Four Functions of the Early Church

By Gary L. Cox

Acts 2:42 says, “And they continued steadfastly,”

There are four things the church continued steadfastly in:

The apostle's doctrine still today is the meat of the church and we have the apostles doctrine, praise God, preserved for us.  The very apostles of Jesus Christ, by God’s work through the Holy Spirit, have left a record and we today have that same ministry.  The teaching ministry of the apostles is only one of four vital functions of the Church; you need to realize how automatic it was.  On one day 2,000 were baptized and the next day this is what they were doing.  This is that vitality flowing out of them in a constant effervescent manner.  They were ready, set, go.  They were continuing steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine. 

 What is fellowship and how did they do it?  You have fellowship and you have breaking of bread.  I do not know what breaking of bread was in terms of mandate.  I just know what it was by their practice. Acts 2:46 gives you a picture of what this breaking of bread and the fellowship was.  “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.”   These individuals were continuing. The people were consumed with a daily hunger to be together.  They got together in the temple everyday.  That was the place of worship God had ordained and it had not yet been destroyed and it was a common reference for all the Jews. It also says they broke bread from house to house.  I looked up every account of breaking of the bread and I discovered that as a reader who just reads the language written, you cannot discern until 1 Corinthians 11, whether the breaking of the bread includes a larger meal or they are just breaking the bread and having the cup by itself.  You cannot discern because actually it was almost entirely a meal and every meal was taken together and at the end of every meal there was the remembrance of the Lord by the final breaking of the bread, the final cup of the meal.  That was the custom all of the time.  What we found in 1 Corinthians was abuse crept in and what was the abuse?  They did not carefully manage the food part and so the Lord’s supper began to be associated and attached to a wreckless kind of a fellowship supper that was a mockery to the harmony, and to the unity, and to the purpose, and to the graciousness of life, that was flowing out from this initial behavior that the disciples had.  So there was a correction and Paul said, “Eat at home and when we break bread together we will just remember the Lord.” 

The fourth thing in Acts 2:42 that was mentioned was prayer.  I want us to recognize that this was the vital interactive flow that was taking place among God’s people in the early church.  They were gathering together driven by their own enthusiasm and they were not just listening to the apostles teach, though that was a segment that was important, but they were also embellishing every aspect of human interaction and fellowship in Jesus Christ so that they fellowshipped; they walked and shared in the common bond of Christ together and they even broke bread together and they took time for prayer together.  What I want to suggest is that there are three common functions of believers that do not necessarily need the whole assembly together for it and that is these three that are mentioned last.  The fellowship of the saints, the breaking of the bread, and prayer, does not require that we have a single, centered, one group meeting of believers.  Some vital ministry of the church is missing when we are missing the opportunities of interactive fellowship beyond our meetings on Sunday.

 Let us look at another verse, Acts 6:4.  Here is an example again of structure being added to the church.  For the first time, a group of men beside the apostles were appointed and ordained, hands were laid upon them to do a work. In verse 4 Peter describes the ministry of the apostles.  “But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the Word.”   For ministry to take place from the body as the Lord intended, the apostles by necessity needed to be free from concerning themselves with other kinds of matters; free men so that they could focus on the ministry of the Word and prayer.  It is interesting to note that the word “prayer” appears first.  This “continually” is continuance; continually exposing themselves to prayer and ministry of the Word.  Probably in the large sense of the word, prayer is always the precursor of every minister of every kind of ministry because it is where we set apart our heart and sanctify it for God’s purpose and we seek God’s purpose. And then it is through that seeking God that He answers us and He gives us vision and focus and we move out from there into ministry. When the Holy Spirit speaks and says, “This is what I want,” then we are going to have work that He gives us to do that reflects Him, that He blesses, that brings forth vital work. What we find in 1 Timothy 1:1-11 is a very important understanding of what ministry in the church is all about.  At the church in Ephesus there were spiritual needs that were left unmet. People were standing up and teaching error in the Church, they were abusing the functioning structure of the church and they were introducing heresies, things that were pulling people away from their faith in Jesus Christ.  What I want you to see then in terms of structure are two things.  First of all we see the authority of the apostles. What we find is we have Timothy sent on behalf of Paul to set things right, so he is going to be relying on apostolic ministry though he himself is not an apostle. Verse 5, “Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.”  That is the end of the commandment.  What commandment? There was a law and that law had an end and what was that end?  That end was that men might walk in love, agape love, pure heart, good conscience, and unfeigned faith.  That is the objective end of the great and glorious gospel of our God.  The problem is if somebody comes into the church and starts to lift up the law and tries to make the law an end, we know have a serious problem. There is the second group of people that are, instead of being legalistic where they are trying to revive the law, this other group of people is lawless.  What the lawless do is they despise the law.  The opposite side of legalism is lawlessness.  The ministry of the grace, the sound doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ ministers life right between lawlessness and legalism. And the mystery of iniquity that is at work against the gospel is attempting to darken the light and Satan has two extreme views that he uses in religious circles to darken the light of the gospel.  The one extreme is this kind of lawlessness that says, “Well, oh grace covers it, grace covers all my sins,” and this whole sense of excusing lawless behavior under some premise of grace.  The second error is perhaps greater and is the error of legalism.  The error of legalism is the reinstitution of the law for those who are righteous.  With that in mind, we have to understand that all of the ministry that Paul has to Timothy in this whole book is an attempt to strike at the truth that preserves sound doctrine in spite of these two extremes and keep that vital ministry of the Holy Spirit alive in the people of God.

1 Timothy chapter 2  “I exhort therefore, that, first of all supplications,” request for supplies. “Prayers,” now the word “prayers” here actually encompasses everything else listed in this verse as well as anything else beyond what is listed in this verse.  Prayer is directing my focus, my understanding and my expectations on the throne of God, to the very person of God on the basis of who Christ is and what He is doing.  “I exhort therefore that first of all supplications, prayers and intercessions,” what is an intercession?  An intercession is not a prayer about yourself.  It is a prayer about someone else. Interceding is bringing the power and authority of God down into the human sphere where His authority is existing on the earth and is asking God to have His will done on earth as it is done in Heaven.  “…intercession and giving of thanks be made for all men.”  Giving of thanks is pretty plain.  Of those four things mentioned, we never have prayer if the giving of thanks is missing because giving of thanks is the place of bringing ourselves under proper understanding of who God is and a conviction that He is able. This is the exhortation that first of all these four kinds of prayer are given for all men.  Notice how prayer is not something that we do so the Lord will bless our ministry. As we begin to be aware of the desires of God, prayer is conforming our own desires to that which we know His desires to be.  Now look at verse 3, here is the logic flowing out of sound doctrine as it relates to prayer, “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; Who will have men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”  It is interesting that as we think about these kinds of prayer and even as it relates to our government in particular, that the thrust of the prayer is evangelistic.  Since God is after saving souls, prayer then is the particular bringing before the throne certain souls that we know about, it is the conduct of ministry at its first place.  Prayer is the first foot of protection against every form of false teaching as it relates to the vitality of the gospel.

The next couple verses describe the ministry of Christ as it relates to salvation and his role with God.  Verse 5 says, “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. Whereunto I also am ordained a preacher, and an apostle,  (I speak the truth in Christ, and lie not;) a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.”  The whole motivational structure of prayer is built around my identity of who the mediator is and what the mediator has done.  God is in the business of saving souls and our ministry, if it is any ministry at all, is a ministry of extending that redemption; it is extending that salvation directly into the lives of people who need to be saved. 

Before I read the next couple of verses I want to ask a question what are men supposed to do and what are women supposed to do?  Verse 8.  "I would therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.  In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, of costly array; But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.  Let the women learn in silence with all subjection.  But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. for Adam was first formed, then Eve.  And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in transgression.  Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.”  These are the kind of passages that just delight me because of the way the Holy Spirit works.  Verse 8 is telling what the men should do;  'I want the men to pray everywhere.' Then he gets to the women and all of a sudden he says, 'in like manner also the women', and he goes into a whole different discussion about women.  In Acts 1:14, who was in one accord in prayer and supplication? It was the apostle and the women. The scripture here is not restricting women to pray. While the women are to pray in like manner as the men there is something here of a description of the women that clarifies the aspect of prayer. And that's the aspect of how I let the motivation flow out of my life. Verse 10 says that there's something called a proper adornment for women and that is the adornment of good works. There's a connection between vital ministry and action and a woman's readiness for it.  Because what is prayer?  Prayer is readiness.  And I happen to just know that God has chosen to minister through people who are altogether imperfect but as I am readying myself for ministry God is likely going to use me according to the measure of the gift that he has given me.  And so we're going to find ministry stirred up in its proper form through prayer but we have to be careful of our motives. Notice that there's a contest here. In both verses 9 and 10 there's a picture of adornment. And these two kinds of adornment are in contest with each other and apparently a women is only going to one of the other.  She's going to be focused of the outward adornment or she's going to be focused on the adornment of good works. And the bottom line is of someone living in pleasure, someone living for pleasure. If you are a believer and you want to have an impact and you want to have a ministry for God, you can't be focused on pleasure.