Breaking Bread – Acts 20:7-12

Do you like riddles and puzzles?

In the days before television, video games and all the modern hustle and bustle, riddles, games and puzzles were common.

For example, some of you can remember how the coffee table was always cluttered with a half-finished jigsaw puzzle.

And the kids were always coming home with the silliest riddles.

How did ducks get their flat feet? Stomping out forest fires.

How did elephants get their flat feet? Stomping out smoldering ducks.

How many “whatevers” does it take to change a light-bulb?

There are even riddles in the Bible, both in the historical sections of the Bible and other places.

For example, the Lord commissioned Ezekiel to give Israel some riddles.

And the strong man, Samson, put forth a riddle to the guests at his wedding.

“And he said unto them, Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. And they could not in three days expound the riddle.”

The answer was the carcass of a lion that he had killed, in which a colony of bees had made a home.

Beside these, the Bible has many passages, which not only pose posers,

but there are lots of flat historical statements

which contain enough mystery to make Sherlock Holmes salivate.

For example, the scripture here before us in Acts 20 has some obvious simple statements.

But at the same time, the way that they are laid out, they create some interesting questions.

I would like to be able to always say, “This is what the Bible says in this verse.”

But sometimes, it’s really hard to be dogmatic.

The honest Bible teacher sometimes has to say, “There are differing opinions on this verse, but I believe such and such, and here is the reason why.”

And unlike some pastors, I don’t demand that you see everything the way that I see them, although I would prefer it that way.

This evening let’s to begin by pointing out some controversy,

but I will try to conclude with something which is incontrovertible and essential.

Let’s use three words to guide us: Day, Death and Duty.

We begin with the DAY.

“And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.”

Paul was on his way back to Jerusalem and his home church in Antioch, Syria.

He had said his farewells to friends in Corinth, Berea, and Thessalonica.

Before finishing up in Philippi, he sent most of his party on ahead, perhaps so that they could tell the church in Troas that he was coming.

But the trip which should have taken two days, actually took five, and despite planning on arriving on Friday or Saturday, he and Luke didn’t disembark until Monday.

I can just imagine how disappointed the members of the First Baptist Church of Troas were.

They had probably arranged for the use of a large room to hold the crowd.

They had planned a big potluck meal or two expecting teaching and preaching all day long.

But the ship on which Paul was to arrive didn’t come in on time.

When he did arrive the next morning, to compensate them, Paul agreed to stay until the following Monday.

And the plans were retooled so that the church could enjoy the missionary on the NEXT Lord’s Day.

Here is our first controversy.

Did you know that there are branches of professing Christianity, which think that you have been blinded by Satan in order to come to church today?

For example, your friendly neighborhood Seventh Day Adventists believe that you have accepted the mark of the beast by worshipping the Lord on Sunday.

Ellen G. White, the founder of that cult wrote a book called “The Mark of the Beast.”

On page 23 she said, “Here we find the mark of the beast. The very act of changing the Sabbath into Sunday, on the part of the Catholic church, without any authority from the Bible.”

This is still the official position of their church, and it has been reiterated in their writings for 150 years.

But most Seventh Day Adventists will not directly come out and say this to your face.

The Adventists are not the only people to believe this sort of thing.

Of course there are the Jews and others outside of Christianity.

But there are even Baptists, who, although not calling it the Mark of the Beast, insist that Saturday is the true day of worship.

Sadly, many of these people also believe that obeying this and other aspects of the Old Testament law is a part of their salvation.

Here is the controversy: What is the “first day of the week”?

A look at most calendars tells us that the day which we call “Sunday” is the first day of the week.

And the dictionary DEFINES Sunday as the first day of the week.

It is almost universally recognized by Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Jew that Sunday is the first day of the week.

But we have to point out that some of those people think that the day starts at sundown, not at 12 o’clock midnight.

This means that some people, speaking from a Jewish point of view, would say that the first day of the week started yesterday at about 7:00 p.m. or whenever the sun went down.

Some of those people say that the midnight when Eutychus fell from the window of the upper room was on Saturday night rather than Sunday night.

Let me show you why I think that interpretation isn’t correct.

First, Luke was not a Jew, but a Gentile, and ordinarily he would write from his perspective, not theirs.

For him the day started at midnight, and Eutychus actually fell and died in the early hours of Monday.

Secondly, the church in Troas was primarily Gentile.

There is no reference to Paul’s work in the Jewish synagogue, if in fact there was a synagogue there.

Again, this history is told from a Gentile perspective.

Third, Paul had been in Troas all week, and the focus of that week and the plans for this service were for the first day of the week, not the Sabbath.

Fourth, even if this service was supposed to be from a Jewish perspective, the Sabbath starts at sundown on Friday night, not on Saturday night.

As we shall see, Paul was in a hurry to get to Jerusalem,

if it had been appropriate, he probably would have been happy to have this farewell service on Friday or Saturday,

but it began on the first day of the week – which we call Sunday, the Lord’s Day.

It is a terrible twisting of truth to say that Roman Catholicism changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.

First, the Sabbath has never been changed; it will continue to be the seventh day of the week until the Messiah comes again.

As far as I’m concerned it still starts at sundown on Friday night, because the Sabbath is an Hebrew day.

I don’t like the term, and I don’t call Sunday “the Christian Sabbath.”

That is an unbiblical and unnecessary term.

I much prefer calling Sunday “the Lord’s Day.”

Secondly, the saints were gathering and worshipping the Lord on the first day of the week, 300 years before Catholicism ever began.

John 20:19 – “Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.”

John 20:26 – “And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.”

I Corinthians 16:2 – “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.”

I believe that the Lord can be, and should be worshiped on any day of the week, but Sunday is a particularly good day.

First, because that was the day in which the Lord arose from the grave,

which is one of the key ingredients to Bible Christianity.

And secondly, because of the fact that it does distinguish our worship from that of the Old Testament keepers of the Law.

Controversy number one is about the day in which this all took place.

The second controversial aspect of this passage is in regard to the DEATH of Eutychus.

I am amazed that there are some people who say that Eutychus did NOT die when he fell from the third floor of that building.

“And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep:

and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft,

and was taken up dead.”

I know several people, who seem to delight in discovering or creating unusual interpretations of the Bible.

It seems to be the life goal of these people to disagree with the vast majority of people far smarter and knowledgeable than they are.

If I mentioned some of the people that I’m thinking of you’d nod your heads with me.

Why would anyone WANT to believe that Eutychus was not dead? What purpose would there be in that?

I realize that this is a little different:

but I cannot figure out why anyone would switch from believing in a pre-tribulational rapture to post-tribulationalism.

Why would someone WANT to go through the tribulation?

And why would anyone want to say that Eutychus was only knocked unconscious?

As far as I am concerned the Bible is quite clear about the death and miraculous restoration of this young man.

When verse 9 says that he fell from the third loft, it means that he fell from a third storey window.

In other words he fell, backwards out of a widow quite a bit higher than the widows in this auditorium.

He died.

When verse 9 says that he “was taken up dead,” it means that someone picked up his lifeless body.

It wasn’t that he was taken up “AS someone who was dead” – he was DEAD.

Undoubtedly it was someone other than Paul or Luke who was first out the door and to the fallen body.

Some friend or parent was the first on the scene, and you can be sure that they checked for a pulse.

And remember that Luke was a physician; he wouldn’t have gotten this information wrong.

When verse 12 says that “they brought the young man alive,”

it stands in contrast to the fact that they might have brought the young man in to the building DEAD.

And when Paul said, “Trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him,”

he could just as easily have meant that the Lord had restored his life, as “he is not dead.”

The abundant evidence is that Eutychus died, but God through Paul, restored his life.

It doesn’t matter if he immediately came back into the meeting hall

or if he went home and returned the next morning to thank Paul and see him off.

In other words, once again, we see the omnipotence of the God whom we worship and serve.

I can’t tell you that the Lord would restore your life if you fell out the window of our church,

but I can tell you that the Lord is still capable of doing that.

If the Lord considered your life worth restoring, He’d do it in a heartbeat.

Okay, we’ve looked at the words Day and Death, now consider the word DUTY.

Notice the beginning of verse 7 once again,

“And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them.”

What was the REASON that these brethren met together in that upper room that Sunday?

Doesn’t this verse say that their purpose was to “break bread?”

Here we have a third controversy: WHAT IS IT TO BREAK BREAD?

I said a few moments ago that there are people who delight in swimming against the theological current.

There are people who love to defy the common interpretation of the Bible.

I am not one of those people; it worries me, when I have to stand alone.

It makes me doubly question myself.

But as a Baptist, sometimes I am forced to do exactly that.

If after this service I said to you, “Come home and let’s break bread together” what would I mean?

I know what I would mean, but would YOU know that I was asking you to come and eat with me?

If during our song service we had sung “Break thou the bread of life” would you have known what that means?

“Break Thou the bread of life, dear Lord to me, as thou didst break the loaves beside the sea.

Beyond the sacred page, I seek Thee Lord; My spirit pants for Thee, O living Word.

Thou art the bread of life, O Lord to me, Thy holy Word the Truth that saveth me;

Give me to eat and live with Thee a above, Teach me to love Thy truth, For Thou art love.”

What did the author of that song mean with the words “Break Thou the Bread of Life”?

98% of all Bible scholars believe that the church in Troas met together that day to celebrate the Lord’s supper.

The “breaking of bread” is language which may, OR MAY NOT, refer to the Lord’s supper.

It appears that Paul was talking about the Lord’s Supper in I Corinthians 10:16 when he said,

“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?

The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?”

It is believed by most scholars that Acts 2:42 refers to the Lord’s Supper:

“And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”

Let’s say for the sake of argument that “breaking of bread” is talking about communion or the Lord’s Supper.

That is an excellent reason for the Lord’s church to meet.

It is the duty of the church to give the members of that church the opportunity to meet with the Lord, to worship Him and to learn more about Him.

As we see elsewhere, the ordinance of the Lord’s supper was given to us in order to commemorate the Lord’s sacrifice which resulted in our redemption.

The dark red fruit of the vine is a picture of the blood which Christ shed for us.

The broken, unleavened bread represents the body of Christ, as it hung there upon the cross.

And we have been commanded to keep this ordinance as a memorial until the Lord returns.

It is certainly NOT as many teach, the actual eating of the body of Christ,

and it certainly is NOT the way that we are cleansed or saved from our sins.

It is an act of communion or fellowship with the Lord.

It is part of the duty of the child of God to meet with his brothers and sisters in the Lord to worship and to learn more about their mutual Saviour.

Yes, even to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

But at the expense of sounding like a religious rebel, may I suggest that it is difficult to prove that this “breaking of bread” MUST mean the Lord’s supper.

The Lord Jesus didn’t call it that when He instituted the ordinance of Communion.

Although it is a fact that it was bread and He did break it.

Mt 26:26 – “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.”

Was there an observance of the Lord’s supper on board the ship which was about to be dashed on the rocks of the island of Melita.

For days everyone on board had been struggling to keep their little vessel afloat.

Scripture says that they had endured a long abstinence from any real food.

But when the Lord gave Paul a vision and told him that they would safely reach land, Paul encouraged everyone on board.

“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.”

I know of no competent scholar who says that Paul gave the passengers and crew the Lord’s Supper.

He simply brought out whatever food and bread that he could find, and he started breaking it up and distributing it.

Breaking bread doesn’t necessarily mean the Lord’s Supper.

Could it be that since the church knew that this would be Paul’s last visit in Troas, the people came together to hear him preach the word and to fellowship together?

Whenever have we ever had a week-long meeting with a visiting preacher, when didn’t we have a potluck on the Sunday that he was with us?

In every case I wanted all our members and guests to have the opportunity to fellowship with our visitor.

Why couldn’t that last Sunday before Paul’s departure have been a situation something like that?

Besides, whether or not they had broken bread earlier in the day, after the incident with Eutychus they broke bread again.

Verse 11 – “When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed.”

I cannot make myself believe that verse 11 is referring to the Lord’s Supper.

First, because it seems to have been an afterthought, and not the primary purpose for the meeting.

And if it was the Lord’s Supper, I don’t think that Paul would have been participating, because he was not a member of that church.

The Bible teaches closed communion:

that only the members of the church celebrating the Lord’s supper should be asked to partake.

It should not be offered to visitors for several reasons.

And I can’t see any reason to make an exception in the case of an Apostle.

I think that the church came together that day, among other reasons, to break the bread of fellowship with Paul and his missionary team.

But there is one other DUTY incumbent upon the church of the Lord Jesus Christ – to break the bread of life.

In our Saviour’s many controversies with the Jews, one revolved around their desire for miraculous bread.

“They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work?

Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.

For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.

Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”

The Lord Jesus told those wicked and unbelieving Jews that far more important than manna from heaven was the Manna Who was standing right in front of them.

The thousands of Israelites who ate the manna of the desert were all dead and buried.

But those who devoured and consumed the Lord Jesus, by believing Him and trusting him, would ingest the life that He possessed.

In other words, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt have eternal life.

Acts 20:7 says, “And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them.”

Acts 20:11 says, “When he (Paul) was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed.”

What Paul did among the members and guests of the church that day and well into the night, was to preach the Lord Jesus Christ.

He broke the bread of life and passed it around to them, as literally as he did the damp and mouldy bread on board the stricken vessel off the island of Melita.

The people in both those congregations needed the bread of life, and I’m sure that once they reached land Paul once again shared the gospel with his ship-mates in Acts 28.

In fact, after he had been bitten by a poisonous snake, and lived to forget about it, they listened very carefully to what he told them about Christ.

There is controversy here in this scripture in regard to the day, and even in regard to the death.

There is controversy about the duty of the saints to observe the Lord’s supper,

But there is no controversy about our duty to break the bread of life with our friends and neighbors.