The Bible Nerd

Hey, I am all for being the “New Testament” church and being as true to the book of Acts as possible, but I am not so sure we all want to be EXACTLY like the church of Acts. For example, the church in Acts is almost constantly being persecuted. In the Western world, we tend to gloss over that part, and discuss how we want to “go back” to things like house churches, fluid leadership, and apostolic multiplication. You can’t read through Acts for too long without seeing that persecution was a major factor in making the early church what is was. It caused the early church in Jerusalem to be a very tight, unified body (Acts 4). The persecution of Saul caused a missionary movement out of Jerusalem and into the surrounding area (Acts 8). Knowing that they would face persecution made new believers a very committed Christian from the beginning of their faith. So, let’s be careful what we wish for.

One of the “early church” characteristics is that they often, and mostly, met in people’s home to have their church meetings. Some today feel that we should abandon all the expensive buildings we have made and return to the simplicity of having church in our homes again. This has all kinds of advantages such as no huge amounts of money spent on buildings, closer fellowship and better relationship building, and easier multiplication. Churches stay small and organic, without all the hierarchy, professional clergy, and performance issues that the traditional church has. We need to first establish whether this is mandated from the New Testament. Then we will ask two critical questions to form our view.

Acts 1:13 has the apostolic church in Jerusalem in what seems like a home, “And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying.” This changes quickly after Pentecost, as their number swells from 120 to possibly over 3,000 (we don’t know how many saved on Pentecost lived in the area, or were visiting and then returned to start their own fellowships). Still being connected into the Judaic system, Acts 2:46 says, “And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts…” It would appear that they met at the temple as a larger group, first honoring the parts of Old Testament Judaism that weren’t repealed by Christ, then staying there in order to have opportunities for teaching and evangelism. For fellowship however, they broke apart most likely into individual homes. If “breaking bread” here refers to the Lord’s Supper, then perhaps there was some of their “service” taking place in the homes. This could be an interesting precedent of larger meetings for teaching and corporate worship, with fellowship and the Lord’s Supper taking place in homes as smaller groups.

The apostolic church continues to meet around the temple and in homes for several chapters further as evidenced in Acts 5:12, “And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico.” and 5:42, “And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.” The real question we must ask from here is whether Paul continued this pattern when he took the Gospel out to the nations. I would argue that we do. Paul uses three main locations for the churches he plants: 1) synagogues; 2) homes; and 3) large areas used for teaching/speaking. Paul’s use of the synagogue was part of his “to the Jew first” strategy for missions, believing the Jews in the nations would have increased receptivity and ministry usefulness due to their background in the Old Testament. Just like the Jerusalem church, this never lasted as a true home for any church, as the religious Jews pushed both out of their area (literally pushing James off the temple itself, killing him!)

Acts is relatively quiet about Paul’s churches meeting in homes, with the exception of Acts 18:7 where Paul meets in a house next to the synagogue after he is kicked out of that exact synagogue (too funny!) Building a house church doctrine from Paul based on Acts would be relatively weak. His letters, however, provide rich detail about house churches in Romans 16:5 (some feel the rest of Rom. 16 list house church groupings although only Aquila and Prisca’s are mentioned directly), Colossians 4:15 (woman’s house), and Philemon 2. Paul also uses larger venues like Solomon’s Portico, such as the lecture hall of Tyrannus for two years (Acts 19:9) and the Areopagus in Athens (Acts 17 only mentions one instance, so we don’t know if this was a one time “open air”). Some take 1 Corinthians 11:22 to mean that the Corinthians church didn’t meet in a home but the evidence is unclear, “What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?”

There are two questions we must ask at the end of this discussion.  First, does the New Testament command that the church meet in homes. No. You would have to conclude that it is implied by the example given in Paul’s letters, and to a small extent, the first few chapters of Acts. The stronger case would be made for WHY people feel it is better in homes, rather than saying it is “more Biblical”. As we looked at this earlier, having a group of 15 or less in the safe and hospitable environment of a home does make relationship building, accountability, discipleship, and multiplication much easier. There are many websites and books out now that can give you examples of success and details on how to set one up.

The second question that must be asked is, did God intend Christians to pray and use whichever strategy God highlights for a given people group or location? In other words, are there times when different locations other than homes work better? The book of Acts would give some evidence to this by looking at the meetings in the temple, synagogues, and the lecture hall of Tyrannus.  Perhaps God cares less about the location than He does about what is happening INSIDE that location. There could be times where a larger venue is needed to accomplish what God wants, and this can be combined with home groups like the early church in Jerusalem. As the church grew and then came into a time of acceptance by the government, we have to wonder if God would have them adjust to these changes through using different meeting places.

The bottom line is that if God had wanted to be specific about where churches should gather together, He would have done so.  He could have easily had Paul, Peter, or James write this into one of their letters as a command. By not doing so, the church should pray for wisdom and not fight and argue about what is “more Biblical” of a location. If God says rent out the lecture hall of Tyrannus, then let us use that building for the kingdom purposes. If He says meet in our house, than let’s hope we don’t live in Phoenix, Arizona (see recent news articles!). I really only have one request. Wherever we meet, can we have comfortable chairs, big windows, soft lighting, trendy coffee drinks, large flat screen tv’s, and lots of good parking?  I really am not that picky…