House Churches

In Colossians 4:15 Paul writes, “Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters in Laodicea and to Nympha and the church in her house.” [1] Recently, there has been a resurgence of this very old idea of meeting in homes rather than specific “Church” buildings. This resurgence finds great weaknesses in what can be called a traditional church setting and seeks to restore the intimacy and even purity to Christian gatherings. Basically, the understanding is that in modern churches, community is unable to truly be established because of the fact that there are so many people part of the local church, and the various services tend to focus on the work of a select few, rather than on the participation of the community as a whole. This new movement is called the “house church” movement.

Although it can be considered new in its modern renewed emphasis, it is in fact the oldest “model” of church gathering which is known. The very earliest church communities gathered together in each other’s homes, eating and fellowshipping together. It would behoove us then to look backward to this past in order to best gauge the modern manifestation. The goal of this paper, then, is to briefly examine the house churches of the earliest Christian communities, looking at their various aspects in order to understand the nature of a “house church”.

In developing an understanding of the early “house church” it is useful to look at the probable antecedent of these gatherings, the Jewish Synagogue. Although Christian gatherings are only very rarely referred to by use of the Greek term, sunagwghv, [2] it seems assured that the pattern of Christian gatherings was indeed modeled after the synagogue of the Jews, with the name of the gatherings implying the theological distinction. A difficulty arises, however, in that we have very little direct evidence from the Second Temple Period, with no direct literary reference until the 1^st century AD, [3] and only four actual synagogue buildings securely dated to this early era. [4] The reason for this is primarily because in this era synagogues were most likely located themselves in houses, or other nondescript buildings, with the rise of the synagogue as a dedicated building not occurring popularly until about the middle of the 2^nd century. [5]

Thus it was not so much for theological or ecclesiastical reasons that the earliest communities met in homes, but rather because that was the typical and traditional setting for such activities. Bradley Blue suggests three other reasons why this setting was appropriate and convenient to the early Christians. [6] The first was that the “upper rooms” and houses were available. Christians met in these houses because they were the most convenient and logical places to meet. The second reason was the these houses were relatively inconspicuous, not attracting attention or highlighting what was happening. Additionally these homes provided the necessary resources to facilitate the specific activities of the gatherings, which included meals and aspects which required preparation.

The homes in which these Christians gathered were most likely large residences owned by the wealthier members of the local community. [7] These houses, more like an estate of our era, had ample room to gather together a large amount of Christians in one setting, though usually not enough room to house the entirety of a large city’s Christian population. These homes were often built around a large courtyard with various large rooms specifically for banquet type gatherings, and even water facilities. [8] Thus, those who hosted the gatherings were probably among the higher classes of society at this time. [9] Blue suggests that this fact also may have led to a strategic evangelistic strategy of converting a wealthy householder in order to anchor the church in a specific setting, [10] though it seems more likely that Paul and the other evangelists simply took advantage of the various skills and opportunities which their converts presented without necessarily being specific about seeking these opportunities out. Around the year 150, various house churches were adapted as primary places of community gathering, rather than being residential homes with dual uses. [11] The transformation from intimate churches which met in believer’s homes to ornate buildings specifically designed for worship has commenced.

These early house churches were by their very nature intimate places of gathering, because space, even in the largest homes, was limited to no more than 30 or 40 people at one time. Thus we find Paul, in Romans 16, discussing the various gatherings which met in Rome, with probably only rare times of the entire Christian community ever meeting together as a whole in one setting. It may be precisely because of this forced intimacy as restricted by space, that such activities as prophecy, confession, various teachings, etc. could occur with participation by all or most of the community while still maintaining order. Robert Banks also writes of these “house churches” as being places which went beyond simply “religious” gatherings, but became focal points for more casual community gathering, with worship coming out of and part of their normal activities. [12] Whatever the specifics of these gatherings were, it is clear that by being in houses, an intimacy was created which may have been lost as the church grew more established in numbers and property.

Banks argues that these early “house churches” understood their gatherings as being more dynamic, with church occurring when believers actually met in a specific setting, rather than being static, or as ongoing realities. [13] Thus the philosophy was built early on about the importance of the believer’s participation, while the later philosophy which grew out of becoming part of a “universal” church resulted in a lessening of the importance of the believer as the church itself grew in theological stature. So while the earliest “house churches” may not have been formed with theological intent, a study of these early communities does indicate once again how architecture and setting can impact theological development and attitudes in a very broad way. It is with this in mind that it is a worthy pursuit to re-evaluate the role of “house-churches” in our own, somewhat community fractured, era.

[1] See also 1 Cor 16:19; Acts 1:13, 12:12, 20:7ff.

[2] See James 2:2.

[3] Lee Levine, “The Second Temple Synagogue: The formative years,” The Synagogue in Late Antiquity, ed. Lee Levine (Philadelphia: The American Schools of Oriental Research, 1987), 9.

[4] Eric Myers, “Synagogue,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, v. VI, ed. David Freeman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 255. See also Levine, 9ff.

[5] Bradley Blue, “Architecture, Early Church,” Dictionary of the Later New Testament, eds. Ralph Martin and Peter Davids (Downers Grove: IVP, 1997), 92; Myers, 255.

[6] Bradley Blue, 92.

[7] Blue, 93.

[8] ibid.

[9] a fact which may have led to the problems and difficulties found in 1 Corinthians 11.

[10] Blue, 93.

[11] See Blue, 92.

[12] Robert Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community, revised edition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 33ff.

[13] Banks, 35.