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…
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…
There are no examples of separate buildings set apart for the worship of the church within the Roman Empire before the third century. Starting with a long Jewish history to the bringing in of the new covenant, we find examples of buildings set aside for worship. But, in the teaching of Christ and His apostles,…