Acts 20:10

And Paul went down and fell on him, and embracing him said, Make ye no ado, for his life is in him. And when he was gone up and had broken the bread, and eaten, and had talked with them a long while, even until break of day, so he departed. And they brought the lad alive, and were not a little comforted.

Broken the bread and eaten ... The punctuation of this is in error in most versions, because the "breaking of the bread" in this place has no reference at all to the Lord's supper but to the satisfaction of their hunger, as plainly implied by the verb "eaten." It was now long past midnight, and the Lord's supper had been observed on the Sunday when they came together for that purpose. It is a grave misunderstanding to suppose that, whereas they had come together that Sunday to break the bread of the Lord's supper, they instead listened to Paul preach until midnight. Such a view is forbidden by the manner in which Luke here emphatically indicated that Paul's preaching was not the purpose of the Sunday gathering, but a benefit that came subsequently to the observance of the Lord's supper. Hervey went so far as to say that the word "eaten" as used in Acts 20:11 "is never used of the sacramental eating of bread."[14] Milligan agreed that the reference here is "to a common meal."[15]

Due to the fact, however, that by an improper punctuation of this place, as in English Revised Version, the words may be made to refer to two events, both a common meal and the observance of the Lord's supper, leading to the supposition of some that the Lord's supper was not observed until after midnight "on the first day of the week," it is well to keep in mind that even if that was the case (which seems to us most unlikely) it would in no manner indicate taking the Lord's supper on Monday. When the proceedings of any convention, legislative body, or congress extend past midnight on any date, the official records invariably reckon the late doings as part of the preceding day's affairs, even if clocks have to be stopped! McGarvey's device of supposing the Jewish method of observing time was used, making this meeting to have convened after sundown on Saturday (which would be the first day of the week by Jewish reckoning), thus avoiding the "midnight" problem, appears to this writer to be in error.[16]

Till break of day ... Such was the love and affection of the brethren for the beloved Paul that they spent the whole night listening and talking to him.

And they brought the lad alive ... It was quite easy for people who had just witnessed a resurrection to stay up all night; and Luke's words, "They were not a little comforted," are a divine understatement for the sake of emphasis.

[14] A. C. Hervey, op. cit., p. 144.

[15] Robert Milligan, Analysis of the New Testament (Cincinnati, Ohio: Bosworth, Chase and Hall), p. 386.

[16] J. W. McGarvey, Commentary on Acts (Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard Publishing Company), 2p. 182.