Posted 393 days ago

Early House Churches

by Shonnie Scott

Shonnie Scott, one of the board members of MSA, is writing a dissertation on how the ministry of the church has turned in on itself. Instead of providing for the needs of our neighbors (what she calls Kingdom Work), we have chosen to form structures and ministries that serve only those who come inside the building (Church Work). This article is from the section on the earliest house churches, developed around the time of Acts and common throughout the second and third centuries. It talks primarily about how the early church’s structure supported the Kingdom Work of Jesus.

⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

The early Christians are commonly envisioned using the temple and Jewish synagogues as gathering places for worship. This is not the case, however, as solidarity between Jews and Christians was fleeting and several sources for contempt surfaced. The Apostle Paul’s achievement of freedom and equal status for Gentile Christians and their recognition as Christians by the Jerusalem church in Acts 15 was the beginning of the end when it came to Christians and Jews assembling under the same roof. These issues, along with uniquely Christian worship practices, including the central rite of the Eucharist, made Christian worship in a synagogue intolerable to the Jews. It is estimated that somewhere between 90 AD and 100 AD Jewish Christians had been completely evicted from synagogue services.¹ Once Christians were excluded from worship in the synagogues, they were forced to meet elsewhere for Christian worship and thus began “the shift of the community from the Temple and its purity system to the household and its domestic sphere as the new locus of the Spirit’s action.” ²

Early Christianity was a small, unpopular religious sect, circumstantially forced to gather in domestic spaces for meetings. The lukewarm or fainthearted would think twice before risking affiliation with such a group.

There is considerable scholarly interest in the physical characteristics of the typical New Testament house that would have hosted a house church. Many churches met in the atrium house, owned by approximately one to three percent of the wealthiest in society at that time, which could accommodate 30-50 people at a time.^{3 4}

Other domestic structures that housed Christian worship gatherings were insulae, (large multi-storied tenements which included apartments, shops, and industries), and the palatial mansions of the super-rich (one-tenth of one percent of the population). The latter might have been able to accommodate very large numbers, ranging from 360-1135 people depending on the home.

There are two unique aspects of New Testament domestic spaces that may have been conducive to kingdom ministry. The first is the ancient lack of distinction between public and private space:

The house was one of the most important places for doing business and for the production of salable goods. The house was not the place to escape from work but the place where much of the work was done; it was not the place to be free of a public role, but a place to enhance that role by hospitality. The modern idea of the sacred privacy of the home does not apply.⁵

The lack of compartmentalization of daily activities (work, leisure, family life) and almost nonexistent privacy makes it difficult to determine what activities occur “inside” and “outside,” and what activities are public and private, in New Testament domestic dwellings. Given the high degree of social permeability resulting from the multi-purpose usage of these dwellings, persons associated in any way with the ancient house church would experience both a quality and quantity of social contact in the context of these private domestic spaces. What is significant here is the extraordinary number of natural intersections that members of the ancient house church would have had with their work day world. Commerce and/or employment, Christian worship, family life, eating, sleeping, etc., all took place in the same structure and an “open door policy” invited constant traffic from the community. Opportunities for kingdom ministry—getting God’s will done outside the church—are inherent 24/7 in the New Testament house church, where there is no real “inside” or “outside.”

Furthermore, there was considerable interaction between the social classes in New Testament domestic spaces. Servants and slaves continually interacted with nobles, merchants and other free citizens. The majority of today’s American churches, which often meet in dedicated buildings in suburban settings, are exceedingly spatially, racially, and socially segregated compared to the New Testament house churches. Tillapaugh and Hurst observe,

In the fifties, the heyday of American suburbia, the church was a necessary part of the suburban landscape. In fact, early suburban developers often gave lots to churches. Suburban churches became part of the American Dream. . . . Cynics contend that the primary role for the suburban church in America today is to function as “religious parks and recreation” for the middle class.⁶

The suburban parks-and-recreation type church facility bears little resemblance to New Testament domestic spaces in its usage.

A second aspect of ancient domestic spaces relevant to kingdom ministry has to do with the ancient Mediterranean virtue and practice of hospitality and the additional dimension that Jesus commands of his followers.

Even without modern transportation vehicles, the Roman Empire enjoyed comparative ease of travel in its day; travel was relatively affordable, and a normal part of life for merchants and artisans. Roman society provided for the lodging and entertainment of travelers through inns, though these were generally viewed as “last resort” options and avoided by the upper classes. Private hospitality was preferred, and considered most virtuous of the host, whether they were pagan, Jew, or Christian.

In his preaching, Jesus asks individuals, not whole households, to follow him. In many cases, this would create a conflict between the individual and the household losing that member, because of the function the member fulfilled within the household. Once a disciple left their household to follow Jesus, they were homeless and had to rely on the hospitality of other Christian householders for food and shelter on their missionary journeys. Trusting in and availing oneself of the provision of this hospitality was Jesus’ challenge to his itinerant disciples.

Conversely, Jesus challenged disciples who remained householders with three responsibilities of their own. First, they were obligated to practice hospitality to itinerant disciples. For example, Jesus announced to Zaccheus in Luke 19:5: “I must stay at your house today,” leaving Zaccheus very little choice in the matter. Second, they were to practice this hospitality to all, regardless of their guests’ ability to reciprocate the hospitality later. Third, they were to practice justice by supporting the poor and marginalized in society.

While the practice of hospitality was culturally virtuous, the dimension of non-reciprocity Jesus added was decidedly counter-cultural. Jesus redefines hospitality to be something far beyond lavish “entertaining” of friends, relatives, and rich neighbors, which in the end exalts and rewards the host.⁷ The relevance for kingdom ministry today parallels that of the previous section: hospitality on Jesus’ terms creates interdependence between transient and homeowning Christ-followers, and also welcomes the needy outside the fellowship of believers.

A final element of transformation Jesus brought to New Testament household dynamics centered around his redefinition of family. In the New Testament era, family was synonymous with household, which included a mixture of biological relations and non-biological affiliates that were bound together according to socially accepted positions and responsibilities. Household member’s roles were determined by both hierarchical and patriarchal structures at the time. The head of the household was usually male (the paterfamilias), and was the overseer of the household unit. The intense loyalty within the household was born out of the mutually beneficial functions held among the adult members.

A second cultural dynamic crucial to understanding Jesus’ redefinition of family is this: “Brother and sister also retain extremely close relationships, and a brother is often considered the first-line protection of a sister’s interests, even after marriage.” ⁸ But into that ideal, Jesus says, “‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother’.” ⁹ Jesus’ use of family terminology challenged believers—even though biologically unrelated—to look upon and treat each other as biological siblings. Jesus’ family, and therefore his followers’ family, includes “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven.”

The ramifications of Jesus’ statements for his followers’ relationships, and their responsibilities therein, were nothing short of revolutionary. Giving precedence to ties in one’s religious community over natural family ties was absolutely unheard of and, for that matter, offensive.¹⁰

According to Bartchy, for Christ-followers to treat one another like family would bring the following to bear in their relationships:

• Loyalty and trust. Loyalty was only given to blood relatives and all others were regarded as dishonorable until proven otherwise.
• Truth telling. While there was a high obligation to tell the truth within one’s biological family, there was no such obligation to outsiders.
• Open homes to all within the extended kin group. Meals were shared and hospitality extended to brothers and sisters in Christ, beyond the immediate household and business guests of the paterfamilias.
• Obligation to be sure that the needs of everyone in the group are met. Blood relatives provide assistance to other blood relatives without regard for their ability to return the favor.

• A sense of shared destiny. Ancient blood families had shared goals and purpose; Christian brothers and sisters were inspired and energized by a shared sense of purpose and destiny as well.¹¹

In the days immediately following Pentecost, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need,” ¹² and “no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. . . . There were no needy persons among them.” ¹³ In New Testament times, not unlike today, wealth was concentrated amongst a small minority of the total population. A major difference, however, is that there was no “middle class” as we know it. Even while some variety in economic status certainly existed, scholars agree that the vast majority of people must have lived in crushing poverty by any standards. In such a socioeconomic context, open surrogate family communities wherein “there were no needy persons” would be very attractive.

Those without large families, those who were members without their families, and poorer members may well have been the primary demographic contributing to the explosive growth of the earliest church recorded in Acts 2:41, 47. The benefits that came with being in Jesus’ family in the context of ancient socio-economic structures would have contributed significantly to the magnetism of early Christianity.

The earliest church attempted to serve its members like “a kind of welfare state in which, from birth to grave, all essential needs are taken care of, education, marriage, pastoral care, relief from hunger, health care and burial.” ¹⁴ In the house church structure, with members assuming family roles in respect to one another, responsibilities were concrete, and it was actually possible to have no needy persons in the group.

This presents a formidable challenge to the American church. In American culture, this level of interdependence is perceived negatively by most. At best, this welfare endeavor of the ancient house church will strike the contemporary Church as other-worldly and impossibly idealistic; at worst, as outrageous and undesirable. Yet today’s Church must allow itself to be confronted with the implications behind Jesus’ redefinition of family and evaluate how it actively cares for family-in-Christ, and particularly how welcoming and supportive it is toward those who cannot repay. This is the essence of kingdom ministry.

There are no needy people in heaven. While Jesus’ followers are waiting for God’s total, exclusive reign to return to earth, they are presently to be busy getting God’s will done, on earth as it is in heaven.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Notes
1. Wright, 1993, 26
2. Moxnes, 2003, 201
3. Branick, 1989, 42
4. Balch, 2004, 32
5. Osiek, 1996
6. Tillapaugh, 1997, 49-50
7. Luke 14:12
8. Osiek, 1997, 42,43
9. Matthew 12:48-50
10. Keener, 1993, 81,144
11.Longenecker, 2002, 94
12. Acts 2:44, 45
13. Acts 4:32-35
14. Osiek, 1996

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