As an independent 18 year old, living away from my comfortable farm life, I was fortunate to have a great spiritual mentor. Instead of just feeding me information he asked questions. One of the things I appreciated most about Gardner’s book is the questions he asks throughout. Referencing the subtitle, are we truly Living in Simplicity and Purity to Christ as God’s Family? The question caused me to reflect and ask myself if I’m actually doing this in my complex and tumultuous world. Sometimes we get too busy or distracted to embrace simplicity, much less purity. I’ve been there recently and I confess that this book has helped me repeatedly turn my head and heart back to Jesus, back to reflecting on His teachings.
This book also does a very good job talking about the organic nature of gathering together.
The body of Christ is an organism and grows in an organic way…the main thing is to realize that Christ is the Guest of honor and will direct the meeting through the Holy Spirit.
An organization is built by men who have the natural talents to do so, however an organism’s growth is expressed by Paul;
…the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
Ephesians 4:16
One of my favorite chapters is New Wineskins for New Wine. Garner writes about the revivals in the 70s when young people were supernaturally transformed by the Holy Spirit. New wineskins were formed but in most cases this new life was corralled by old wineskins. Ultimately the revival was stifled and faded into history. Many can look back in sadness and regret but the author creates a great expectation for what the future holds and points out that we are already seeing the first fruits. Here is an excerpt from that chapter.
The church must find a way to allow for the passion of the young and the wisdom of the old to both take place in our gatherings and communication with one another. We have allowed the world’s way of separating young from old to invade our churches. As an older person, I need the passion the young people around me exhibit and I must say also that they need the wisdom that I and other older people have to share. The old tend to judge the lack of experience of the young and look down on their new ways of expression and the young tend to discredit the wisdom we older ones have gained by the experiences of life. We need both. The older ones have lived their lives and have gained experience but find it hard sometimes to pass it on to the young without sounding condescending. The young believers sometimes dismiss the older ones because they value their new experiences as much more “cool” than those of the old. This must change because we need the passion of the young coupled with the wisdom of the old to bring a godly balance. We need to learn from one another in genuine fellowship where the young are recognized and the old are respected. Families function this way and we are the family of God (1 Tim 3:15).
The book concludes with a reminder of the times and how a reset is needed to provide a way for us to find hope and courage for the future. The church must transition from a program-orientated organization to a family-loving organism all on a journey to become His bride. I finished this book extremely encouraged. Just reading the chapter titles will surely make you want to put this book on your reading list. This final excerpt is from Chapter 13: It’s Time To Be Believers.
I have noticed something that I call “the empty stare of unbelief.” I see it in the eyes of Christians who for some reason cannot believe in things that are clearly revealed as the will of God in His word. When I tell a story of someone who was healed or speak about God speaking to us through revelation, or some other wonderful blessing, I often see this stare in the eyes of my listeners. As you read one of the Gospels, imagine how different the account would be without the faith that many people possessed. Imagine the woman with the blood hemorrhage not believing and missing the words of Jesus, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.” (Luke 8:48). Imagine the blind beggar whose sight was restored and was able to hear Jesus say to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well” (Luke 18:42). They believed and received these blessings and there are many other accounts in God’s word with the same happy ending. How much we miss in unbelieving America because we bow down to secularism and its comrades. We are like Nazareth where it is said “He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He wondered at their unbelief” ( Mark 6:5, 6). They could not believe and so missed out on the blessings that could have come from the ministry of the Lord of the universe. Their unbelief blocked the Lord from moving in power in that city. What a shame! The theme of this book concerning church life issuing from simplicity and purity cannot be realized by mere human cleverness. It must come from a living faith in God who inspired His word from which faith flows.
Highly recommended book by Robert and Julia Banks. About 260 pages, this will take some time to get through, but it’s well worth the effort. The following excerpt is so important, I hope you read this and commit yourselves to loving your new family members “for better or for worse”.
Paul frequently spoke of the church as a family. Comparing the church to the human body stresses the interconnectedness of the members and the importance of allowing room for them to minister to one another. The family analogy emphasizes the quality of members’ relationships and their care for one another. In congregations today family terms are used loosely. Members refer to their church as “a family” or “the family of God” when most have only a limited knowledge of one another-like those advertisements for various firms that project their mass market of customers as members of one large, happy family. In other congregations family terms are used in a purely spiritual sense. The bridge between members carries only religious traffic.
Paul not only used family language as his primary vehicle of expression regarding the church but he used it on a number of levels.
-NT churches-whether in smaller or larger gatherings-met primarily in people’s homes (Acts 2:43; 16:40; 20:8; Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 16:19; Col 4:15; Phlm 2).
-Paul and other apostles founded their churches primarily on converted households (Acts 11:14; 16:15, 25-34; 18:18).
-The church in the home was the basic building block of the congregation (Rom 16:23; 1 Cor 11:18, 33).
-The bond between church members is similar to that between family members (Rom 16:2, 13; Gal 1:2; 4:19; Col 4:9; Phlm 10; etc.).
-Congregations are described directly as the household of God (Gal 6:10; 1 Tim 3:15; Eph 2:19; etc.).
-The central activities of these churches were familial in character (1 Thess 5:26; Rom 12:9-10; 1 Cor 11:33).
-Ministry-whether by resident members-or visiting members-was basically modeled on a Christ-centered form of ministry exercised in the family (1 Cor 16:15; 1 Tim 3:4; 5:1-2).
So there are multiple ways in which the church is a home based, homemade, homelike affair. It can be argued that these days it is not always helpful to draw an analogy between the church and the family; so many families are abusive or dysfunctional that often people do not know what a good family is. We should remember, however, that families in the first century were just as ambiguous, if in different ways, and that the early Christians transformed the model of family life so that they could make use of it. This meant that in the best instances members became ideal fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters to one an other. Their authentic relationships developed out of their belonging to a common family, with all the resulting privileges, responsibilities, and rewards. This heightened sense of family included physical, psychological, social, and material dimensions. Members were to greet one another as a family with a holy kiss. They were to treat each other as a family by expressing affection for one another. They were to eat together on a regular basis, as a family. They were to love and care for one another, as a family should.
For some early Christians the church family replaced the original family that they had lost upon conversion. For others relationships in their churches restored or deepened the family bonds that already existed. In either case Paul intended that believers maintained a real involvement in each others’ lives that was based on a serious commitment to one another.
What difference would it make today if members of a congregation, like the members of a family, committed themselves seriously to loving one another “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health”? We may not live under the same roof, but, according to Paul, when I join with you in a church, I am to take care of you and you are to take care of me. You become my responsibility and I become yours. Both of us have, as Martin Luther put it, a responsibility “to become to each other what Christ is to us.”
This book by Tony and Felicity Dale is an easy read at about 115 pages. The excerpt below comes from a chapter entitled You in Your Small Corner and I in Mine and talks about sharing ourselves with others.
It is hard to enjoy any sense of “community” when we see each other a couple of times a week for an hour or so, at the most. It is wonderful when Christians, desiring to share their lives in more meaningful ways, begin to so order their priorities that they can spend time together.
In the New Testament, the believers not only shared their time but also their possessions. None of them said that anything they had was their own, but they shared everything. Many years ago, we were challenged by A. W. Tozer’s five vows, one of which was that we were never to own anything. This means that the Lord can do what He wants with my possessions. If He asks me to give something away, it is not mine to hold on to. The principle here is stewardship rather than ownership. I need to take good care of the things that are entrusted to me. I may need to think twice before lending out my possessions to people who I know will not return them in as good or better shape than they received them. But apart from that, my material goods are not my own. Think how many resources could be released into the kingdom if we shared, for example, our power tools, our lawn mowers, or our cars.
I (Felicity) will never forget another blessing that came our way. We were newly married and one of the people in the student church that we had helped to pioneer decided that we needed a car. Unbeknownst to us, she worked for the whole summer, and then presented us with her entire earnngs. Imagine how surprised we were, how unworthy we felt, but also what an incredible blessing it was! And looking back on what that car enabled us to do as newly married students in a busy medical school context, I can see that we were able to touch many more people because of the travel time saved. She really had made her gift to Christ, and we were enabled by her generosity to live our lives more effectively for the kingdom.
Sharing ourselves is often the most difficult thing to do. Paul could say in I Thessalonians 2:8, “We loved you so much that we gave you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too.” In our culture it is not acceptable to show weakness. We all go around wearing masks. We wear the mask of a bright smile and “everything’s fine,” when actually our marriage is falling apart. Or maybe we don’t know how we are going to put food on the table this week, or we are scared that our kids are going out control, or we feel so depressed we don’t know if we are going to make it through the day. The contrast to what has become the norm is illustrated by a passage such as I John 1:7 that tells us “if we are living in the light of God’s presence, just as Christ is, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from every sin.” There is a transparency here, a willingness to let others see us as we truly are. Openness of this sort does make one liable to be hurt at times, but all loving relationships have the potential of causing hurt. Those we love the most have the greater capacity to hurt us. Does this mean that I won’t accept love because I refuse to risk hurt? Jesus loved us so much that He laid down His life for us. Love covers a multitude of sins. It also builds us up into a living demonstration of the body of Christ.
Do we feel safe sharing our innermost selves with a trusted brother or sister? It can take a lot of courage. Or from the other side, are we able to respect confidences and to love unconditionally without judging? The book of I John is full of passages that talk about the need for us to love one another. Time and again it asks how you can love God, whom you cannot see, if you do not love your brother. Our love for God is to be measured by our love for our brothers and sisters.
Are we prepared to rise up to the challenge of meeting the New Testament standard of building our church on relationships rather than just attending meetings or being part of the program? Are we willing to be inconvenienced in our personal lives to do this? Are we prepared to take the children of the single mom for a day so that she can get some time off, or to take time to visit the person who is sick or in prison?
In John 13:35 it says that the world will know that we are His disciples when we love one another. Is it currently that surprising that not only the world, but even many Christians are dropping out of involvement with the church because they cannot find any real relationships there?
This book by Travis Kolder is about 65 pages and easy to read. As the title suggests, it encourages people to take a step of faith to begin the journey into true fellowship. The excerpt below is from a chapter entitled Calling Forth the Women. The excerpt may be a bit long but it’s an important topic, we need women fully functioning in our gatherings.
For those women who have grown up in the church, one of the big questions isn’t whether they want to but whether they believe Jesus and the church wants them to be involved in this process. Many have grown up in a church culture that only allowed men to do most things, especially related to leadership, while the women were left to care for the kids and teach women’s Bible studies.
This is a huge discrepancy from what the New Testament teaches. You will be hard-pressed to find stories in the New Testament of women just tending the house and the kids. Yes, they did that, but they also did much, much more.
Let’s start with Jesus. While we know that Jesus had twelve male disciples who followed him around, we also know that women played a significant part in his ministry. He had no regular job and no home to speak of. His travel seemed to be funded at least in part by a group of women who he’d significantly impacted: “Soon afterward Jesus began a tour of the nearby towns and villages, preaching and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom of God. He took his twelve disciples with him, along with some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Among them were Mary Magdalene, from whom he cast out seven demons; Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s business manager; Susanna; and many others who were contributing from their own resources to support Jesus and his disciples” (Luke 8:1-3). The women who had encountered Jesus and were changed by him were traveling with him and helping finance his ministry.
Jesus also seemed to have a strong relationship with Mary and Martha of Bethany along with their brother Lazarus. Martha was known for taking care of the house and hosting Jesus and his disciples. In one story, Martha attempts to rebuke Mary for not helping her tend the house. Jesus’s response to Martha is that Mary had chosen the good part, something that would never be taken from her. What was Mary doing? Was she sitting starry-eyed, looking at Jesus and thinking of a restful, spiritual state in heaven? Was she just being “so heavenly minded that she was no earthly good?” No! Luke tells us that Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what he taught” (Luke 10:39). She was positioning herself in the place of a full-fledged, participating disciple. She saw her place in God’s kingdom and prioritized that over the typical domestic concerns and even restrictions that parts of Christianity assign to women.
Need more examples? Jesus’s birth starts with a holy, humble virgin who says yes to an angel who came with a mysterious message (Luke 1:38). His ministry begins as that same woman, now older, insists her miracle son do something about the party that ran out of wine (John 2:1-12). He spent an unprecedented amount of time speaking of the kingdom to one woman at a well by herself, partly because he loved and cared for her and partly because she was key to reaching a whole Samaritan village (John 4:1-42). Mary Magdalene was the first person Jesus sent to others to announce the news of his resurrection.
Yes, Jesus mostly taught with and worked with his male disciples. So while these stories of women don’t demand our focus, the fact is that they do exist. This should cause us to stop and re-evaluate if we’ve sold Jesus short on what he would allow a woman to do in the name of expanding the kingdom.
Jesus’s disciples continued his inclusion of women in church ministry. Women were part of the prayer meeting that preceded the arrival of the Holy Spirit in the upper room (Acts 1:14). They believed that their “daughters [would] prophesy” (Acts 2:17), and they did (Acts 21:9). A woman named Tabitha had a ministry serving the poor and others (Acts 9:36). Her illness, death, and resurrection became the basis for the spread of the gospel throughout her region. Now, this would happen with who died and was resurrected, but she was well-known in the city for her service to others. Other women who came to Christ opened doors for significant ministry in an area. God opened the heart of a woman like Lydia (Acts 16:11-40) or God-fearing women in Thessalonica (Acts 17:4).
Let’s not forget, either, that the apostles also traveled in teams with their wives, which Paul says that Peter, the other apostles, and the Lord’s brothers did (1 Corinthians 9:5). Now, in the West, when we think of women traveling with their husbands in ministry, we think of hotel rooms, airline flights, and luxury. This was not the New Testament understanding of apostolic travel. It was a hardship with the potential to be robbed, left out in the cold, or even die. These women who traveled with their husbands were not treated to a luxury trip; they were responsible for participating in the hardships of ministry with their husbands.
Paul wrote of a similar reality. His letters to the churches were filled with acknowledgments of his female co-laborers. Phoebe was a servant of the church in Cenchrea (Romans 16:1). Paul uses the word “deacon” to describe her role, which is elsewhere in the New Testament used to describe Paul himself, Timothy, Apollos, and other members of his apostolic team. In that same letter, he acknowledges Priscilla, the wife of Aquila, as a co-laborer (Romans 16:3). He recognized Mary as a hard worker for them, which actually meant that she was a co-laborer in the gospel. Junia was a woman who was highly respected among the apostles and possibly even considered an apostle herself (Romans 16:7). He also acknowledged Tryphena and Tryphosa, whom he calls the Lord’s workers, and Persis, whom he says had worked hard for the Lord (Romans 16:12).
This wasn’t just a unique situation in Rome. In many places where Paul greets the church by name, he names women who were helping him spread the gospel. The letter to Philemon is also addressed to Apphia, a woman and possibly Philemon’s wife, in Philemon 1:2. In Philippians 4, he appealed to Euodia and Syntyche to reconcile with each other, but, in the process acknowledged that each of them “worked hard with [him] in telling others the Good News” (Philippians 4:2-3). In his letter to the Colossians, Paul greets Nympha and the church that met at her house (Colossians 4:15).
One of the clearest examples of a woman working to host and mother a church in the New Testament comes from the book of 2 John. This book is written to the chosen lady and her children. Commentators are split as to whether they believe this was a literal woman or an image for a church that had many disciples (children) because the whole letter involved church matters. I believe both are true. John wrote to a real woman who was likely a natural and spiritual mother. The church that probably met in her home was an extension of her family, so while the letter was sent to a literal person (a woman) and her children (probably both natural and spiritual), these matters were to be handled as a church, because they were a church. The entire book of 2 John was written to a church most likely started and hosted by a woman.
This book by John C. Fenn is about 114 pages and is an easy read. It gives practical and spiritual advice on starting and maintaining house church. The excerpt below is about relationships.
One of our house churches, the leaders had sat at home for about seven or eight weeks and realized that they couldn’t do that forever and they started thinking who they knew who had stopped going to church. They called those people and said let’s get together for a meal, a time for prayer and some worship and visit and that is how that house church was born. Oftentimes it is very natural.
We’re not trying to build a network. We’re building relationships. Networking is just a natural result of getting to know one another. A house church meets with purpose. It is more than a Bible study; it is more than just a prayer meeting. It is people who will commit to one another with purpose to meet week in and week out and to truly do what it takes to become the body of Christ, to grow in the Lord. It is all about discipleship. It is not a Bless Me Club; it is all about discipleship.
It is that commitment to look outward and become like Christ and grow in Christ. Look for people who are on that same spiritual page. That is when you call them and say, hey, come on over, let’s pray, let’s have a Bible study, let’s talk about this; and you walk through it and you talk through it. You will find as time goes on that people will say things like, wow, you guys meet in living rooms? Wow, that is what I’m looking for, something where the Lord can just move! And, here is the thing: trust the Lord and he will take care of it. He will do it.
And, again I want to make the point that the house is not the point, it is the relationships. The house and the home is where the family lives. It flows out of the family. Let’s look at where most of the New Testament people in house church came from. And we can see this in a couple of scriptures.
In John 1:40-42, it says “one of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon, and said unto him, we have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jonas: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, a stone.” And that was their first meeting.
Andrew introduced his brother Peter to Jesus. And, Andrew introduced Simon, his brother to Jesus. And right after that it says Philip found his friend Nathaniel. And Jesus said to Nathaniel, I saw you sitting under the fig tree, here comes an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. And he said you don’t even know me. And Jesus said, no, I saw you sitting under the fig tree before Philip called you. Philip, it says, was of the same town as Peter and Andrew.
And, so what you have is Andrew introducing his brother, so that means family is the first connection in biblical house church. And, 2) Philip found his friend Nathaniel; they were of the same community; so neighbors and community is the second group. And then in Luke 5:10, we are told that Peter is a partner in a fishing business with two guys, James and John. Of course, they all left the boats to follow Jesus. But, they were business partners.
So, there is 1) family, 2) friends/community and then 3) co-workers. And that is the basis. If you look through the Book of Acts at the end of Paul’s letters where he greets people, these three elements are consistent with the biblical house church: family, friends and co-workers; and friends include neighbors. So if you want to go to four, it is family, friends, neighbors and co-workers are found in John 1 and Luke 5:10.
This book by Roger Thoman is only 60 pages and easy to read. I have included a short excerpt below. You can download this for free here.
Coming together, for Jesus-followers, is really as easy as, well, coming together. The Bible does not provide us with an outline or order of service because we are his people, coming together with his love and purposes on his heart, for his glory, and with his leading. As such, times together can involve anything and everything from eating to praying, from sharing life’s journeys to crying with each other, from studying scripture to listening in silence, from laughing together to ministering in spiritual gifts, from talking and more eating to prophesying and teaching.
When people ask this question, “what do we do when we get together?” I like to encourage them to think through two scriptures, initially, that speak to this question.
The first has already been mentioned: 1 Corinthians 14:26 says “When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation.”
The second is Acts 2:42: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Notice, again, this is not an order of service, simply a broad record of what God’s people tend to do when they gather. The four elements of Acts 2:42 provide some guidelines for gatherings, but the Holy Spirit wants to be the one leading and controlling our agenda. When we get together, it is a supernatural gathering with God in our midst.
As Felicity Dale said, “If we will learn to hear and follow His promptings, we will never have a boring meeting.”
Because we have learned, in the past, to have certain people lead our gatherings, moving into Spirit-led, participatory gatherings can be a daunting endeavor. The way to learn is to do it. Make mistakes. Learn some more. Don’t give up. Every person is a minister, and when we capture that in our times together it is incredibly rewarding. The body of Christ can reflect him in wonderful and varied ways when fully unleashed to do so.
This article is from Jon Zens and discusses how the early church survived and thrived without the New Testament. If you’ve been involved in house church, you’ve most likely experienced people wanting, almost demanding to be taught the Word. I call it the “need to feed” syndrome. Some people even refer to house church as Bible study; they clearly don’t understand the purpose of the gathering. Perhaps this article will help.
The Need to Feed
If people think of a group of believers gathered together, they picture folks sitting in chairs or pews with Bibles in their laps. We need to remember, however, that when the earliest Christ-followers assembled they had no Bibles. In AD 30-50 no one can deny the amazing and unprecedented power of the Lord that was manifested as the Gospel advanced from Jerusalem into the Gentile world. Yet all of this took place without any printed Bibles. In light of this, when we consider “disciplines” we must remember that the earliest church was driven by Life– divine life that led them to abide in/rest in Jesus, to pursue Him in daily life, and to express Him to unbelievers and in fellowship with other believers. “Those who believe in Me will have rivers of living water flowing out of their innermost being” (John 7:38).
The writings the populace saw in the First Century were persons: “You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on your hearts, to be known and read by everyone; and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor. 3:2-3).
Without question, many of the points I will make have been stated well by others. But it might be that the Lord has enabled me – especially in the past several years – to put some pieces together in a way that will be striking and gripping to your hearts. I pray that you will be impressed by the fact that when we speak of “renewal” in the Body of Christ, it is clearly not a question of uncovering something that has been missing, but rather a matter of unleashing Christ in us, who is already there!
I have a request to make of you. I know it is impossible for us to do this in actuality, but please try to use your imagination and transport yourself into a First Century gathering of saints. There you are, most likely in the home of a more well-to-do family or brother/sister. You are surrounded by people who have come out of the town synagogue and the pagan culture – Jews and Gentiles, now part of the New Humanity Jesus created by his death and resurrection. Back then there were no churchy accoutrements, and most notably for our purposes today – no Bible.
Let’s step back for a moment and think about what led up to Christ expressing himself in unbelievable ways through ekklesias all over the known-world during the period of AD 30-70. How did the Body of Christ function in this admittedly glorious blossoming of His presence on earth?
In John 14-16 Jesus revealed to his disciples that he would be exiting the earth and returning to the Father. But he promised that he would not leave them as orphans. After his leaving he would send the Holy Spirit to dwell in them. Jesus specifically noted that the sending of the Spirit would be a coming of himself – “I am coming to you” (John 14:18). This was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost – “[Jesus] has poured out this which you see and hear” (Acts 2:33). Thus, the coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost was in fact the coming of Christ to dwell in his Bride.
What was the social make-up of those coming into Messiah’s community? The gap between the few wealthy and many poor was very wide. Most people in the First Century would be considered “lower class.” For sure, there was a 94% illiteracy rate in Jesus’ day – even in Judaism. As James D.G. Dunn points out, “the probability is that the great majority of Galileans, including the great majority of those who followed Jesus, were technically illiterate” (Jesus, Paul & the Gospels, p. 9; cf. p.22). When Peter and John were hauled before the Jewish officials, isn’t it remarkable that these leaders were astonished because “these two are unlettered and without expertise,” and “they recognized that Peter and John had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).
Thus the society surrounding the early church was an oral culture. It is imperative for us to fully realize that the first believers carried out their new lives in Christ with no Bible. The brothers and sisters did not have American Bible Society New Testaments tucked in the pockets of their attire! “For five centuries,” Dunn notes, “we have been accustomed to the benefits of printing. Our minds are print-dominated. We have a literary mind-set. We think in terms of information typically conveyed in writing and by reading. We think more naturally of the reader reading as an individual than of the audience learning only by what it hears” (Jesus, Paul & the Gospels, p. 9).
Jon Zens
How, then, did the earliest brothers and sisters function without any written documents? Exactly as Christ did – by hearing from Father and following his leading. Listen to Jesus’ own words about how he lived each day:
There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him on the last day. For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say (John 12:47-50)…Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father living in me who is doing his work…If you love me, you will do what I command (14:10,15)…Jesus replied, If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me (14:23-24)…I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them (17:6-8).
We can see a basic pattern from these words as to how Christ lived out his short life on earth: listening to Father, hearing Father, seeing (perceiving) what Father is saying, speaking as he gives utterance, and doing his bidding. As the Father was to Christ, so Christ is now to us. We listen to and hear from Christ which results in revelation (seeing), and then we speak and do his pleasure.
The early believers had no Bible, but they had that which was most important – Christ in them by the Holy Spirit. Can you contemplate living your daily life in Christ without a Bible? Yet that was the reality in the First Century when it cannot be denied that the most unprecedented growth and expression in the ekklesias occurred. The early church was not text-driven, but Life-driven – believers were living letters expressing the Christ in them by the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 3).
Without any Bibles, what would a group of believers in the First Century share and talk about with each other? The answer is simple – Christ! Recall John’s amazing summary remarks about what our Lord did on while on earth: “And many other signs indeed did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book…And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if every one of them was written down, I would imagine that even the world itself could not contain the books that would need to be written” (John 20:30; 21:25).
James Dunn comments on the development of how Jesus came to be the “talk of the town,” so to speak:
Jesus’ teaching was given orally; it began orally…We can safely assume that the news about Jesus was initially passed around orally. The stories about Jesus would no doubt have been the subject of many a conversation in bazaars and around campfires. The disciples of Jesus no doubt spoke about what they had seen Jesus do, and about his teaching. This would have been the beginning of the Jesus tradition. It would be celebrated and meditated on in groups of his followers in oral terms (Jesus, Paul & the Gospels, p. 23).
In light of the vast, infinite person of Christ unveiled in Colossians 1:13-20, and the inexhaustible life that he fulfilled on earth, how could the saints ever run out of praise, adoration – and any other type of content – concerning their dear Savior, Redeemer and Husband? Also, of course, there were believers who came from synagogue backgrounds who could talk about Jesus from what they had heard every Sabbath from Moses and the prophets.
Here is an important fact that few have pondered: The first letter from Paul to an ekklesia occurred around AD 50 – the book of Galatians. That’s about twenty years after the Day of Pentecost. Look at all the wondrous work the Lord did in building his ekklesias for about twenty years without any New Covenant writings! Of course, problems surfaced as time elapsed and letters were written to respond to the needs. These were read to an assembly, and perhaps passed on to other ekklesias.
Have you ever thought about the fact that there were very likely ekklesias that never received a letter from an apostle, and may have never, or rarely, heard epistles to other groups read to them?
How much of what we call the “New Testament” did believers living in AD 65 ever hear read aloud in a gathering, or hear about from other saints? Is it not highly probable that a majority of Christ-followers between the years AD 50 to AD 70 had never heard of or knew about many of the twenty-seven writings we designate as the “New Testament”?
Let’s consider one huge implication that flows out of the previous paragraph. 1 Timothy was written around AD 62-63. This letter was written to a specific person, not an assembly. Obviously, Timothy would then process Paul’s concerns with reference to the ekklesia in Ephesus. Now how many believers between AD 62 to AD 100 would have even known about the existence of 1 Timothy 2:11-12 – verses that in subsequent post-apostolic times were used to marginalize women? We perhaps assume that the entire early church was somewhat familiar with the “New Testament” writings, but that simply was not the case.
Where Were the Written Documents?
Until AD 50 the only written scriptures were the scrolls of the “Old Testament.” These scrolls were kept in the synagogues and controlled by the Jewish hierarchy. The Jewish rank-and-file knew of Moses, the Psalms and the Prophets orally. “Their knowledge of the Torah did not come from personal copies which each had, as would be the case today…For the great majority, Torah knowledge came from hearing it read to them by the minority who could read, Sabbath by Sabbath in the synagogue” (Dunn, Jesus, Paul & the Gospels, p. 23).
A rare exception can be seen in Acts 8:26-35. The Ethiopian eunuch was returning home from Jerusalem, and was reading out loud from some scrolls from Isaiah. He, as the treasurer for Kandake, was a wealthy man and was somehow able to purchase all or part of Isaiah. But such a luxury was far out of reach for the average person.
It is very possible that all of the New Testament was written before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 (cf. John A.T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, Wipf & Stock, 2001, 384 pp.).
From roughly AD 250 onwards copies of the NT documents were in the hands of the bishops and the developing church hierarchy that became the Roman Catholic Church. Just as in First Century Judaism when the OT scrolls were controlled by the synagogue leaders, so in post-apostolic times the NT documents were controlled by the clergy. In both contexts the “laypeople” had virtually no access to the written documents.
Jerome translated the Bible into Latin in the late Fourth Century. This translation was “the Bible” until the 1500’s. Illiteracy was still very high, of course, from AD 400 to AD 1500, so the scriptures still were in the possession of the church hierarchy.
With the invention of the printing press, however, the Bible began to be translated into other languages. Luther did a German translation. Wycliffe and Tyndale did English translations. Some possibility emerged for the common people to read the Scriptures for themselves, but to “own” a Bible was still a luxury few could enjoy. (Cf., F.F. Bruce, History of the Bible in English).
Concluding Thoughts
One New Testament scholar, Carl Cosaert, makes the claim that “the early church was a ‘text’ driven religion and that fact should be noted” (“The Reliability of the New Testament Scriptures,” Part 2, Ministry, November, 2011, p. 23). In light of our survey of certain First Century realities in the early church period of AD 30-70, I do not understand how he can make that claim. As far as I can tell, the early church was Christ-driven. It was the indwelling life of Christ in believers that accounts for the vibrancy of the first generation saints. In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul affirms that believers are the living letters that are “known and read by all people…having been inscribed not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God; not in stone tablets, but in fleshy tablets of beating hearts” (vv. 2-3).
It has long been the case that outward Christianity was identified as a “religion of the Book.” But that was certainly not the case in the First Century. Can we begin to grasp the fact that during the period of AD 30-70 when Christ’s ekklesias burst into life all over the Roman Empire, the only explanation for their unparalleled vitality was that Christ’s life-giving ministry was continuing through his Body on earth, not that they were glued to “the Bible” – which simply did not exist at that time. Lloyd Gardner notes in this regard:
With this explosive beginning to the church, one hears no mention of several things. There was no church building, no pastor, no organized meetings, no worship team, no sermons and no statements of doctrine, no evangelism programs, bulletins or order of worship…They were walking together in the glorious light of the resurrected Christ who was alive in them and in their midst (The Heresy of Diotrephes, Eleizer Call Ministries, 2007, pp. 168-169).
In the providence of God, Bibles are now plentiful for many people in the world. We are free to ask the Lord to reveal Jesus to us as we read and meditate in all the Scriptures. But we need to soberly remember that the vast majority of believers since the Day of Pentecost have been without personal Bibles. How did they make it through life? The only answer is that Christ was in them and the Holy Spirit took the things of Christ and disclosed them to His people all over the earth.
I would encourage us to consciously focus on Christ in our use of the Bible and that our seeking of the Lord would result in relationships with unbelievers and fellow believers. One central thing our study of Scripture should reveal to us is that we need community – “exhort one another daily lest you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:13). For example, when we reflect on Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 5-7, we all feel our inability to measure up. But the “difficulty” of His teachings are intended to show us that we need others in our lives. Stanley Hauerwas astutely pointed out:
To live in the manner described in [Matt. 5-7] requires learning to trust in others to help me so live. In other words, the object of [Matt. 5-7] is to create dependence; it is to force us to need one another. All the so-called hard sayings…are designed to remind us that we cannot live without depending on the support and trust of others…All of these [hard sayings] are surely impossible for isolated individuals (Unleashing the Scripture, Abington Press, 1993, pp. 64, 69, 70).
The Scriptures are meant to be contemplated and acted upon in the context of discipleship in the believing community.
Is it possible that we lean too much on methods and programs in hopes of seeing the Spirit’s power, when the early church experienced such power without all the religious resources at our disposal? Philip Yancey asked in 2004, “Why, with no apparent resources, do Chinese churches thrive?” He went on to say, “In the 1970’s an underground house church movement sprang up as if by spontaneous generation . . . . Before going to China I met with one of the missionaries who had been expelled in 1950. He said, ‘We felt so sorry for the church we left behind…They had no one to teach them, no printing presses, no seminaries, no one to run their clinics and orphanages. No resources, really, except the Holy Spirit.’ It appears the Holy Spirit is doing just fine” (“Discreet and Dynamic,” Christianity Today, July, 2004, 48:7, p. 72).
Jesus assured the precious lady at the well that it was not about special places, temples, days and times, but about genuine worship of the Lord in Spirit and Truth (John 4:20-24). Or, as Paul put it, “You have the Spirit, now walk in the Spirit…I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 5:25; 2:20).
This powerful message is the second excerpt from the book unchurching by Ricard Jacobson.
Maybe the reason we do not recognize the true cost of today’s church model is because when we turn the church into an organization, we start to think like an organization-we begin measuring success in worldly terms, not spiritual terms. The standard of success becomes the size of our church budget, the scale of our next building project, and the number of people in the pews. However, Jesus used a completely different standard for measuring his own success.
At the height of his popularity when he walked the earth, Jesus had a following that would make even today’s megachurch pastors envious. But due to his controversial teaching, many disciples eventually deserted him (John 6:66). However, as Jesus was praying to the Father right before his death, he made a couple of truly mind-blowing statements about his own ministry. In John 17:4 he said:
I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do (NIV).
This means Jesus knew he was successful in his mission, despite popular opinion. So, how did he measure his success? He told us plainly in John 17:12:
None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that scripture would be fulfilled (NIV).
Except for Judas who was destined to betray him, Jesus claimed, “none has been lost.”Think about this for a moment. Jesus lost many disciples, possibly thousands. In terms of profits and losses, Jesus was clearly in the red. So how could he claim, “none has been lost?” Apparently, he did not consider himself responsible for the crowds; he only considered himself responsible for the Twelve. Though he ministered to everyone, the Twelve were specifically given to him by God. He even said as much in John 17:6:
I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word (NIV).
Earlier, we discussed how Jesus made it his main priority to invest in his disciples. And now we see that he actually evaluated his entire success on how well he completed this single task.
This raises an interesting question: since Jesus is our example in all things, is this the same pattern we are supposed to follow? Is it possible God will judge the success of our ministries, not by impressive numbers, but by specific names? Does he entrust us with certain people and, even though we might minister to others, are those specific people our primary mission on this planet?
If so, what does it mean if we pursue the crowds at the expense of those with whom we were entrusted? We know the Good Shepherd is willing to leave the ninety-nine to go after the one (Matthew 18:12-14). But what happens if we leave one behind in our quest to gain ninety-nine more? Is it possible we might stand before God one day, boasting about our big ministries, saying “Lord, look at all these people I brought you,” only to have him reply, “That’s great. But what happened to the ones I gave you?”
Below is an excerpt from a chapter entitled A Church of Spectators. Reading this reminded me of Isaiah 1:18 where it says “Come now, let us reason together”. Enjoy!
For 1700 years the traditional church as a whole has become filled with spectator Christians, people who do nothing more than sit and watch, sing songs, listen to sermons and give in the offering and sit some more.
In other words, the Church as a whole has become passive, inert, ineffective and inept. That is what the one man rule within the Church has caused.
Satan has also for 1700 years paralyzed the church by making the believers watchers of ministry rather than doers of ministry. The result has been weak, selfish, baby Christians, who if they don’t get their way can run off to another church and sit there and watch.
I myself can’t just sit and watch someone else minister to people year after year and not get involved myself. I know I have been called and I know there is something for me to do and I know that daily there are many opportunities for me to be used by God.
I cannot be a spectator. If the opportunities are not in the big church setting or I am not approved by man in their system, I still have a job to do for God. Whether this book accomplishes what I hope or not, I still have been given the task of writing it and believing God for what He does with it.
I refuse to be a spectator on the sidelines, watching someone else, sitting idle and refusing to get involved. My goal is to be actively involved in ministry until someone carries me to my final resting place.
With all of the sermons that we hear and all of the lessons etc., what are we suppose to do with that? Is it all just for our own comfort? Is it there so we can stroke our own conscience and feel good about ourselves? Or are we supposed to actually do something with what we’ve learned? When I hear a message from the Word of God, I think of how I can apply it in my life. What is the life lesson and how can someone else benefit from this lesson?
Christianity is not a spectator event, Ephesians4:11-16. It is not only there for our comfort. It is who we are and what we are. Our Christian lives are to be lived out and shared with others. We, the body of Christ, are all ministers of the Gospel. Jesus commanded us to “Go and make disciples.”
I feel that spectator Christianity is a crime against the Kingdom of God because IF YOU’RE NOT TAKING GROUND FOR GOD YOU MUST BE HOLDING GROUND FOR THE DEVIL. Being a sitter in the Church is ultra boring to me. Why even go to church if there is nothing to contribute or share.
I am a part of the Body of Christ, a minister of the Word of God, not a piece of furniture. If I can’t contribute or if I am not allowed to, I go my way to where my gifts are celebrated and used. I know there are people who prefer to sit and do nothing, but I also know people who hunger for the day when their ministry will be recognized. God recognizes your ministry, He gave it to you.
Shame on the pastors who perpetuate the one man, professionals only type church. You are actually standing in the way of God’s plan and purposes.
You as pastor say you want more people to get involved in the church, then why don’t you recognize them for who they are, ministers of God and your spiritual equal.
The pastor actually creates the spectator problem, with the governmental system they operate in. There is no room for ministry, except for the professionals. It’s a contradictory and counterproductive system.
If you want to sit up here on the platform in these nice embroidered chairs, you go to college and seminary, get your degree, a license and ordination then we’ll give you permission to speak. No wonder people sit there and do nothing. Tell me what does a license or ordination and all that stuff have to do with receiving a revelation from God? What does it have to do with having a burden for lost souls or teaching?
Peter, James, and John didn’t get a certificate before they were qualified to preach the Gospel. Neither did Barnabas, or Silas or even Jesus for that matter. The Pharisees considered Jesus and the disciples as unlearned men and questioned them by what authority they did what they did. But they couldn’t question the power.
Only Paul comes closest to the scenario of possessing man-made qualifications. He was a Pharisee and highly educated in men’s traditions yet after finding the Lord in his life he considered those things to be of less value and nothing but dung compared to the spirit of God.
If God told you to start a Bible study in your home, then start it. If you get a blessing from the leadership, fine. If not, start it anyway. You must follow what God has told you to do over that of man. Also remember that the professionals don’t have all the answers and they are not perfect. Brother and sister; get out of your seats or pews and do what God has called you to do. Don’t wait for permission from men. You might be waiting a very long time.
One last thing, you recall that when Jesus was crucified that the veil was torn in two. That means God has given us all access to Him, not only concerning prayer but also ministry. Don’t allow a pastor, or staff member or anyone else to get between you and your ministry. In Jesus’ time it was the priesthood and the Pharisees. Today it’s pastors and other leadership in the church.
Go ahead and step through that invisible barrier into your own priesthood with boldness, knowing you are highly favored of the Lord and have His approval, regardless of what man says.
The excerpt below is entitled Raising Veal from unchurching by Richard Jacobson. Richard’s website is no longer active but you can still access his podcasts by going here. This book has some great points but the overall flow seemed a bit disjointed.
It was the Romans who eventually institutionalized the church, starting in the early 300’s. Previously, believers had only known church gatherings where each person participated in the meetings, where everyone was encouraged to bring a hymn, or a teaching, or a personal revelation, and so on. Clearly, the Romans had a very different vision for the church. And the moment Rome embraced Christianity as its national religion, they began implementing that vision.
The Romans had a great respect for oratory, the art of public speaking. This is why the layout of the new Roman church buildings made it clear the congregation was now an audience, expected to listen to lectures. One of the first things the Romans did to institutionalize the church was hire eloquent orators to serve as church priests. Employing such skilled, professional speakers helped elevate the role of priests far above their fellow church members.
Further levels of separation between these professional priests and their congregations were introduced through the addition of official robes and rituals. Over time, unbiblical words like “clergy” and “laity” entered the vocabulary of the church and solidified the divide. Likewise, special requirements for ordination were introduced and seminaries were formed. Eventually, any vision for church gatherings where every member exercised his or her calling as a fellow priest was lost and forgotten.
Many of today’s churches have maintained this trajectory and fully embraced a model in which church members get spiritually fed without ever exercising their calling as fellow priests. But how long can church members be spiritually spoon-fed before they develop a dependency? Developing this kind of dependency is known as becoming institutionalized. In the movie The Shawshank Redemption, an inmate named Red explains how, over time, prisoners become institutionalized:
“These walls are funny. First you hate ’em, then you get used to ’em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That’s institutionalized.”
Today’s churchgoers enjoy sermons with PowerPoint slides, Sunday School lessons on whiteboards, Children’s Church, Bible studies, book studies, podcasts, and more. But what good is all this spiritual education unless it results in genuine spiritual formation? The Body of Christ doesn’t simply need to eat; it needs to exercise.
1 Corinthians 14:26 tells us we build up the Body of Christ whenever we allow each member to participate in the meetings by instructing others or by bringing hymns or sharing personal revelations, etc..’ ‘This is a completely different picture of church from passively listening to lectures from a handful of professional Christians.
So, what happens to a church when most of its members get spiritually fed without having the opportunity to exercise their true calling? Rather than shepherding sheep, this sounds more like raising veal.
If you are unfamiliar with the process, it looks something like this: a young calf is placed in a box. The purpose of the box is to keep the calf immobile, never allowing it to build up muscle. This ensures the calf will eventually make for tender, tasty veal. From then on, the calf is constantly fed but never allowed to exercise. Over time, it grows fat and weak. Eventually, it won’t even be able to survive outside its box.
Much like the veal calf, many of today’s churchgoers spend their entire spiritual lives inside of church boxes, both literally and figuratively. This might be the best way to develop strong institutions, but is it the best way to develop strong individuals? In our pursuit of numerical growth, are we sacrificing spiritual growth? In such a consumer-focused culture, maybe we need to be reminded of how Jesus measured the success of his own ministry.
