Acts 20:7

There was no transfer from the seventh day to the first, and the first day is never called the Sabbath. The Sabbath, not the first day, was the memorial of creation rest. In due time the law imposed it as a most holy commandment, bound up in a special way with God's authority and honour. The resurrection of Christ has brought in a new creation, after He had by Himself purged our sins on the cross. So the first day is the day of clear and triumphant life in Christ, who is our life. On it our hearts go out in worship, communion and service. A rest for the body, shared with the ox and the donkey, does not rise to the blessed associations of Christ risen from the dead. The New Testament does not close without stamping this day as "the Lord's day" (Revelation 1:10). That is not the prophetic "day of the Lord", which will bring ever-increasing and solemn judgments from God on the earth. The Lord's day is a day of heavenly grace. It brings us already into the victory of His resurrection, the pledge of our own resurrection or change at His coming.

The first day of the week is marked out for the Christian, not as law, but as blessing. Christ rose; Christ met His disciples on it, and again the following week. On the first day of the week the disciples met to break bread. On the first day they were to lay aside their profits for the poor saints.

Why did Paul stretch out his stay in Troas? He was hurrying, as we know, to reach Jerusalem by the day of Pentecost if he could. He deliberately avoided Ephesus because he did not want to be delayed on his journey. Yet here at Troas he spends no fewer than seven days.

Unexpected delays on the voyage meant the travellers landed at Troas just too late to join the usual weekly gathering of the disciples to break bread. To share with them in the customary remembrance of Christ, they had to stay a week for the next one.

This passage implies that this act was the object of their meeting, though other things might go along with it.

The early disciples came together not once a year, nor once a quarter, nor once a month, but on the first day of the week to break bread. It is no new theory, no notion of moderns or ancients, but what God has written in Acts 20:7.

Even the apostle's teaching, precious as it was, is spoken of as a secondary thing. The remembrance of the Lord's love in dying for us, and all that He has brought us into as risen again, was and is the first thing. If there is a chance to minister the word in a way that gathers up the thoughts and affections of the worshippers to Christ, it is good to take it. But the breaking of bread ought to be the first consideration, and the main object of the assembly. The Lord's Supper on this occasion came after sunset.

Then it was "disciples" who came together. That suggests people who had followed the Lord faithfully during the week before. They came "together to break bread." Hymns and thanksgiving must have their place. But they are not the reason we come together. We come to "break bread."

The New Testament never says that a man must be ordained to administer the Supper. It is clear that Christians came together on the Lord's Day to break bread.

He knew that dangers were looming ahead. No doubt that made him all the more anxious to give the disciples everything he could in his parting words. So he continued his speech until midnight.