Acts 2:42: “And they devoted themselves in the apostle’s doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”
Luke, who wrote the Book of Acts, was an extremely educated person. He was of Greek origin educated in the Hellenistic city of Antioch. He studied Greek philosophy, medicine and art. Tradition holds he made paintings of Peter and Paul and was the founder of Christian iconography. So what amazes me about Acts 2:42 is that someone who is so steeped in the Greek culture and Greek language would write this verse in a very Hebraic style. In Greek as in English, we would write this passage as “And they devoted themselves in the apostle’s doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread and in prayers.” The Greek and English would not repeat the word and. We just stick a comma after each word in a series and stick the and at the end. In Hebrew you use an and after each word in a series as Luke does here. This leads to be more supportive if the school of thought that the Gospels were originally written in Aramaic a cousin to the Hebrew.
That being the case, when he came to the word fellowship, he may have written the Aramaic word shauteph which is closely related to the Hebrew word asephah rather than the Greek word koinos. but he was thinking the Hebrew word “asephah.”
This is really important when you consider that the early Christians did not just have fellowship, they devoted themselves to fellowship. You hear the average Christian talk about devoting themselves to doctrine and prayer, but in terms of fellowship, they simply have it.
In the movie the Fiddler on the Roof you see how one of the more serious issues within the Jewish culture was the relationship of the individual to the collective. For instance no one was allowed to, According to Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, “In Judaism, one thing may be certain: Jews know that it’s more important to gather in meetings than to gather rosebuds.” He further states that when Moses blessed his kinsmen, he assured them that when the heads of the Jewish people gather together in unity (be-hitasseph rashei am) then they have an ideal Israel, one whose sovereign is the Torah itself.
The Hebrew equivalent for koinos is asephah and the Aramaic equivalent is shauteph both means to gather, to collect, as well as to heal and to die. The Semitic root word had to do with agriculture. Every day in the Shema the Jews repeat God’s promise that, as a reward for good behavior – veasafta deganekha (you shall gather in your grain). The harvest festival of Sukkot is called the Hag ha asiph. Hence this fellowship involves eating together. That root is also associated with David’s chief musician – Asaph. It also involves singing together.
Even in modern Hebrew today if you see a bus in Israel you will find the words me’asseph on the front which indicates that the bus makes all local stops, picking up passengers along the way. Asephah involves all believers, no one is to be left out. Even if they are shy, backward, would rather be alone, or just does not fit in. If a believer, such an individual is not to be left out.
In other words, fellowship is getting together for a pot luck dinner, for singing and praising God and encouraging each other in the Word of God. But it also has the idea of healing, both physical and emotional. Sometimes the ones who need the most emotional healing are the ones who will lock themselves away. They may be divorced or separated from a spouse and too ashamed or embarrassed to be around other believers. Yet, they need the healing of a fellowship more than many others. Still, they are single and don’t quite fit into that family mode. The may even be suspected, and accused of improprieties if they even speak with a member of the opposite sex or develop a close friendship with a member of the same sex, and thus they will avoid asephah altogether rather than suffer even more shame. While the others who are not hurting will while away this important time talking of trivial matters while chowing down on fried chicken and associating themselves with those that they feel of like mind and feel comfortable around. Such groups are having fellowship, but not devoting themselves to asephah fellowship like the first century church.
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