25 Observations of the 1st Century Meeting of Believers

Below are observations from the Scriptures about the way the fellowship of believers was set up in the beginning. Clearly, the believers of the first century had options and examples about how to set up their fellowships, but they were led to do it a certain way. That certain way had a very important purpose: to maximize the Creator's glory through the believer's relationship with Him.

Much of what the 1st, 2nd and 3rd century believers did was changed by the Roman government in the centuries to follow. The Romans took over Christianity under Theodosius (who followed Constantine) February 27, 380 AD. The Romans had a very different plan than what was established in the beginning. We should wish to be influenced by Christ, not by ancient Roman elites. We must look at the Bible to find out what the believers were told to do before Theodosius.

I have heard group leaders over and over again say how they are "different" than other groups, but it is uncommon that they are different in more than a few issues. This is just the way we humans think. A little different is a lot different in your own eyes. Changing traditions that have gone on for hundreds of years requires that a person be open minded, and it is not as easy as it looks! If every example we have seen has been influenced by "religion," how hard is it to figure out what we would need to change? It is very difficult to shake our own experience and think without bias, but it is worth the effort.

I made the list below of 1st century practices with few references to Bible verses on purpose. The reader is left to recollect the message of the New Testament in order to confirm or refute the points made here. The idea is to create an experience of self-discovery by open-mindedly considering the whole New Testament for guidance. 

Meetings

1. They seemed to have no interest in buildings at all. Meetings were held wherever it was cheap and convenient, often in someone's home, but not always. They had people with money and plenty of hands to put something together, yet they did not build. They chose something that already existed to de-emphasize the building and to emphasize God living in them, the hope of glory.

The group of believers was never both a building and a group of people. It was only a group of people, a group that was referred to as a temple that was built for the presence of God. This fulfilled God's promise to David, that his descendant would build a temple. In the proclamation of that promise, both God and, ironically, David decried that idea that God should live in a building.

Since the building was already built of people, it would have been contradictory (and counterproductive) to create a "house of the Lord," "temple" or "church building." Why encourage them to build something out of bricks and sticks when the building was already done out of something far more dynamic - people? Therefore, they didn't do it, but instead found something that was available. 

They chose something cheap (free), in part, to save resources for their impoverished brothers and sisters in another part of the world (Jerusalem in this case) and for spreading the good news. They were not so much frugal as they were focused. God's resources were used for His purposes. Consider what could be done if fellowships had, at their disposal, the millions of dollars that are spent on buildings and salaries at the typical local "church."

Some in the house church movement argue that the house is the only place ordained by God for a meeting. Though I think that a house is a great place to meet and will very often be the most workable solution, I disagree with this sentiment that is the only place to meet. Non-home meeting places are mentioned in the Bible, and no direct command to use only homes can be found.

2. They did not say that a small meeting was best or that a large meeting was best. The 'system' (see #4-9)  worked in all sorts of settings.

Consider this. There were thousands and thousands of believers in some of these Mediterranean cities. These cities were very congested. Are we to believe that they were neatly organized into groups of 12? I imagine all the believers within easy walking distance to be attending a group if the power of God was showing up. The idea that there were often several hundred people in a group makes a lot more sense to me. God draws a crowd. I recollect pictures from China where 50 or more people were meeting in one small apartment. I imagine this was more the case in the 1st century. Further, large families (#19) would make it nearly impossible to keep the meetings small.

Let me give 3 benefits of larger groups. (The list of benefits of small groups have been well documented by others.)

            1. It is easier to find good leaders. There are several books that espouse rapid assent of leaders in order to accommodate dividing cell groups strategy, but it does not seem to match up with the Bible to me. We should not underestimate the time that it takes for a person to mature. A leader should be above reproach, able to teach and able to evaluate whatever is said in the meeting. If groups are allowed to grow bigger, they have more time to develop worthy leaders.

            2. The more people there are to who hear for the Lord, the more likely that the group will hear Him. If people are individually anointed, then the more people you have, the more anointing you have.

            3. Big groups can be more welcoming. If the group finds being small important, then it may appear closed to outsiders.

Some argue that the key to being like the 1st century worshippers involves worshiping in small groups in a person's home. We have so much more to discover about the 1st century meetings, it would be a shame to stop at just these two.

Understanding the 1st century meetings is like putting a puzzle together. We need all of the pieces, and they need to go together the right way. Skipping some pieces would be disappointing in my view. Don’t get hung up on meeting in houses and having small groups. Consider the whole puzzle.

3. They were not programmed. ^"What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the ekklesia (gathering of believers)." In the meeting, they learned to hear from God. Program, usually created by paid staff today, interferes with the process of learning to hear from the Spirit. Yes, staff who desperately want to edify often, according to this principle, end up getting in the way of edification. This is unfortunate, but the truth stands. Un-programming is necessary for the Spirit of Jesus to be permitted to lead, and He is needed in order to edify.

They learned to walk in the Spirit in the meeting. They learned how to walk in the Spirit in the rest of life. This implies experience-based training. 

4. They understood spirits. They understood the gifts of the Spirit, because they understood what it was like to have an experience with a spirit. This is how they relied on God Himself to lead the meetings - experiences with His Spirit.

Their pagan worship included encounters with evil spirits. When evil spirits were allowed to control people's bodies, they predicted the future, threw people into fires and broke chains. Further, the believers knew that there were demons, and that they needed to be cast out. Few in the western world have ventured down this road.

The western world has largely lost the notion that experiencing the Maker is an experience with a spirit. If we understood that, then we would not have invented the multiple choice spiritual gifts test! (Today, "spiritual gifts" are just talents that you practice in a religious context.) They would have sought to experience regularly the presence of God's Spirit.

The Christ following life is primarily a matter of experiencing His Spirit. The principles and instructions of the Bible are set up to enable this experience, but the Bible is not the experience in itself. Biblical-knowledge-based training, which is the norm in the western world, lacks the effectiveness and power drawn from training that provides experience.

The western world's mindset generally deems insignificant the unseen world. We fail to experience God as Spirit, which strictly limits our ability to follow Him. First century believers had many of their own road blocks to experiencing God fully, but for most, this was not one of them.

5. The sermon was not the central point of the meeting. Several might teach. Perhaps no one might teach. On certain occasions, teaching went on for hours at a time for many days (example: Paul's teaching on 'Where is Jesus in the Old Testament.'). In every case, the central feature of the meetings was the pursuit of God himself. Certainly learning was a part of that pursuit, but was not the end.

A rock concert is made up of the "headliner" and the "warm up band." In the modern meeting it seems that the "pastor" is the headliner and the rest of the meeting is just warm up. The only cure is to un-program and to encourage an open meeting (#3). This 1st century style meeting was focused on hearing from God (prophecy, in its various forms). And the only superstar was Jesus.

6. "Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture." The verse ends with "..., to preaching and to teaching." It might be understood that the primary time commitment was reading and the secondary activity was explaining it. They listened to the Bible more and spoke about it less. Many Christians are biblically illiterate under today's system of speaking extensively, but reading the Bible little. If we truly believe it to be God's Word, then our focus should be to appreciate it as something spectacular, and that we should expose ourselves to it with great hope of its power.

With #5 and #6 in place, the leaders' time was consumed with something other than studying the Bible and practicing for the purpose of delivering a spectacular message. Messages had benefit, but they were far less complicated.

7. They asked questions during the meeting.

8. It appears that they didn't name their "churches," but referred to the group of people according to their location. The fellowship of believers didn't market a building, program, group or style. They marketed Jesus and following him. As an outsider, would you want to "come with me to a house or an outbuilding to learn about God," or would you want to attend "First Abundant Apostolic Bible Baptist Church of the Redeemer?" Overwhelmingly today, people say that they first experienced God because of a relationship with another person. Informality, then, is more effective in reaching the lost than formality, because it provides a situation where relationship is central. 

I do not believe that there is a direct prohibition against names, but would suggest that giving a group a name derives from the same mindset as giving it a building. It starts with the attitude, “When other believers see our name (or our building), they will want to join us.” And why would a group want other Christians to join them? Often it is so that they can meet a budget that covers salaries and a building (sustainability and through that, personal affirmation).

9. The roles of women and men in the New Testament only makes sense in the context of participatory meetings. Women worshipped, prayed and prophesied in the meeting (much of the content of the meeting). Today, the average attendee does not call out a prayer, start a song or speak a revelation in the meeting, but men and women used to do these. In the 1st century, women did not teach in the meeting. (I am speaking of meetings of the entire group and not of meetings called by more mature women in order to teach the younger women.) This sprung from the principle that our relationship with God was expressed in the way He created us - woman representing mankind and man representing God.

Leaders

10. They didn't have a pastor (literally "shepherd") as we think of "pastor." The metaphor of shepherd was used for leaders, but this was not a term used in the New Testament regarding a single leader. Further, no evidence exists that a 'pastor' was staff or a leader that was expected to devote more time than other leaders. Instead, leadership was shared by a group of men.

The Romans (and modern "church") set the fellowship of believers up to be run like in the time of the Kings of Judah and Israel. They wanted a single human leader. Whereas the 1st century believers set it up to be run by God lead by revelation, like the time of the Judges. In the Old Testament, God worked through both, though he clearly preferred not to have a king. "It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king."

Today, people seem to confuse the influence of a leader like Paul to assume that the local fellowship was also to have a "point man." Further, the Romans perpetuated the idea of a "point man," or Priest, over the centuries. A different model was established in the 1st century that appeared to be so important for the believers' growth and spiritual maturity. That is, the group was to be lead and taught by a set of men who could be like fathers to the Christ followers. 

11. Leaders worked other jobs. Working gave them more credibility and more influence with those to whom they could witness. The leaders were given money and supplies sometimes based on teaching work loads and needs (e.g., jail, travel), but not as "staff." The fellowship was healthy when it was able to function on their own through the open meetings with no paid staff.

12. All leaders were teaching.

13. Major leaders were lifestyle travelers. Local leaders and others traveled with them from time to time in order to encourage the saints.

14. Leading was more like being a dad than like being a manager, a teacher or board member. Leadership was a completely different ballgame than it is today. They had no program, no building, and almost no budget. Can you imagine? Leading was focused on giving followers first hand experience, teaching them along the way and correcting when necessary. Program, building and budget are barriers to the kind of leadership presented in the New Testament.

Other Observations:

15. They used common words. Everything about the inception of Christ-following was meant to be common and not religious. Now, we use words that only have "religious" meanings. This makes Christianity far more pious than it was meant to be. Worst yet, the truth is lost in our religious words. So much more can be gleaned from the Bible and our own experience if we use common words.

Much credit goes to the Roman Catholic leadership for the uncommon words that believers use today. For a long time, the leaders insisted that the Bible not be translated into the local language of the people. Therefore, people learned just a few words of the language that the Romans would accept. As time went on, foreign words became common enough to have religious meaning in the language native to the believers across Europe and we still use derivatives of these transliterated words today.

Realize that when the words below were quoted by Jesus or his followers in the 1st century, they did not primarily have a religious meaning, but a common, everyday meaning.

Baptism is merely a transliteration of the Greek baptismo. Instead of using the word baptism today, we might use the English sink, immerse, bury ("sinking in the Holy Spirit"), words that are appropriate translations of baptismo.

Church is transliterated from Greek, kyriakon, which is not in the Bible. Kyriakon means "Lord's house," referring to a building. The word commonly translated "church" in the Bible is ekklesia, which means a group, mob, meeting, or assembly and was not specific to religious meetings. Ekklesia has nothing to do with a building or house. It had only to do with people, so today it would be better to use the term "gathering," "fellowship," "meeting" or "worship."

Instead of saying deacon, which is transliterated from Greek diakoneō, it would be better to represent the idea presented in the Bible as a "leader."

Gospel is transliterated from the Greek euaggelion. An English equivalent would be "good news," or perhaps "great deal."

Pastor is the singular nominative form of pāscō in the Latin. Pastor is a Latin word. It means to shepherd or maintain. It's use is not necessary or beneficial today.

There are many other words that are used in religion, but are not common to every day language. All should be reconsidered: preach, sermon, sacrament, sanctuary. Common language can be effectively substituted for each of these terms, and we would be blessed if we were to make the effort to do so.

16. Rather than referring to a statement of faith, purpose or doctrinal statement, they were far more, "Let's agree on what the Bible says first, so then it will be more clear what it means and how it applies."

17. We can safely assume that they washed each other's feet.

18. Communion was part of a meal with wine, not a quiet ceremony. Portions of bread and wine were big enough to provide sustenance, not a snack or a taste. 

19. Families were integrated into the whole meeting experience. Mom and Dad were the youth pastors. Further, the main unit of ministry was the family. The first question was "What is God calling our family to do?" rather than, "What is God calling our 'church' to do?"  Families had vision and ministry. Families were big, and that was part of the vision. Biblical parenting skills would have been necessary.

20. Believers referred to themselves as slaves of God.

21. "The grace of giving," not tithing was the expectation. 'Live simply and give as much as you possibly can,' was the guiding principle. Most of the money went to poor believers in other parts of the world and to expand the good news, not to the local group. In the local group, the money was used for the helplessly needy (to those who were not able to work) and for those who devoted themselves for a time to teach. Modern 'church' budgets present a very different message about giving and a very different use of the funds that are collected.

“They gave all they were able and even beyond their ability.” If we were told by leaders how others suffer, we would do something, with joy. Unfortunately, the plight of others globally seems far from leaders hearts' and, therefore, far from followers' hearts. Salaries and building budgets get in the way of groups helping poor believers around the world today. We have forgotten: some gather much and some gathered little, but each had an omer.

Historic observations:

22. They didn't have Christmas (In the 4^th century, it was recommended that Christians could participate in the pagan festival of human sacrifice, Saturnalia from Dec. 17-25th.). Nor did they have Easter (the celebration of the Germanic goddess of Spring and fertility, Eostre).

Consider the time, effort and expense that that goes into these holidays. Do they provide clarity or cause confusion? Do they lead us to fulfill God's desires or distract us from the task?

23. There was no "sacred" time for meeting.  They might have met on Sunday, or Friday, or any other day. Also, they could have met in the afternoon or evening for the supper meal of communion.

24. There was no pulpit, alter, special outfit or separation for the leaders.

25. They did not have amplifiers, bands, etc., which may have made it easier allow participation by all believers. In fact, the un-programmed meeting would likely drive them to simplify accompaniment.

These 25 practices effectively made following Christ simple, experiential and practical. "Simple" was on purpose. A follower experienced the power and love of God in the meeting. He learned by experience to walk in the Spirit in the meeting. Outside of the meeting, having learned to walk in the Spirit, he affected others by that same Spirit. If they became interested, he took them to someone's home or some other non-religious place to experience God. The cycle moved on. They did not have to hire seminary trained "pastors," set up legal entities, acquire property or build buildings to multiply. "Simple" had few barriers to growth and it contained, by the Holy Spirit, the power to grow.

We must be careful to follow God's best pattern, so that we facilitate His goals to avoid the structure of religion. We should do all we can when we are together to foster a true relationship with our Master and King in which he leads. We do not anticipate perfection. The time of the Judges was not pretty, but it was a whole lot better than the time of the Kings.

Nate Davis