"...when you come together in a congregation ... the Lord Jesus...took a loaf, ...broke it and said ... "keep doing this in remembrance of me" ... For as often as you eat this loaf and drink this cup, you keep proclaiming the death of the Lord, until he arrives"
(1 Cor. 11:18, 23, 24, 26).
This was in the context of Lord's Evening Meal (verse 20). So "breaking of bread" and Lord's Evening Meal were almost synonymous in the practice of early Christianity. However, "breaking bread" does not refer to an ordinary meal and no specific timing was ever given by Jesus either pre- or post-resurrection. In the absence of any fixed rule as to the frequency this
phrase"as often as" is an inducement to commune frequently. In fact, the phrase as often as means of indefinite frequencyas inRevelation 11:6: "as often as they wish."
THE FOUR DAILY SPIRITUAL HABITS
"...they continued devoting themselves to the teaching of the apostles, to the common participation (fellowship), to the breaking of bread and to prayers" (Acts 2:42- based on the K I T).
So the "breaking of bread" is linked with other spiritual habits. Therefore, they must have been meeting together for these 4 things. Ignatius shows that the Lord's Evening Meal [the Eucharist] was the focus of the church's life—Jesus being the "bread of God."
"And day by day attending the temple together breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts" (Acts 2:46).
This custom of celebrating daily eventually changed to a weekly custom on the first day of the week:
"On the first day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread (Acts 20:7).
Barnabas in the 2nd century wrote that: "We keep the 8th day for rejoicing, in which Jesus also rose from the dead." And the 8th day was what Luke records as "the first day of the week"—Sunday.
THE FULFILLMENT OF SEVERAL HEBREW SCRIPTURE SHADOWS
The Lord's Evening Meal is a fulfilment of the Old Covenant practices of:
a) "eating the sacrifices" (1 Cor.10:18-21; Lev. 7:6)-------------------------and so more than annually.
b) "sprinkling with blood" (Ex. 24:7-11)------------which is the initiation of one into the New Covenant.
c) "Christ our Passover has been sacrificed" (1 Cor. 5:7)-------------hence permanent and continuous.
Therefore the Lord's Evening Meal is not the Passover, yet it does also reflect it.