LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

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.