This 520 page monster of a book by Rad Zdero is for serious scholars. It is a compilation of articles from over 35 leaders, practitioners and academics from around the world. The book contains sections on the origin of house churches, house church movements throughout history, house church movements today (2007) and practical lessons on starting a house church. The excerpt below is from a chapter entitled Constantine’s Revolution: The Shift From House Churches to the Cathedral Church (AD 300 and Beyond)
In the first century AD, a mere 40 days after his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ entered the heavenly realm to sit at the right hand of Power. After three long years of public ministry, punctuated by victories and challenges, he left a noble commission of making disciples of all nations to his small motley crew of followers. Yet, not many years later, first century believers had become known as those that had turned the world upside down. They were able to make good strides in their journey of spreading the message of Christ to the then-known world through the empowerment that they received from the Spirit of God. In the process, they birthed new communities of faith in new linguistic, cultural, and geographic soil. Their preferred strategy initially forged by the apostles themselves-was that of an expanding network of simple, small, reproducible, grassroots house churches, as borne out by even the briefest survey of Scripture and described in detail by scholars. These home-based and house-sized groups were characterized by Spirit-led participatory meetings, consensus decision-making, the Lord’s Supper as a full meal, baptism of adults immediately upon profession of faith, co-equal teams of unpaid leaders, and recognition of apostolic teachings and practices as authoritative in all respects. House churches were networked together through occasional citywide meetings and by traveling apostolic teams that circulated from group-to-group and city-to-city.
In the second and third centuries, the Jesus movement continued to expand its influence through the faithful witness of its adherents. Bright minds, brave hearts, and able hands were put to the task of preaching the gospel, healing the sick, casting out demons, clothing the naked, fighting false teachings, and facing both sword and flame, believers preferring to die for Christ rather for living for Ceaser.
Many spiritual giants emerged during this era, especially those collectively known as the Early Church Fathers. Ignatius of Antioch (c.35.-c.107) wrote seven powerful letters to the churches while being taken by soldiers to Rome where he was literally thrown to the lions in the Coliseum.
Justin Martyr (c.100-c.165), a one time pagan philosopher, turned to Christ and thereafter used his verbal and written skills in rationally defending the Christian faith against skeptical philosophers, antagonistic governors, argumentative rabbis, and so-called Gnostic Christians, eventually being scourged and beheaded for his beliefs.
Cyprian of Carthage (d.258), a pagan rhetorician who converted to Christianity only 12 years before his martyrdom, became an important Christian leader whose writings influenced thinking on the nature of the church, Christian leadership, and the sacraments. These are but a few of the characters in a long line of Christian martyrs, thinkers, and influencers.
Yet, subtle shifts began to creep in amongst the churches. The Early Church Fathers, whose sincerity should not be doubted, nevertheless, advocated for moves away from apostolic approaches, toward a more institutionalized understanding of the church. These shifts included the development of clergy who were distinct from the ordinary so-called lay Christian, a hierarchical approach to one-man leadership, formality in worship meetings, a pre-baptism probationary period for adults, the beginning of infant baptism, the observance of special holy days, a gradual
rejection of miracles and spiritual gifts, and a rigidity in doctrine.Doubtless, some of the centralization and control were well-meaning responses by the Early Church Fathers to the external challenges posed by heretical fringe groups that were gaining momentum (e.g. the Gnostics) and Roman imperial policies that vacillated between grudging tolerance (e.g. emperor Trajan) and outright persecution (e.g. emperors Decius, Gallus, Valerian, and Diocletian) of the Christian faithful.
To be sure, there were similar challenges that even the first century churches faced, which the letters of the apostles often addressed and which Jesus himself denounced in the book of Revelation. However, the apostles eventually died and were not able to check these tendencies personally in later generations.
This was all merely a preparation phase for the coming full-fledged institutionalization of Christianity under the emperor Constantine in the early fourth century AD, which finally displaced the early grassroots house churches with ‘The Cathedral Church’. This institutionalization, as we shall see, affected the church’s freedom, faith, form, and function.
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