Because the Didache is a text to which new pieces were added over time, it gives us a fascinating insight into the evolution of the worship of Jesus' first followers.

The eucharistic prayers in the Didache are rather odd-looking to contemporary eyes because they don't contain the elements present in Christian worship today.

One thing that is immediately striking is the presence of a full meal as part of the 'service'. This suggests that the early Christians gathered to eat together, to recall Jesus' teaching, and to begin to live out the values of the Kingdom of God in advance of the End. Jews of the period looked forward to a great banquet with God (cf. Isaiah 25.6-9 and Luke 14.15). Jesus taught that his followers could begin to participate in that Banquet already - by sharing in the body and blood of the one who already eternally dwells in God's presence.

The distinctiveness of Jesus teaching about the bread of the future kingdom may have given rise to the development of the Lord's Prayer as we know it today. Some of the later insertions into the Didache reflect a stage in the development of the Jesus movement where it was no longer a sect within Judaism. Rather than seeking to incorporate Gentiles into a Jewish movement, there was a move towards making a clear and visible difference between Christians and Jews. This is achieved, for example, by publicly fasting on different days of the week (Did. 8.1) and by publicly reciting a different prayer (Did. 8.2). The prayer that is likely to have differentiated Jesus' followers from other Jews is his distinctive meal prayer - the prayer for the bread of the future Kingdom. This meal prayer may, therefore, have been taken and used as replacement for the thrice daily prayers recited by Pharisees of the period.