdom. And I appreciate that. I I mean I'm being facitious about what's it going to be like but whatever it's going to be like it's going to be perfect. I
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I I can I can see that that that's fair. I I I'm going to take the tact, however, that it's it's actually through this breaking of breaking of bread that we we do communicate with each other in prayer and song and
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spiritual songs and whatnot. And we also learn one another's needs. I I I don't Yeah, I think the Russian doll I'm I'm struggling with an analogy because as as
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these are all interrelated as well. They're not Russian dolls are separate dolls. They just happen to nest and that's not a good all analogies break down at some point. But I I want you to see that these four are not I've said
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before these are not exhaustive. They are representative and it they're also interrelated. Okay? So we we already saw that that the coinia cannot be without the teaching of the
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apostles. You can't have the one without the other. And you actually can't have the teaching of the apostles without coinia. They call that a seminary.
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Um, and the breaking of bread is in a related with coinia and kind of an epitome of coineia, but prayer, the relationship is reciprocal. I think
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that's I think that's exactly right. Yes. Thank you. Well, let's close in prayer and we'll, Lord willing, we'll pick this up again next week. Father, we do thank you for your word and for the light that it sheds not only on your
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will but also in our life. We pray that you would guide us in wisdom by your word and by your spirit. That we would learn from earlier generations and that
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we would extract the precious from the vile and not repeat the mistakes that our forebears made, but rather learn from them. That that is the path of
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wisdom. But also that we would understand that by your providence you have raised us up for just such a time as this. that in this age we are to live
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and to move and to have our being and in that to walk in your way and bring glory to your name. So we ask that you would give us the wisdom to do this.