To read this blog in its proper context, I would advise reviewing the previous blog that explores the interaction of the saints in Jerusalem. The Bible emphasizes households of various saints and has repeatedly described them as the environment of fellowship among God’s people.
Jonathan Reed, a professor of Religion at the University of LaVerne, writes, “…It’s important to recognize that in antiquity, there was really no such thing as the nuclear family as we think of it today. The ancient world was a place with high mortality and frequent birth, so if you think of the pattern in antiquity as being lots of people being born, lots of people dying; that means that the families were really ephemeral and changing a lot. So, we really need to think in terms of blended families, intergenerational families, unstable families that would move in and out of households at various times; and that’s actually the picture we kind of get from the Gospels. If you take a look at it, we have Jesus born to a relatively young mother. By the time he’s older, the father is no longer on the scene, presumably dead; and as best we can tell, He would have had half-brothers or even brothers or cousins that he would have been connected with. So, think of the family as something that’s very ephemeral, loose, it’s not solid and stable but changing an awful lot because of death and disease rendered the family very, very unstable in antiquity.” It is clear that the households often included slaves, in addition to other family members and associates through work. The role of the head of the household, the pater familias, was powerful, managing the household and exercising authority over every single member of it. The mention of someone’s household represents them as the head of that household that would include members related to it by natural descent or work.
Let us review that emphasis throughout the New Testament. Before Pentecost, John 4:53 reads, “…he himself believed, and his whole house.” After Pentecost, the reference to Cornelius as one that feared God did not just focus on him but his house. He feared God “with all his house” (Acts 10:2, cf. 11:14). Lydia was baptized and her house (Acts 16:5) and Paul with Silas entered into the household of Lydia where they had seen the brethren and comforted them (Acts 16:40). Acts 16:40 does not have “house of” in the Greek text before Lydia’s name. He entered into Lydia but it is so understood in supplying the sense of the passage that when you speak of Lydia, you are speaking of her house. The jailor in Philippi was told by Paul to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shall be saved, thou and thy house” (16:32). The next verse reads, “And they spoke the Word of the Lord and to all those in his house.” Acts 18:8 speaks of Crispus who believed in the Lord with his whole house.” Paul spoke of baptizing the house of Stephanus (1 Cor. 1:16) and that this house was a “firstfruit from Achaia, and who had appointed themselves to the ministry of the saints.”
Except for the public gathering in Jerusalem with the apostles at Solomon’s porch (Acts 2:46; 5:20, 25, 42), the only picture we have where the ἐκκλησία (ekklesia) gathered is in the private homes of individuals. Pricilla and Aquila are mentioned twice in greetings that are accompanied with “and the assembly which is at their house” [τὴν κατ᾽ οἶκον αὐτῶν ἐκκλησίαν] (1 Cor. 16:19, Romans 16:3,5). When Paul refers to them in his letter to Corinth, they had already returned to Rome, their home (cf. Acts 18:2).
Another similar reference is found from Paul’s association with Onesimus, a recent convert of Paul (Philemon 15-16, 10). His letter to the Colossians was probably delivered by Tychicus and Onesimus, a native of Colossae (Colossians 4:7-9) and a runaway slave of Philemon. In addressing his letter to Philemon, written at the same time as the letter to the Colossians (probably A.D. 61 or 62), Paul sends greetings to the Christians meeting in Philemon’s house: “Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to Philemon our beloved {brother} and fellow worker, and to Apphia our sister, and to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the called-out in your house:” (Philemon 1-2). Christians of Colossae assembled in Philemon’s house. It is not clear that they all met there, but only that there were people classified as “the called-out” who met there. Later, Paul writes in Colossians 4:15, “Greet the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the called out which is at his house.” Romans 16:10-15 gives a long list of greetings. It reads,
- “… Salute them which are of Aristobulus’ household…
- “Greet them that be of the household of Narcissus, which are in the Lord.
- “Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas, Hermes, and the brethren which are with them. Given the context, these are brethren and their household or as this describes it, “brethren with them.”
- “Salute Philologus, and Julia, Nereus, and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints which are with them.”
- The chapter ends with a mention of Gaius from Corinth who Paul describes as “my host, and of the whole church” (τῆς ἐκκλησίας ὅλης, cf. 2 John).
Notice the numerous examples of heads of households who have other brethren with them and whose home is described as the place in which other Christians are associated. It is noteworthy that Nymphas and Philemon were from the same city and each had homes in which brethren met. Given the facts that Nymphas (Colossians 4:15) and Philemon (Philemon 1:2) both lived near Colossae at the same time, and Christians who gathered at each person’s house were described as “the called-out which is at his house” (τὴν κατ᾽ οἶκον αὐτοῦ ἐκκλησίαν), it is not feasible to draw the conclusion that singular ἐκκλησία is properly applied only to the collective city-wide gathering. These appear to be two separate gatherings of Christians. Yet, the letter was written to the saints, the brethren, or the called-out in Colossae. This harmonizes with the description of saints living in Jerusalem who met in separate house-cells (house-to-house) in or near the city.
From what we read, the location wherein saints were identified was by the household in which they were associated, in addition to the town in which they lived. These were pockets of people who were either part of households or other individual saints who were associated with that house. “Cloe’s people” was probably one of those houses (1 Cor 1:11) as were the many references to groupings in Romans 16:3-15. Verses 22-23 of the same text refers to Gaius who hosted Tertius and the “whole called out.” Either the whole called out in Corinth met in his home for a specified period of time, after which another house became the meeting place or the
“whole called-out” refers to the entire group in Corinth meeting in Gaius’ house. Given these two options and the references to other households, it appears more reasonable to conclude that seperate groups or households formed a close fellowship, who would come together with other households in one place less frequently. Perhaps, meeting in one place would have been the time for a letter from Paul to be read (Col. 4:16) and a time to meet to break bread in Christ’s memory. 1 Corinthians 11 assists us with the gathering of saints in Corinth. First, notice the many references to their “coming together.” Adding verse 34, the phrase is used a total of five times. Also, 1 Corinthians 14:23 begins, “If therefore the whole ekklesia be come together into one place…”. This sounds like what is described as taking place in the house of Gaius.
Putting it all together, we first note that more than one house cell existed in a city. It was a place of refuge, encouragement and prayer. Second, all saints would come together in one place in memory of Christ in the breaking of bread. Second, the problems of some despising the poor and “shaming those who have not” fits the practice of the called-out described as meeting in households, and then the “whole called-out” coming together to take the Lord’s supper on the first day of the week. The passage does not speak in favor of church buildings to avoid homes or refusing to meet together to eat a meal. The problems were the mere product of unloving, selfish hearts that will always surface in any context. Third, the context of all coming together in one place in Corinth also included the edifying of saints through the use of spiritual gifts. Today, however, the faith revealed is preserved in the written revelation of God. So, the occasion that would bring all together would be, primarily, to break bread. While they needed gifts of inspired teaching that would be complete with more than a few saints, we have the written word by which we may edify one another through its reading and study. Every individual saint has ready access to it each and every day.
Another posible house or household at Corinth was Stephanas’, who were the “first-fruits of Achaia who addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints” (1 Cor. 16:15). This means there could have been at least three distinct groups of saints meeting in a home in Corinth. This is not to say that God works only among families, but that whole households who were added to the church continued to be together in their homes. We can expect that these houses would naturally form a physical gathering of Christians where Christ is given center stage, and where brethren would meet for prayer and study. This formed the reason for gathering with other Christians. It is reasonable to conclude that each first day of the week, all of these brethren came together in one place for the purpose of taking the Lord’s Supper in memory of Christ. Krautheimer describes the home most likely used to accomodate such gatherings. Speaking of them, he writes:
“In the Eastern provinces, they were apparently one-family buildings up to four storeys high. The dining-room on top was the only large room, and often opened on a terrace. This is the upper floor, the anageion or hyperoon frequently mentioned in the Acts [Acts 1:7; 20:8], the room ‘high up, open to the light’, of which Tertullian still speaks after A.D. 200. The furnishings would simply consist of a table and three surrounding couches, from which the dining-room takes its name in Latinized Greek—the triclinium. The main couch opposite the entrance was presumably reserved for the elder, the host, and speaker as honoured guest.” The room may be so crowded that the people were forced to sit on the window seals or in the case of a first century upper room, a ledge with no wall or roof. We are given such an incident at Troas when a young man fell from the fourth floor (the tristegon), only to be resurrected by Paul [Acts 20:5-10]. Krautheimer describes the houses of Rome as “tenement houses with horizontal apartments” that would accomodate many people.
Given the evidence that Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome had more than one house used as a place of gathering, we might expect some households too small to accomodate a larger number. On the other hand, there is no clear indication that they felt obligated to fit everyone in one place. When the men of Israel made an offering for their household during the three anual feasts, did they all appear before the priest at the same place and time? Not only is it unlikely that all 603,550 men stuffed themselves into one place at one time, it is certain that when they ate the passover, the meal was eaten in different homes. Why should we force a different outcome for the Lord’s supper. On the fourteenth day of the first month, every Israelite gathered to eat the passover meal in the home of which they were a part. They didn’t meet in one huge diner to eat it together but each household slaughtered a male lamb and ate it in their homes. Now, imagine that saints in Corinth “coming together” on the first day of the week to eat the Lord’s supper. Did they all meet in one place? 1 Corinthians 11:20 speaks of coming together “in one place.” However, a study of the words may translate, “in the same thing” or “for the same thing.” Given this translation, consider the following reading, “When ye come together therefore for the same thing, it is not to eat the Lord’s supper. For in eating, every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken (1 Cor. 11:20-21). The gathering has a purpose that is uniting by its very nature, declaring them as “members of one another” (cf. Romans 12:5, Eph. 4:25). Yet, because of the division that is produced in this gathering, it cannot be a product of the communion of the body and blood of Christ with fellow Christians. Given the context of 1 Corinthians 11 and this alternate translation, it is not likely that large crowds met under the same roof. Also, the many references to “households,” saints meeting in homes, and groupings of brethren around those who host the gathering suggests a strong possibility for brethren of larger numbers to meet in separate homes to eat the Lord’s supper. Unlike Catholicism, no need existed to oversee everything that might be said because they had gifted men of the Spirit to guide them.
However, when referring to a calle-out in a given city, it is always in the singular. The called-out meeting in homes were not modern-day congregations. They were simply the called-out meeting in that house. If another household in the same city had called-out people meeting in that house, it was still the called-out meeting in the same city but in a different house. The reason for this is because the called-out refers only to a class of people in the city, rather than single corporate organizations in which all were made members. The households do not represent congregations who may have come together. They represent simple Christians who came together in different households. If all the individuals from the households came together at the same place and time, they would still represent individual Christians/Saints coming together, and not all congregations coming together. Concern for violating local autonomy is only applicable when a church organization exists. Once again, removing that which is built by hands, solves many problems.