LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

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24 LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW IX C. Robert Hogg, Jr is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary, St. Catharines, Ontario.
LTR IX (Academic Year 1996-97) 25-31 A PROGENY OF A THEOLOGICAL AND MISSIOLOGICAL UNION: HOUSE CHURCHES 1 Glenn E. Schaeffer If you asked, “Where is the church” in any important city of the ancient world where Christianity had penetrated in the first century, you would have been directed to a group of worshipping people gathered in a house church. There was no special building or other tangible wealth with which to associate “church,” only people! 2 Walter Oetting’s words may surprise the Christian of the twentieth century who lives in a world dotted with towering temples, baronial basilicas, cyclopean cathedrals, comely churches, and charming chapels. The truth of the matter is this: for the first two and a half centuries after Pentecost (Acts 2), the Christian house served as a post for missionary activity in an urban centre. The Christian home served as the centre where God’s chosen people would be spiritually fortified through catechesis, sacramental worship and Christian hospitality. The Gospel of Christ spread across the Roman Empire through the planting of house churches. Many scholars assert Christians worshipped in house churches in the two hundred years following our Lord’s ascension because of their poverty, paucity, persecution, 3 and eschatological expectations. 4 These assertions cannot be denied, but one might counter, using an analogy of fertility, that house churches were the natural progeny of a theological and missiological union. This paper will try briefly to explain the theological and missiological “seed” that birthed this baby called “the house church”. The first theological “seed” we must consider is christological. The house church is the offspring of an antitypical fulfilment of the Old Testament temple worship and sacrificial worship in the person of Jesus 1 This paper was first presented at a Mission Convocation held at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN, on 23 February 1994. 2 Walter Oetting, The Church of the Catacombs (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1964) 24. 3 J. G. Davies, The Secular Use of Church Buildings (New York: The Seabury Press, 1968) 1-9. 4 See Robert M. Grant, Early Christianity and Society (New York: Harper & Row, 1977) 146; Metosalem Castillo, The Church in Thy House (Metro Manila, Philippines: Alliance Publishers, Inc., 1982) 53-54; Vincent Branick, The House Church in the Writings of Paul, Zaccheus Studies: New Testament (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1989) 14; Massey H. Shepherd, Jr, ed., Worship in Scripture and Tradition. Essays by Members of the Theological Commission on Worship (North American Section) of the Commission on Faith and Order of the WCC (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963) 141-42.
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