House to House

This Lord’s Day is Pentecost Sunday, an annual reminder that the Christian church went international, or at least expanded exponentially to all nations when the Holy Spirit empowered it. It was only three centuries later that this group of roughly 3000 people would make-up, conservatively, half the inhabitants of the empire and so see the legalization of Christianity under Constantine.

The first three centuries of church’s flourishing are fascinating in part because the increase took place largely without any dedicated buildings. Gene Getz cites Graydon F. Snyder (Ante Pacem Archeological Evidence for the Church Before Constantine) in stating that before the middle or end of the third century, we have no record of special buildings (proper churches) being used for Christian worship. Some synagogues were probably used (but not many if the book of Acts is any indicator) and it’s reasonable to think some buildings morphed into churches (Hall of Tyrannus, for example) but the lack of public Christian buildings during the foundational period of the ancient church is notable. What does this say about the centrality of homes for discipleship and ministry? Without tipping into anti-establishment or romantic views of the early church (and thus into the house church movement today), recovering the home as place of ministry is crucial for reaching, loving and serving our neighbors.

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