I studied and selected several texts for the lesson, one of which was Acts 2:41-47.
Acts 2:41-47 is framed by two statements which speak of people being "added" to the number of the apostles. First, after Peter's Pentecost Day sermon, about "three thousand people were added" (2:41). Finally, after descriptions of the early life of the apostolic community, the text states that "the Lord added day by day to them those who were being saved" (2:47). These parallel statements about "addition" also invite comparison between those who were being added. In the first instance, those who were added were those who "welcomed [Peter's] word and were baptized" (2:41). In the second place, those who were added were those who were "being saved." The text begins with addition through baptism and ends with addition by salvation. One wonders, therefore, how baptism and salvation are related.
A possible explanation of the connection between baptism and salvation may be found in the description that falls between the bookends of verses 41 and 47. Verses 42-46 are exclusively about what happened to those who were baptized, those who, like others after them, "were being saved." After being added upon baptism, the text states that they "continued in the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread and fellowship, and the prayers" (2:42). These activities find an echo later in the description that they "broke bread from house to house", the centerpiece of a life of daily worship in the temple, "sharing food with glad and generous hearts, praising God, and having the goodwill of the people" (2:46-47). Between these parallel descriptions are two other statements which each feature a couplet--the first "wonders and signs" (2:43) and the second "possessions and goods" (2:45). The first statement says simply that "many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles" while the second specifically enumerates the activities of the early church: "they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need." The structural parallelism in the text invites the reader to consider whether the "wonders and signs" of the apostles were not in fact the "possessions and goods" which they sold to meet human need. Finally, in between all of these statements is the summary of the apostolic community: "All who believed were together and had all things in common" (2:44). Everything else in the text is an illustration of this basic apostolic unity.
It is equally true, of course, that the central unity of the church in the text, around which everything else gathers, is itself the product of the distinct practices in the text which surround that center. The unity of the church was forged by those who were baptized being devoted to "the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread, fellowship, and the prayers." Unity was forged by generosity and mutual aid, the fulfilling of human need. Those who welcomed Peter's word about Jesus "continued" in that word, in word and deed. It is that continuity with the message and ministry of Jesus that enabled those were baptized to become truly a church--a community devoted to one another under Christ in service to the world. And it is those who continue in the baptized life to which the text points who are "being saved."
-Joe
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