The practice of the Lord’s Supper has fallen on unfortunate times. To many Christians the Lord’s Supper is just a routine part of our worship that we quickly dispense before or after the sermon. To some in the religious world it is a part of worship that is only practiced monthly, quarterly, or annually. However; this was not always the case. In the early church the Lord’s Supper was the very center of their worship, and even the main reason why they assembled. The Lord’s Supper was instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel accounts. The book of Acts shows us that the Lord’s Supper was one of the four foundational practices of the New Testament church worship (Acts 2:42; 20:7). The Apostle Paul declared that his teaching concerning the Lord’s Supper was given to him by revelation from Jesus (1 Cor 11:23). The weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper was important to the early church, it was important during the Reformation, and in every major period of church history.
Near the conclusion of the 3rd missionary journey, Paul departed from Philippi after “the days of unleavened bread”. He was urgently making his way toward Jerusalem, where he hoped to arrive by Pentecost, a little more than a month away (20:16). In spite of having a long and urgent journey, he took the time to “tarry” seven days in Troas. Why this delay in view of his urgent mission? It is reasonable to believe that it was because he wanted to meet with the whole church at Troas, and he knew that they would be assembled on the first day of the week.
(Acts 20:7) “And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread….”. “The” is a specific definite article and it means everyone in a single class. In other words every first day of the week. This passage can be compared to one in the Old Testament where the Jews were told to “remember the Sabbath day.” They had no trouble recognizing that this meant every Sabbath day.
What a blessing and a privilege it is to have a memorial instituted by our Savior to remember Him by. May we never take it for granted or neglect it.