Today, we have preachers filling the pulpit of local churches for hire. It is their profession. The alternative to this arrangement is the on-going studies of saints from house to house. I suppose no harm would be done if someone wanted to prepare a presentation, but it is altogether unnecessary. Even if living in the…
There is a strong tradition among us that reveals the purpose of our assembling together to be a time to worship God. The concept of assembling for worship translates “going to worship” with “going to church.” How odd it is for the church to “go to church” in order to worship God! It propagates the…
In addition to strengthening and encouraging one another, we also see in the New Testament that Christians joined together in their struggle against sin (Gal. 6:1-10). They encouraged each other to hold the other accountable to repent of sin. In dealing with offenses, if a Christian chose not to repent of his/her sin, the every…
A related concern would be the influence of the gossip in the home. Younger widows learn to be idle going around to the houses. This passage takes on a greater significance if we can imagine the houses as a place of fellowship and a young sister comes to the door as a tattler and busybody…
We do have some idea of why saints gathered together as a part of their daily life. One of the reasons to gather was to draw encouragement from one another. Today, so many view attendance at a facility as a requirement to be checked off and if you happen to be encouraged, that’s just “icing…
For the first approximately two-hundred years of this new relationship in Christ (the ekklesia), there were no church buildings. Third-century apologist Minucius Felix wrote, “We have no temples and no altars.”[1] The people of God, though surrounded by pagan temples and Jewish synagogues, were the only people who did not erect sacred buildings for…
In this blog, we hope to show that the presence of saints was expected in certain households. The house was not only the place where brethren knew to be a place for prayer and fellowship, but it was also known by the enemies of Christ to be the expected location of gatherings in the name…
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,…
Since the church did not meet in church buildings or temples, it is often assumed that the reason is only due to socio-economic stress or that they were restrained from outside pressures. As already noted earlier, there is no evidence for this conclusion and given the nature of the ekklesia, there is no reason to…
Shortly before the rebuilding of the temple, the Jews constructed huts, later called synagogues, for prayer while facing Jerusalem and reading the Scriptures. Even when the temple was rebuilt, some Jews disagreed with the reconstruction of the new temple, thinking that the temple should never be rebuilt. These “synagogues” began to be built 30 to…