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\n<\/em><\/p>\nA personal discovery<\/h4>\n
It still amazes me years after a four-year Bible College stint and an M. Div. degree in a leading evangelical seminary that I never heard a professor talk or teach about the house churches of the New Testament!<\/p>\n
After more personal study and research while ministering as a teaching-pastor and evangelist, I went on to receive the D. Min degree in an Anabaptist institution. That experience reaffirmed my ecclesiology and deepened my appreciation for my spiritual roots. In fact, it was the seminary dean, Grady Snyder, who encouraged me to write about the house church in the first edition of this book.<\/p>\n
By the time I began my D. Min studies I had discovered the most important fact about the New Testament church, and it is this: Jesus\u2019 teachings, together with nearly every apostolic reference to actual local churches in the New Testament were all written to and for the house churches scattered across the Mediterranean world! And that\u2019s not all. This first-century world of early house church Christianity continued for the first 300 years of the church\u2019s history. But by the time of the second and third centuries, church fathers began to institute radical changes that culminated in Constantine\u2019s construction of the first basilicas.<\/em><\/p>\nThe really big discovery<\/h4>\n
Remarkably, as late as 1988 when I first wrote the The House Church: A Model for Renewing the Church<\/em>, understanding of the first-century church as a house church movement was relatively rare. So much so that New Testament scholar and author Roger W. Gehring asserts that \u201cthe year 1980 represents a watershed for the publication of literature on the topic of the house church . . . up to that time no major work had been devoted to the New Testament house church!\u201d1<\/sup> Since then, however, numerous books and articles have been published on this largely overlooked and critically essential foundation for the study of New Testament ecclesiology.<\/p>\nBut it wasn\u2019t until 1930-31 that someone discovered and excavated an actual house church in Dura Europos in the Syrian desert. This hard evidence of such a structure convinced some biblical scholars to reconsider their great neglect (see Chapter 3 \u201cThe New Testament House Churches\u201d for isometric drawings of this house church dating between AD 232-256).<\/p>\n
Then, in 1939, Floyd V. Filson published his groundbreaking article about this discovery, rightly insisting, \u201cthe New Testament church would be better understood if more attention were paid to the actual physical conditions under which the first Christians met and lived. In particular, the importance and function of the house church should be carefully considered<\/em>\u201d (emphasis mine).2<\/sup><\/p>\nNotwithstanding, scholarship was perilously slow in awakening to Filson\u2019s admonition. For forty more years, negative theology of the church often continued to be written in the hierarchical jargon created by the church fathers in their establishment of \u201cthe church of the patriarchy,\u201d an ecclesiology quite different from New Testament household Christianity.<\/p>\n
Finally, the 1970s ushered in a renewal of socio-historical New Testament research that is continuing to the present, creating a whole new vista of interest in the vastly neglected reality of the New Testament house churches just as Filson anticipated much earlier.<\/p>\n
Scholars began to recognize the significance of household Christianity and the many nuances that contributed to its success. Since Roman society was structured on the principle of patronage, when a Christian head of a household opened his\/her home as a gathering place for the formation of a new house church, such hospitality would usually point to a well-to-do believer using their gift of hospitality while also functioning as a patron or benefactor.<\/p>\n
Examples of hospitable believers strengthening the household movement are seen in the lives of Aquila and Prisca (Rom 16:3-5, 1 Cor 16:19), in the community of house churches in Rome sharing together in Gaius\u2019 hospitality (Rom 16:23), in the household of Stephanas devoting themselves to the service of the saints (1 Cor 16:15), and in Paul\u2019s exhortation regarding \u201cPhoebe, a servant (diakonon<\/em>) of the church in Cenchrea . . . give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor (prostatis<\/em>) of many people, including me\u201d (Rom 16:1-2). Phoebe was a leader and as a servant-deacon, she may have helped monetarily.<\/p>\nA critical question and needed balance<\/h4>\n
Is the church Jesus founded meant to be an \u201cemerging\u201d experience of an unknown entity; or is Christ\u2019s church to be a dramatic embodiment of the incarnate Christ? The body gathers for edification, learning, and worship. The body scatters to propagate their faith and mission incarnationally as every member is involved in everyday life situations. In this manner, membership and mission are parts of the same process. This is good theology.<\/em>
\nChurch is both a very familiar and very misunderstood reality. Postmodernism has moved the focus from theological understanding to the church\u2019s dynamics of social and cultural connections. The result is that the theological essence of the church is being replaced with a popular fixation on its state of flux or \u201cemerging.\u201d<\/p>\nBut Millard Erickson judiciously warns that the abandoned question of the nature of the church can no longer be delayed. \u201cIt is time to reverse this trend, for if we do not have a clear understanding of the nature of the church, we cannot have a clear understanding of its relationship to these other areas.\u201d I find myself asking what is the connection, if any, between the church of the New Testament era and what is emerging today?<\/p>\n
Erickson forms the critical question for contemporary emergent transformers of pristine Christianity by noting that if the definition of the church is to undergo frequent change in order to relate it to the postmodern world, then in what sense is there continuity with what has preceded? In other words, why continue to call it the church? What is the common thread identifying the church throughout all the changes and times? \u201cIs it not likely that at some point a different term should be applied?\u201d. . . These questions cannot be answered without facing up to the issue of the nature of the church . . . and there is no better place to begin than with the biblical testimony itself.\u201d3<\/sup><\/p>\nThe contemporary house church proliferation<\/h4>\n
Not since nearly 2000 years ago is the simple house church again a phenomenal factor that must be reckoned with. No one can continue to consider it a novel or fringe movement, but must embrace its ancient and deep roots in the history of the church Jesus and the apostles founded.<\/p>\n
By \u201chouse church\u201d I\u2019m not referring to any and every gathering in a home to share happy times and personal experiences and private interpretations failing to meet the apostolic prerequisites\u2014a facile and frivolous group may only reach the level of obtuseness. It reminds me of an old Amish school proverb: \u201cwhen you talk you only repeat what you already know; but if you listen you may learn something.\u201d House church participants may be excited to speak but may have little of significance to say. Studied wisdom is needed and should be learned.<\/p>\n
George Barna\u2019s research is instructive. In North America, nearly 10 percent of Christians attend house churches, or about 20 million. Over all, 70 million have participated in a house church. However, Barna reports that of those who attend a house church, only 27 percent do so weekly, while 30 percent attend one to three times per month, and 43 percent attend less than once a month.<\/p>\n
While 70 percent of Christians (20 million) presently attend traditional churches, Barna predicts that by 2025 this number will drop to only 30-35 percent.4<\/sup> In fact, even now every year one million Christians are leaving the traditional church!<\/p>\nFor the rest of the contemporary story of house church proliferation worldwide, see Chapter 7 \u201cThe Contemporary Worldwide House Church Movement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new church that\u2019s emerged<\/h4>\n
Of course, the new kid-on-the-ecclesial-block is called the emerging church, or more settled, the emergent church. Though it is still difficult to define because of its newness, unsettledness, varied angles and the idea it is emerging, many people still are unsure of the movement.<\/p>\n
Since I earlier wrote about the house church, the emerging movement has quickly developed. Numerous authors analyze and describe its many differing groups, leaders and newly established churches. Postmodern philosophy is integrated into much of the emergent theology. Some of these groups are already megachurches, and house churches also are attracted to the movement. Because of this, I have given extensive attention to the phenomenon in Chapter 9, \u201cPostmodernism & the Emergent Church.\u201d<\/p>\n
The New Testament prototype of the non-emerging house churches<\/h4>\n
The implication that the New Testament house churches form a non-emerging prototype flows out of the apostolic tradition established by Jesus and the apostles. The house church as a working structure for the functioning of the first-century church established by Jesus and his disciples was not, however, given to them as a reported revelation, but more likely by the sitz im leben of the times, i.e., its situation or setting in life of its historical, geographical, social, cultural, and even Jewish heritage as the Older Testament people of God. For background support, see Chapter 2, \u201cThe Renewed People of God in Their Social Context.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jesus not only created the gospel tradition, but he alone established it<\/h4>\n
He thought of himself not only as declaring but also embodying the good news in his message of the coming of the kingdom (Mt 12:28). He was both its message and the messenger.<\/p>\n
Jesus and the apostles\u2019 doctrine<\/h4>\n
Every church group functions on some basis of historical tradition handed down by their earlier leaders. But very little attention has been given to the tradition passed on by the apostles of Jesus Christ. The apostles\u2019 tradition<\/em> is simply all the teachings of Jesus formed into the apostles\u2019 teaching or doctrine so that essential truth and practices are summarized and \u201chanded down\u201d for our understanding, experience and edification.<\/p>\nThese beliefs and practices are the organic embodiment of what and how the apostles taught and prescribed for every church of the first century. Paul even exhorted to \u201cimitate me . . . my way of life in Jesus Christ agrees with what I teach in every church\u201d (1 Cor 4:16-17). Then he adds, \u201cIf anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice\u2014nor do the churches of God\u201d (1 Cor 11:16 TNIV). F. F. Bruce keenly notes that \u201cPaul indeed seems to have attached some importance to preserving a certain measure of uniform practice throughout his churches.\u201d5<\/sup> By reading his letters, this was good theology!<\/p>\nHanding it down\u2014passing it on<\/h4>\n
The first stage of the apostolic tradition began with Jesus \u201chanding down\u201d his teaching to his disciples. Tradition (Greek paradosis<\/em>) is \u201cthat which is handed down\u201d from a teacher to his\/her students or disciples. Jesus placed his own teachings alongside the Scriptures and as an authoritative commentary to it. In his Sermon on the Mount he reiterated, \u201cYou heard it was said . . . but I say.\u201d The apostles also made the claim that their teaching was handed down on the basis of Spirit-guided instruction and eyewitnesses. They understood that their own teaching was handed down from the Lord as authentic \u201ctradition,\u201d and made it clear to their listeners and readers that they themselves were held responsible to heed apostolic teaching as from the Lord. Their testimony is clarified in Jesus\u2019 promise that \u201cwhen the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the parts of the truth . . . and he will declare to you the things that are to come.\u201d Thus, Paul testified that \u201cI received . . . and I handed on to you what I had received\u201d (1 Cor 11:23; 15:3). From the beginning, he urged even the earliest brothers and sisters to \u201cstand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were [just
\nrecently] taught\u201d (2 Thess 2:15).<\/p>\n