In a recent blog (see here), I mentioned that the church in Rome was made up of at least fifteen different small churches that met in houses or apartments. Sam in the office then asked me about the seven churches in Revelation and the other churches that received NT letters. Were they all made up of multiple house churches?
I don’t recall this ever being discussed in seminary. Until I wrote this article, I had never seen one on the subject.
Most people think the church of Ephesus was a single church meeting in a single building. But there were no church buildings before the fourth century. Churches met in homes, and most homes could accommodate only about forty people.
Romans 16 shows that there were at least fifteen churches in Rome. But that figure might be low since Paul was only mentioning people he knew in these various churches. Some suggest there might have been fifty or more small churches in Rome. That suggests that there were multiple house churches in every city.
We know, of course, that Paul wrote “to the churches of Galatia” (Gal 1:2). However, Galatia was a region, not a city. It was made up of cities including Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. Yet there were most likely multiple home churches in each of those cities.
I found an article at HouseChurch.me that says, concerning the church in Corinth: “The Corinthian house church movement began in this home [of Titius Justus] and eventually produced multiple house church gatherings across the city, as Paul’s later letters to the Corinthians address challenges arising from multiple groups” (see here).
That same article says that by the third century, churches still met in homes, but the size was now somewhat larger [at least in some cases]:
The archaeological evidence from Dura-Europos [a house church in about AD 232] confirms gathering sizes of 30-70 people, and the New Testament descriptions of house church life in 1 Corinthians 11-14 describe full worship gatherings including teaching, prophecy, singing, the Lord’s Supper, and the exercise of spiritual gifts.
That article pointed out something I’d never realized. Paul’s friends, Priscilla and Aquila, planted churches in their own homes in three different cities: Corinth (1 Cor 16:19), Ephesus (Acts 18:18-26), and Rome (Rom 16:3-5).
Think of any city with over 10,000 people in the United States. How many of those cities have just one church? Well, you might argue that I’m comparing apples and oranges. In the first century, the Church was just beginning. There were no denominations. True, but during the apostles’ ministry, the Church was growing rapidly. Nero would never have blamed the burning of Rome on Christians had they not been a major group.
Today, most U.S. cities have hundreds, if not thousands, of churches, with the average church having seventy-five in attendance on Sunday. The number of churches in each U.S. city would be five times higher if the average attendance were fifteen. Surely, many cities in the first century had at least five or ten different house churches.
Did you know there is a movement today to abandon the big-church model? House churches are springing up all over the world: “The global house church movement represents one of the most significant developments in the history of Christianity since the Reformation. House churches are multiplying rapidly on every continent, and in several nations, the house church is the dominant expression of the Christian faith” (see here).
What about children? Don’t children need to be in big churches? Since small churches were good for children in the first century, they should be good for children today as well. HouseChurch.me suggests that house churches are better for children:
Children in a house church observe adults praying, studying Scripture, confessing sin, caring for one another, and exercising spiritual gifts in real time. This modeling is qualitatively different from dropping children off in a classroom where they color Bible-themed worksheets while the adults worship separately. In a house church of 15 people including 4-6 children, the children hear adult conversations about Scripture, watch believers pray for one another with tears and laughter, and learn to participate in the life of the body at their developmental level. Many house churches designate a portion of the gathering for child-specific teaching or activity, while including children in the meal, worship, and prayer portions.
When you read Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, as well as the seven letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3, don’t think of one big church in each city. Think of many small churches in each place.
Keep grace in focus, and you will be an active church member, even if your church meets in your living room.
