Can you explain the logic behind the syntax of Acts 2:42?
This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 2001.
Acts 2:42 says:
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and the fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
Here are some examples to elucidate the logic that lies behind the syntax.
If I say that, at a certain meal the guests were served 'meat and vegetables and pie and custard', you might rightly conclude that they were served four things. But if I say 'meat and vegetables, pie and custard', you might rightly conclude that the four things are grouped in two pairs: 'meat and vegetables' as savoury, and 'pie and custard' as sweet; but it would still be true that the meal, as a whole, consisted of four things.
What you could not necessarily conclude would be that, because there is no 'and' between 'vegetables' and 'pie and custard', that 'pie and custard' are meant to be understood as appositional to 'vegetables'.
As to the meaning of Acts 2:42: whether you follow the manuscripts that (a) put an 'and' between 'fellowship' and 'the breaking of bread', or (b) do not have that 'and', it still remains true that there are four things mentioned in this verse: the apostles' doctrine, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. I personally follow (b), and therefore I think it likely that the four things are grouped in two pairs:
- The apostles' doctrine and the fellowship;
- The breaking of bread and the prayers.
Historically the apostles' doctrine produced a community of three thousand people, who all had in common and shared in all the benefits and spiritual blessings conferred by the Lord Jesus, whom the apostles proclaimed (see 1 John 1:3). They also had all material things in common: koina, an adjective cognate with the noun koinōnia = 'fellowship' (see Acts 2:44).
The breaking of the bread and the prayers are grouped together because they denote the two main spiritual exercises in which the new community engaged when they met together, in response to the apostles' teaching and to the blessings in which they all now shared.
With Christian greetings,
