Does "Breaking Bread" at Acts 20:7 Refer to a Commemorative Supper?

Dear Nick,

We read the following at the web site

http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/emor/gel.html

" . . . the Karaites do not leave their houses on the Sabbath except to go to their synagogues or attend to absolutely essential matters; nor do they carry objects, for they do not acknowledge the concept of an eruv. Breaking bread on the Sabbath is forbidden by them . . . (Ex. 34:21 )." [End of my excerpt from the web site listed above]

If the Jews of the first century generally had this practice of refraining from breaking bread on the Sabbath, then Jewish Christians, living amidst Jewish unbelievers, may have refrained from inviting guests to travel any appreciable distances to each others' homes on a Sabbath day when and where they might have prepared and shared a meal on that day of the week. In the event that they did so refrain, then this would be out of deference to the unbelieving (non-Christian) Jews' sensibilities so as not to stumble them needlessly. `Breaking bread' (having a meal prepared/cooked), as well as inviting fellow Christians into their homes for that meal, could be done on some day other than the Sabbath (e.g., on the first day after the Sabbath), this so that unbelieving Jews might not have (yet another baseless) reason for their being hypercritical of Jewish Christians.

Is it reading too much into the record (that Luke gives us of Paul's movements after his Ephesian ministry) if we think that we see strong evidence in Acts that, beginning with Jewish Christians, a custom soon enough arose among the believers for them not to hold any of their own meetings – that is to say, not to hold meetings peculiarly Christian -- on a Sabbath day in a city where Jews lived, but to hold them on some other day of the week? (I know Seventh Day Adventists would holler "Sacrilege" at the suggestion.) The last record we have of Paul's use of a synagogue was at Ephesus (Acts 19:8). We have no record that Paul used a synagogue at Troas on his return trip to Jerusalem, this despite the fact that a Sabbath had come and gone while he was at Troas (Acts 20:7, 8), and it was not until the next day after the Sabbath before Paul gathered with, evidently, all the disciples to give them a discourse, and "to break bread" with them (for an evening meal, though Paul's prolonged discourse delayed the meal – i.e., delayed that aforementioned meal -- until after midnight; it was after midnight that Paul `broke the [aforementioned] bread and ate food' -- Acts 20:11), and then resumed that discourse that he had begun earlier in the evening (Acts 20:7b, 11b). Also, later, on this return trip to Jerusalem, Paul spent another seven days with disciples (the disciples in Tyre), during which time a Sabbath had to have occurred; however, we do not read that Paul availed himself of a Jewish synagogue in Tyre on a Sabbath. No, but after the seven days – though not necessarily the first day after a Sabbath --, Paul and his traveling companions were with all the Tyrian disciples, and "they all, together with the women and children, conducted [them] as far as outside the city," where, "kneeling down on the beach [they] had prayer" before the Tyrian disciples "returned to their homes" (Acts 21:4-6). Though we have record of a meal that Paul evidently shared with all the disciples in Troas (where the young man Eutychus, who had fallen asleep while seated in a window, fell from that window three stories down to the ground to his death), yet we have no record of a meal – no record of any breaking of bread -- that Paul shared with all the disciples in Tyre.

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Dear Nick,

As an addendum to my earlier post in your thread, I should like to add the following:

It is not necessary to think the unlikely thing that Paul and companions were in the habit of putting out to sea on vessels (cargo boats) operated either by Jews or by Christians. They were simply at the mercy of shipping schedules used by the pagan operators of those vessels, and had to choose one that, on the occasion of Paul's return to Jerusalem, would allow Paul to accomplish as much ministering to the disciples' spiritual needs as possible in a port city, as well as for a scheduled departure that would not unnecessarily delay them on the return voyage. (I don't think that I am moving heaven and earth here, but I am certainly reviewing, I think, the scenario that allowed Paul and fellow travelers themselves to be moved, to be moved expeditiously upon the sea after Paul's ministering to the spiritual needs of the disciples in Troas for the maximum amount of time as might be practically afforded him, while also not offending the religious sensibilities of Sabbath-observing Jews.)

At Troas, Paul and his companions were able to book passage on a cargo boat, one that happened not to be setting sail on a Sabbath, but rather as soon as practically possible after the Sabbath, actually, after daybreak on a Sunday morning (Acts 20:7, 11), if Luke is using a Jewish calendar. Might Paul just as easily have scheduled a Friday evening meal and discourse, or a Saturday meeting, and a meal to follow, during Saturday's daylight hours? If there were no cargo boats scheduled to leave either on a Saturday morning or on a Saturday afternoon, then physically Paul might have done so; he might have felt inducement to so schedule a meeting, but he did not so schedule the fellowship, nor did he board a cargo vessel that might have been available during Sabbath's daylight hours -- and apparently would not have done so even had there been available such a departure date on a Sabbath.  As to scheduling a meeting on the Sabbath, he might have chosen a more relaxed schedule, one affording spiritual fellowship, and for a meal thereafter, by scheduling the events on a Sabbath.  Apparently, though, it was Paul's desire not only to board a cargo boat only after Sabbath, but also for ministering to the spiritual needs of the disciples in Troas only after that Sabbath, too. Those strictures meant a Sunday morning departure, at the earliest, if we are using a Jewish calendar. But the schedule he chose certainly raises the question "Why after Sabbath for those events? Why push so hard up against the daylight hours of the day on which he actually did depart?" Apparently, Paul wanted the shortest, practical interim to transpire between when he would last be with the disciples in Troas for spiritual fellowship, and for his departure in order to continue his journey to Jerusalem. Part of those practical, pragmatic considerations may well have included not only his taking into consideration a practical sailing schedule, but also into consideration the religious sensibilities of Sabbath-observing Jews in Troas so as not to offend them needlessly (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:19-23). Even if so – as appears reasonable to me --, still, owing to the way events actually did transpire, it turned out that there was hardly a practical interim that transpired from after the end of spiritual fellowship, which fellowship did not itself begin until after Sabbath, until departure from Troas.

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Dear Chuck,

I like the way you reason on the sequence of events. So, the earliest that a time to begin the fellowship could have occurred would have been in an hour sufficiently after Saturday sundown, time sufficient enough for allowing Christians in Troas to travel a distance from their homes to a fellow Christian's home after Sabbath, which, for some of them, may well have meant a distance that exceeded the distance of an eruv. In this way, they could make plans to travel to the place for this special meeting with Paul, and, after the meeting, to partake a nourishing meal together with Paul and his traveling companions. All that activity could take place without the Christians needlessly offending Sabbath-observing, unbelieving Jews, who also did not light fires for cooking meals on a Sabbath day out of their allegiance to Mosaic Law.

Your brother,

Al

--- In [a private, Witnesses-only forum],  > chuck*****@***> wrote:
>
> Since they gathered together on the "first day of the
> week", and the new "day" started at sundown, it was
> probably around 6:00 p.m. or so, that they gathered
> together. Some translations even say that they
> gathered together on "Saturday evening". By that time
> of night, they were hungry and ready to eat. Since
> Paul kept them there until past midnight when did they
> eat, if they weren't having a meal together as the
> Scripture suggests by "breaking bread," [then they]
> would have REALLY been hungry by the close of their
> gathering had they not had a meal. It's interesting to
> me how some try to connect this meeting with a
> "weekly" (or even "daily") ceremony of "communion",
> calling it as the footnote in The Catholic Study Bible
> (NAB) "the celebration of the liturgy of the Eucharist..."
> The CEV agrees in their footnote which says: they
> "celebrated the Lord's Supper."
> . . . . It's interesting how some "Christians" grab for
> straws to keep their unscriptural practices afloat.
> (i.e. liturgy of the Eucharist).
>
> Chuck