Pentecost
With one accord they continued to meet daily in the temple courts and to break bread from house to house, sharing their meals with gladness and sincerity of heart, Acts 2:46 · Berean Standard Bible
Day after day they gathered in the temple courts to worship together, and in small groups in homes they shared meals with genuine joy and honest hearts.
They weren't meeting secretly or in hiding—they were meeting publicly in the temple where everyone could see them. But they also broke bread house to house, meaning they had intimate gatherings where real relationships deepened. The phrase 'gladness and sincerity of heart' is key: they weren't performing faith, they meant it. There was real joy here, not obligation.
Luke, painting a picture of daily life in the early church
This establishes the pattern for the church moving forward: public worship and private fellowship. Both matter. Corporate gathering strengthens you spiritually, but intimate community is where discipleship really happens. You need both the big gathering and the small table.
Daily the believers gathered both in the temple's public porticoes and in private homes, maintaining Eucharistic meals together with genuine joy and authentic devotion.
*Homothymadon* (ὁμοθυμαδόν—with one accord) appears eleven times in Acts, Luke's signature term for Spirit-effected unity. The believers maintained *dual participation*: temple worship (continuing Jewish observance, including the hours of prayer—the third hour at 9 a.m., ninth hour at 3 p.m.) while simultaneously engaging distinctively Christian practices in homes. *Klasantes arton kat' oikon* (κλάσαντες ἄρτον κατ' οἶκον—breaking bread from house to house) likely refers to the Eucharist, with *artos* (ἄρτος) specifically denoting unleavened bread. The phrase *met' agalliadōs* (μετ' ἀγαλλιάδος—with exultation) conveys jubilant celebration, while *aphelotēs kardias* (ἀφελότης καρδίας—singleness/simplicity of heart) emphasizes undivided, genuine devotion—what Kierkegaard would later call 'purity of heart is to will one thing.'
Luke, synthesizing communal practice into theological narrative
This daily rhythm of temple + home church becomes the pattern for Jewish Christian communities throughout Acts, until increasing opposition forces separation. It demonstrates how the earliest Christians did not immediately see themselves as separatist from Judaism but rather as its fulfillment—they're messianic Jews, not yet a distinct religion. The shift from daily to weekly (Sunday) worship and the eventual separation of church and synagogue lies ahead, but Luke locates us in this transitional moment where Jewish and Christian identity overlap.
44All the believers were together and had everything in common.
45Selling their possessions and goods, they shared with anyone who was in need.
46With one accord they continued to meet daily in the temple courts and to break bread from house to house, sharing their meals with gladness and sincerity of heart,
47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Read all of Acts 2 — The Spirit arrives like wind and fire. The church is born in a single day. A movement that will never stop starts in one room.
This page covers one. BibleKey does all 31,102 — tap any verse for its meaning, any word for its Hebrew or Greek root, and keep reading without leaving the chapter.
Not just the famous ones. BibleKey is free on iPhone and iPad.
Download on the App StoreFree on iPhone & iPad