![]() ![]() Nothing could be further from the truth! The apostles did not evangelize the western frontier of the United States rather, they began by evangelizing major metropolitan areas in the Roman Empire, such as Ephesus and Corinth, and set them up to evangelize the small towns nearby. That, compounded by a simplistic view of the past, causes many people to think that Christian worship in the early centuries was plain, spartan, and simple, and that early Christians were uneducated. Most of the growth was on the frontier, where things had to be improvised, conditions were rustic, and worship was, of necessity, very simple. There was an explosive growth among the churches in the United States in the early 19th century. The closest equivalent to an ancient house church is a modern church. Worship in a modern house church is very informal, but worship in an ancient house church was very formal. A modern house church typically consists of a dozen or so people hunkered around the coffee table in the living room, some sitting on chairs dragged in from other rooms, but an ancient house church typically consisted of about 100 or so people standing in a large, mostly unfurnished public room called an atrium. A modern house is generally the residence of a nuclear family, but a house in the Roman Empire was a much larger building that was not just the home of an extended family, its slaves, and employees, it was also the household’s place of business. Today house churches are all the rage, but they aren’t anything like house churches in the New Testament. In the beginning: The church of the first four centuries met in privately owned houses (Romans 16:5, 1 Corinthians 16:19, Colossians 4:15, Philemon 2). Bible Study Polity Clergy Clothing Terminology Theology Public Worship
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