title

:

The House Church : A Model for Renewing the Church

author

:

Birkey, Del.

publisher

:

Herald Press

isbn10 | asin

:

0836134672

print isbn13

:

9780836134674

ebook isbn13

:

9780585254623

language

:

English

subject

House churches.

publication date

:

1988

lcc

:

BV601.85.B57 1988eb

ddc

:

250

subject

:

House churches.

Page 3

The House Church

A Model for Renewing the Church

Del Birkey

HERALD PRESS

Scottdale, Pennsylvania

Waterloo, Ontario

Page 4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Birkey, Del, 1933

The house church.

Bibliography: p.

Includes index.

1. House churches. I.  Title.

BV601.85.B57     1988     250     87-31055

ISBN 0-8361-3467-2 (pbk.)

Figure 1 on page 56 is from Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture by Richard Krautheimer (Pelican History of Art, 1965, 1975), copyright © Richard Krautheimer, 1965, 1975. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.

Figures 2 and 3 on page 57 are from The Christian Building by Carl H. Kraeling (Locust Valley, N.Y.: J.J. Augustin, Inc.). Used by permission.

Figure 4 on page 80 is taken from A New Face for the Church by Lawrence O. Richards. Copyright © 1970 by Zondervan Publishing House. Used by permission.

Figure 5 on page 130 is taken from Worship in the Free Churches by John E. Skoglund (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1965), p. 113. Used by permission of Judson Press.

Scripture references marked "JB" are from The Jerusalem Bible, copyright © 1966 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd., and Doubleday & Company, Inc. Used by permission of the publisher.

Scripture references marked "JBP" are from The New Testament in Modern English, revised edition, © J. B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. By permission of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., and William Collins Sons & Co., Ltd.

Scripture references marked "LB" are from The Living Bible, Paraphrased (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1971) and are used by permission.

Scripture references marked "NASB" are from the New American Standard Bible, © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, and are used by permission.

Scripture references marked "NEB" are from The New English Bible, © The Delegates of the Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge University Press 1961, 1970. Reprinted by permission.

Scripture references marked "RSV" are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyrighted 1946, 1952, © 1971, 1973.

Scripture references marked "TEV" (Today's English Version) are from the Good News Bible. Old Testament copyright © American Bible Society 1976; New Testament copyright © American Bible Society 1966, 1971, 1976.

Copyright © 1988 by Herald Press, Scottdale, Pa. 15683

Published simultaneously in Canada by Herald Press,

Waterloo, Ont. N2L 6H7. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 87-31055

International Standard Book Number: 0-8361-3467-2

Printed in the United States of America

Cover design by Randal Birkey

Book design by Gwen M. Stamm

95   96   10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2

Page 5

To my wife Donna,

whose gift of hospitality

made our home a church

Page 7

CONTENTS

Illustrations

9

Foreword

by Dean E. Arnold, Ph.D

11

Preface

15

Abbreviations of Translations

17

Part 1

Renewal and the House Church

1. Toward a Theology of Renewal

21

Patterns of Renewal

22

Renewal Terminology and Their Implications

23

Working Principles Essential for Renewal

28

2. The Renewed People of God

30

Early Christianity as a Renewal Movement

30

The Social Context of the Renewed People

34

The House Church as a Sociological Model

36

3. The New Testament House Churches

40

Beginnings and Characteristics of the Early House Churches

40

Summary Ramifications of the Apostolic House Churches

54

4. Historical and Contemporary Significance of House Churches

63

Perspective on the Small Group

63

Small Groups and the History of the Church

65

The House Church as a Contemporary Phenomenon

71

Implications of the House Church as a Contemporary Renewal Model

76

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Part 2

Ministry in the Early House Churches

5. Servant Leadership and the Ministry of Women

87

Servant Leadership in the New Testament House Churches

87

The Ministry and Role of Women in the New Testament House Churches

91

6. Corporate Functioning through Personal Giftedness

104

Introduction to Giftedness

105

Developing the Giftedness Theme

106

Focus on Corporate Giftedness

109

Discovering and Discerning Spiritual Gifts

110

7. House Gathering and the Liturgy of Worship

115

Worship in the Age of Promise

116

Worship in the Times of Fulfillment

118

Worship in the Early House Churches

120

Tensions of Diversity and Liturgy

127

Part 3

An Alternative Model for Revitalization

8. The Company of the Committed

137

The Community of One Another

137

The Integrity of Commitment

138

The Company of the Committed

140

The Process of Commitment in Community

144

9. The Pentecostal Paradigm

148

Notes

157

Bibliography

166

Scripture Index

173

General Index

176

The Author

181

Page 9

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1

An Isometric Drawing of the House Church in Dura-Europos

56

Figure 2

Plan of the House in Dura-Europos Used as a Church

57

Figure 3

Plan of the House Church in Dura-Europos

57

Figure 4

Aspects of the Small Group as the Church

80

Figure 5

Evolution of the Early Christian House of Worship

130

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FOREWORD

The church in the last decade of the twentieth century faces great challenges: How does one communicate the gospel anew and call God's people to renewal? How does one proclaim a 2000-year-old message in a way that is relevant to diverse cultures entering the twenty-first century? How can new bodies of believers be established in the third world amid Marxist cries of cultural and religious imperialism?

This book suggests a fresh approach to these challenges. Del Birkey argues that renewal does not lie in the traditional church structure, but with the development of small bodies of believers meeting in homes. These units are not ancillary appendages to a large traditional church, but rather consist of independent "house churches" following the New Testament pattern.

This return to a first-century model for the church may seem curious or puzzling to some or even radical to others. After all, some may say, times have changed and a return to the house church may seem like a gigantic step backward. Others may claim that our society differs greatly from that in which the early church was born; the contemporary world is not the same as first-century Greece, Rome, or Palestine. Suggesting a house church model for the

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twentieth-century Christianity seems to emphasize the trivial and to major in the minorsabsolutizing the relative.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Del Birkey carefully traces the origin of the house church through Scripture and then shows precisely how this model can revitalize today's church. For the skeptics, the thesis has a solid foundation in theology and sociology and reflects sound principles of anthropology and communication theory.

One of the great challenges of the contemporary church is communication. Much of the church's communication of the gospel rests on the verbal proclamation of the "Word" of God. This focus derives from the belief that the Scriptures are the revelation of God. Church services thus center around preaching, and our notion of renewal focuses on special services where the "Word" is preached anew. The communication of the divine message did not just occur through the biblical writers, however, but through God in human form: the incarnation. God became a human to draw humans to himself; not with mere words, but with action. The "words" of God became the "Word of God"a relational nonverbal message.

While the modern evangelical church has paid great attention to the preaching of the gospel, it has paid less attention to this living, incarnate relational message. Churches are modeled after "words" and doctrine rather than the incarnation. Its life consists of preaching rather than community, relationships, servanthood, and action. The church needs a greater sense of balance.

Although churches may proclaim God's message of love, community, and care in a verbal way, the church structure may convey the opposite message. Church structures strongly affect the kind of relationships among people within them. Often the setting of the traditional church fosters a spectator mentality characterized by impersonal or superficial personal relationships that show little warmth or commitment.

Thus while the church preaches the gospel, it is being squeezed into the mold of the prevailing cultural values rather than biblical values. While preserving its orthodoxy, it is neglecting its practice of the gospel. There is little sense of community in the lives of believers. The verbal "words" of Scripture are out of line with the subtle messages of impersonal individualism that the massive church structures communicate.

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Do our churches communicate the message of a loving personal God who wants personal relationship with humans? Or, while verbally communicating a personal God, do our churches communicate an impersonal God who does not enter into relationship with others? One need only attend church on a Sunday morning and count the number of warm friendly people to evaluate how personal the message is.

Although many are calling for an incarnational approach to ministry, many church structures do not reflect the incarnational model for ministry, evangelism, or renewal today. Birkey argues that recovering the relational nonverbal message of the gospel involves incorporating the theological integrity of the incarnation into the structure of the church. Thus, the church primarily should be relational: personal, intimate, committed, and smalllike a family. What better way to communicate the personal nature of God and his love and commitment to people than by having a church in a home!

Indeed, no symbol of a personal relationship with God could be more appropriate. It is no accident that the words the Scripture uses to describe both the human-divine relationship and the relationships among believers are precisely the words used for the relationships in the family: father, mother, son, daughter, child, brother, sister.

The house church has exciting potential for renewal of the modern church. My wife and I were members of a house church for five years which met in Del's home. We personally experienced the kind of community described in this book. We will never forget the deep relationships developed there nor the spiritual growth that resulted from both the intense experience of community and Del's excellent teaching. The members were diverse, with different ages, education, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Yet there was a sense of love and commitment that expressed the incarnational message of the gospel. Community does flow from structure!

Besides communicating a loving personal God in our own culture, the house church is also crucial in proclaiming this message in other cultures. First, the household is a universal phenomenon found in every culture. It is not restricted to the Western world. This means that a house church is a culturally appropriate physical location for the body of believers in any culture. It is a ready-made

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structure for the contextualization of the church in any culture. There is no need for a building nor a denominational structure that may be foreign to the culture. The house church, then, is culturally indigenous and relatively invisible. Thus it is not as subject to criticism that churches are imperialistic organizations based upon a Western denominational mode.

Second, in addition to the household, the family is also universal in every culture. It may be defined differently, but all cultures possess the institution of the family in which children are born, nurtured, and reared. In all cultures, the family is one of the most important groups in which the values of a culture are transmitted to the young.

Third, the household symbolizes the family because it occurs almost everywhere as the location of the family. The household thus symbolizes the most personal, loving, and intimate relationships found in any culturethose relationships that most reflect biblical values.

Fourth, being universal and a symbol of the family, the household communicates an important nonverbal message of a community of caring interpersonal relationships. When the church meets in a home, the church structure symbolizes the most personal and most intimate relationships known to people anywhere. What better way is there to communicate the care, intimacy, and personal concern of a personal God to a lost world!

DEAN E. ARNOLD, PH.D.

PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY

WHEATON COLLEGE

WHEATON, ILLINOIS

Page 15

PREFACE

I never cease to marvel at the surprise expressed by many church people upon learning that every congregation in the New Testament was a house church! Regardless, this fact does carry a provocative capable of stirring even those familiar with church things. The phenomenon has had an effect on this author sufficient to precipitate a quest and a pilgrimage.

In the quest I have searched for alternative biblical structures and methodologies beyond those offered by the traditional view of the church. This pilgrimage has continued nearly two decades. It is the thesis of this writer that revitalization of the church remains an exciting potential not beyond our reach, and so the journey goes on.

In actuality my personal sojourn began with the happy experience of growing up in a Mennonite family and rural church community. My grandfather, who founded the church fellowship at the turn of the century, established it as an Amish-Mennonite community. For my roots I remain forever grateful.

Studies at Columbia Bible College provided my basic orientation to theology. Later, after completing my Master of Divinity degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I found myself in a pastoral situation of the extraordinarily traditional kind. The

Page 16

experience turned out to be for me a mediocre adventure. Nevertheless, it had the profound effect of plunging me into new directions of church life neither I nor many others had experienced to that point.

Embracing the freedom to recreate church life around minimal essentials, the newly formed fellowship first gathered in hotel and college facilities, and later in homes. Undeveloped appreciations and convictions regarding renewal structuring concretized. The happy experience of attempting to restructure the body's organismic life around minimal essentials seems to carry in itself a revitalizing dynamic.

My Doctor of Ministry studies provided further opportunity both to clarify and apply the principles gained from my house church experiences. The in-service continuing educational training at Bethany Theological Seminary proved to be an invaluable affirmation of my convictions regarding the house church. This happened both through deeper theological reflections as well as through intensive colloquium interactions with fellow peers.

What I have written reflects a serious and deliberate attempt to build a vital relational theology on an evangelical revelational foundation. The need to balance the vertical theology of revelation with a horizontal theology of relationships informs the content through this book.

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ABBREVIATIONS OF TRANSLATIONS

JB

The Jerusalem Bible, 1966

JBP

The New Testament in Modern English, J. B. Phillips, 1959

KJV

The King James Version, 1611

LB

The Living Bible, 1971

NASB

The New American Standard Bible, 1960

NEB

The New English Bible, 1961

RSV

Revised Standard Version, 1952

TEV

Today's English Version, 1976

Page 19

PART 1

RENEWAL AND THE HOUSE CHURCH

Page 21

Chapter 1

Toward a Theology of Renewal

The Basic Concern of Renewal

As in the human organism, so it is in that spiritual organism, the church. The process of regeneration and decay occur simultaneously from birth onward. Based on the experiences of the first generation Christians as recorded in Acts, Galatians, and the Corinthian correspondence, the foundations of the churches and the beginning of their decay clearly coexisted side by side. 1

It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the single major concern of Jesus and the apostles was the health and vitality of the living church, the ''body" of Christ. This is the essential point of Paul's words to the Ephesian church when he said they should "in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work" (Eph. 4:1516).

In this statement the apostle not only describes the interdependent unity within the body; he also issues a prophetic certainty of the church's renewal. The body metaphor contains the notion of a capacity for health as well as the potential for sickness and deterioration. The apostle is certain, however, that in the end the

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church will be presented to Christ as his beautiful bride. It will be "a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish" (Eph. 5:27).

Patterns of Renewal

A comparison of the phenomenon of renewal in the two Testaments informs us about several patterns of renewal which the people of God have experienced. The Old Testament bears the records of a cyclical pattern of apostasy and spiritual renewal. The book of Judges and the records of the Kings of Israel amply document this sequence, a cycle which too often characterized the older people of God.

In the New Testament, however, the early history of God's new covenant people emphasizes a continuous pattern of successful outreach and effective communication of the gospel's message and power. Facing overwhelming odds, the infant church pressed on with its redeeming and powerful message of the risen Christ. It transcended varieties of cultures before striking home at the very heart of Roman civilization. So successful were they that it appeared to others that "they . . . turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6, RSV).

Actually, it was the strategy of the Almighty to use weak persons and foolish things to confront the pagan world's pseudo wisdom. Paul called their secret "the message of the cross," a logos described as the very "power of God" (1 Cor. 1:18). No doubt some of Jesus' parables of the kingdom have this pattern of success in view, particularly the parable of the mustard seed (Mark 4:3032). God's strategy of kingdom success is a kind of conspiracy of the apparently insignificant. It is a renewal movement that Jesus invites us to join. This is indeed "the mustard seed conspiracy." 2

Nevertheless, in the decades following the inauguration of the infant church, there were already corrupting influences of malady. Paul shared his somber concern in a kind of prophetic warning to the elders at Ephesus. "After I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw disciples after them. So be on your guard!" (Acts 20:2931).

Page 23

Both of these patterns of renewal occurred within the historical experiences of the people of God. They are not antithetical or contradictory, but rather complementary. The pattern of ebb and flow as well as the expanding warfare against the spiritual powers of darkness are part of the one and same experiential process of renewal and outreach. 3

Renewal Terminology and Their Implications

There will always be some debate over renewal terminology. "Church renewal," therefore, remains a somewhat ambiguous term in need of clarification. Since Paul's central concern of renewal centers on the critical issue of restoration to normal health and vitality, we will take our cue from that Ephesian standard in attempting to define related terms.

Three terms most commonly associated with renewal are revival, reformation, and revitalization. These three R's of renewal are interrelated and all retain the basic idea of restoration. Nevertheless, some important distinctions remain.

Reformation, in its classical and historic sense, most accurately refers to the restoration of, and the return to, the pure doctrine of truth. Its focus is on orthodoxy, a conforming to the true faith which arises out of the written Word of God.

The crux of this orthodoxy is most clearly delineated in the Reformation theology of the sixteenth century. For these Reformers, orthodoxy was founded on divine revelation. Their theology was "from above" in that they began by looking to God and his special revelation to humanity. Conversely, theology "from below" is invariably unbiblical, since it starts from the human situation of religious experience.4 As always, in reformational theology, the Scriptures alone are the final and supreme authority for the Christian and the church.

Revival, on the other hand, most accurately refers to the restoration of, and return to, true living. Its focus is on orthopraxy, or how one lives in view of the truth revealed. It concerns the life quality in the believer which arises out of a vital relationship with the Holy Spirit. It is to "live again," to return to the dynamic sphere of the Spirit's energy.

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Reformation and revival are intricately linked together. Since the turn of the century, evangelicals have been particularly strong in stressing doctrinal foundations of the faith. However, they have manifested a corresponding weakness in relational emphases within their communities. This was, in part, a reaction against liberalism's stress on relationships and social concern. 5

Although reformation and revival together form a powerful union, a dynamic tension between them exists. This makes balance between the two difficult to attain. Nevertheless, a harmonious nexus between them remains the apostolic expectation. For example, Paul exhorts Titus to "teach what is in accord with sound doctrine." Then he amplifies that right doctrine in terms of right living within human relationships (Titus 2:110).

The great Reformation motto, "the Word and the Spirit," can help us grasp the deeper implications of the interrelations between reformation and revival. The motto represents a concept as old as the New Testament documents but rediscovered and invested with new intensity in the sixteenth-century breakthrough. Word suggests the truth claims of Christianity, the meaning of the texts of Scripture, and the formulations of its contents into theology. It also includes the acts of revelation and redemption recorded in the Scriptures.

Spirit, on the other hand, "speaks of the power of the Christian faith, of the richness of personal experience, of faith, of trust, of hope, of the ability to transform life, and the entering of the supernatural into our lives."6

It is crucial to understand why the Reformers insisted on the order of Word and Spirit, not Spirit and Word. The reason was apparently obvious to them and should be to us. For whatever we can know of God's Spirit we can know only from the Word of his Spirit.

This critical order and priority of the revelational Word establishes a substantial critique of contemporary schools of theology which assume the faith pilgrimage of the community as the starting point and test of reality. Their theologies fail to make a fundamental distinction between a real experience and a true experience. Naturally, a true experience is a real experience; but not all real experiences are true experiences. A hallucination, for example, is a

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real experience but not a true one. An experience in the spiritual realm is true only when one is in actual touch with the Spirit of God and where the experience conforms to the Word of truth. The apostles show no embarrassment in arguing for experiences which resulted from their contact with the reality revealed to them, and they invite us to partake with them in that manifested truth-reality issuing from the incarnated Christ. 7

By now it is conspicuous that these two word-concepts reflect the two basic approaches to theology. The first method initially emphasizes God's outward actions in revelation to mankind. We might label it the "theology of the Word." Its focus is on Jesus Christ as the final and definitive revelation, its theology articulated most thoroughly by Luther and Calvin.

The second approach, on the contrary, emphasizes people's inner experiences in community as its starting point. The "theology of experience" was most succinctly articulated by Schleiermacher, the "father of modern theology." Schleiermacher challenged historic Christianity's essence as set forth in the biblical credo, "justification by grace through faith." This credo preserves the idea that God's sovereign grace comes before human faith.

Schleiermacher turned the original order on its head, adjusting it to the new anthropological and sociological order of "justification by faith through grace." This shift from a biblical and God-centered faith to an anthropological human-centered faith has permeated theological thought everywhere.

However, the gospel remains Christocentric. Any movement away from that standard is a movement away from biblical and historic Christianity.8 A prescription for health which is increasingly being sounded within evangelicalism is that we should begin our reflection on our experience of Christ through the Holy Spirit rather than on the person of Christ himself.

With this in mind, Robert K. Johnston offers sane balance and singles out the crux of the matter. He writes,

the emphasis on an experience of the Spirit must be . . . judged by its faithfulness to the Word. In this regard, it is not enough to note that the Word as Scripture is used both in relational and in charismatic theology (as it was by Schleiermacher); one must also raise the ques-

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tion whether it is misused. In both charismatic and relational theology, the danger is that of stressing what the Word says (or doesn't say) to me, at the expense of what it says on its own terms. 9

Critical distinctions between reformation and revival implications, therefore, help us discern the proper balance needed between the objective Word of God in the believer's lap and the subjective Spirit of God in the believer's heart. Both are imperative. Real spiritual life always comes through the presence and empowering of the Holy Spirit, not simply through understanding doctrinal propositions or strategies of renewal.10

Let it be clear that the issue is not an either/or, but a both/and. The crux is the priority of order in our approach to truth. Criticisms toward evangelicals' stance and their insistence of this order are not altogether unfounded, however. Often, evangelicals have become so analytical and mired in the conceptual that "correct" doctrine has overwhelmed practical faith and life matters. In a strong commitment to the Scripture's inspiration and authority, they have sometimes lost the balance of the Scripture's relational dimensions.

Nevertheless, there are many in the evangelical camp who recognize the positive necessity of a relational as well as a charismatic affirmation of faith. We believe any valid theology of renewal will include both. "Live orthodoxy" informed by relational theology is better than "dead orthodoxy" deformed by concepts unrelated to practical living.

To summarize our discussion of reformation and revival, it is probably safe to conclude that "concentration on reformation without revival leads to skins without wine. Concentration on revival without reformation soon loses the wine for want of skins."11 The greatest moments in the history of the church have occurred when these two restorations are simultaneous, the church returning to pure doctrine and believers experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit. It is a safe axiom: there is no true revival unless there has been reformation, and reformation is not complete without revival. Ideally, they are inseparable.

Revitalization is a contemporary term suitable for depicting a different dimension of renewal. Reformation and revival are basic

Page 27

in dealing with truth and life formations. Revitalization is supplemental in dealing with truthfulness and life expression. The former has to do with what God in his sovereignty brings to the church. The latter touches on the church removing that which inhibits life and witness. The former is individually oriented renewal. The latter is corporately oriented renewal.

Revitalization, therefore, is the restoration and renewal of church structure by removing that which hinders life and vitality. 12 The particular nuance here is that revitalization lies within the grasp of the members of the churches. It is what we can and must do to precipitate genuine renewal. Furthermore, behind this definition lies the idea that what is alive grows.

It follows, then, that church growth is not simply a matter of bringing into the church programs for growing. If Christ is present, the seeds of spiritual growth are already deeply rooted and growing. It is a spontaneous thing. Hindrances, though, can thwart that process, and revitalization concentrates on removing them. The church will grow naturally and spontaneously when extraneous hindering barriers are removed.13

Like other groupings, churches have a "culture" of their own. They have a way of living out their traditions, patterns of communication, political processes, polity, beliefs, goals, and leadership styles. Revitalization carries a call to each congregation to reshape itself according to the congregational culture which will most accurately reflect biblical values and priorities.14

To state it somewhat differently, the church needs to give priority of concentration to its structures, or patterns of relating to one another. The reason is not hard to see. Cultural weeds grow up largely unnoticed and imperceptible. Eventually, they choke off the essential, natural life to the point of threatening the church's very survival. Such devitalizing enculturation is

the net result of the church's failure to understand and appropriate the . . . elements of renewal which define the meaning of fullness of life in Christ. It is a kind of rust which forms on the surface of the church's witness and clouds the glory which ought to shine out from it. . . . It freezes the form of the church and produces a sanctified out-of-datedness which the world can easily learn to ignore.15

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Our quest for revitalization is, in fact, a search for the recovery of the New Testament shape of the churchnot necessarily to reproduce that church in our times. Rather, the goal is to shape the twentieth-century church by the New Testament's values and priorities of life.

Working Principles Essential for Renewal

The human tendency is to become enamored with debilitating and devitalizing enculturations. Thus, each local church ought purposely to make an enormous effort to restore truly biblical priorities and values to the life of the church. The goal of this effort is to experience the joy of renewed life together. A careful analysis and deliberate commitment to those essential New Testament principles of body life is a good starting place for anticipating renewal.

First, the church must become in practice what it is, an organismic body which lives out its life in a counterculture community of faith. 16 The New Testament features a church which is a distinct body of people, a new humanity, a new race, brought into existence by a new and supernatural creation. As such, the church becomes a new community in tension with its culture at fundamental points while having similarity at the same time.17

As the body of Christ, it can affirm anew Christ's headship in his absolute sovereignty as Lord of creation as well as culture. Armed with the gospel which can serve as the destroyer, preserver, and creator of culture, the church can again experience the normal vitality that results from being united with Christ's resurrection.

Second, the church should embrace its primary reason for its existence inherent in its gathering together. The church is ekklesia. God's people are not merely "called out from." More specifically, the church is that group which "assembles together for" worship and service. The hallmark of the early church's assembling together was the presence of the living Lord in their midst. This was true even when only two or three gathered for the celebration of his supreme worthiness (Matt. 18:20).

These facts translate into a divine call for every assembly to achieve radical authenticity, reflecting an authentic expression of Christ's body. In the New Testament, one finds authenticity as the

Page 29

norm, not highly developed structures or liturgies. In view of this, formalities and structures which inhibit the free and participatory worship of the whole assembly are suspect.

Third, the church's ministry must become grounded in the priesthood of all believers so everyone can contribute his or her share in the work of the ministry. In the restoration of corporate giftedness, the gifts of the Spirit enable every member's work of ministry. Ministry is not solely the responsibility of a minority of the elite. The happy result intended will be that every part is working properly for the edification of the whole body. (See Eph. 4:1516.)

Fourth, the church must model servant leadership of both men and women to achieve true greatness. Greatness, as defined by the Lord, is being a "servant to the servants" (Matt. 20:2628). Leadership concepts based on a positional model must give way to a relational model. This in turn will renew the leadership and allow the affirmation and full potential of ministering women. Secular behavioristic models which induce, motivate, and congratulate appropriate behavior must give way to the dynamic modeling message of the Master-Servant, whose followers are intent on becoming servants to the servants.

In summary, the recovery of essential New Testament principles will be the first intention of the renewalist. Renewal is a dynamic spiritual force encompassing both the individual's personal life and corporate community life. The renewalist will maintain a high view of biblical authority coupled with a holistic perspective.

Furthermore, one cannot ignore the New Testament documents which characterize those early house churches in any genuine quest for renewal. They may, in fact, contain the insights for striking the balance between a strong revelational theology and a vital relational theology. They may also encourage the establishing of an alternative model for church revitalization.

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Chapter 2

The Renewed People of God

Early Christianity as a Renewal Movement

The threshold of the New Testament reverberates with the clashing of the times. It is a contest between the old and the new. Mark depicts Jesus beginning his ministry with a fulfillment announcement, declaring "the right time has come!" (Mark 1:14, TEV). Words like these have different meanings in various contexts, but Jesus' meaning becomes clear in light of the fuller account of his mission.

Paul's statement that "when the right time finally came, God sent his own Son" (Gal. 4:4, TEV) has often been assumed to refer to the ready-made situation for his coming, culturally, politically, and religiously. While acknowledging the truth of this argument, Paul's intent is probably more incisive. He is reflecting theologically on divine timing. In God's purpose, the time for his people to let loose from the apron strings of their spiritual infancy had come. F. F. Bruce correctly insists that the arrival of the new time

was not only marked but given actuality by the coming of the One in whom they were to attain their spiritual majority. Jesus does not passively respond to the conditions which are ripe for his appearance;

Page 31

he takes the initiative and inaugurates, if he does not indeed create, the fullness of times which he announces. 1

The origin, spread, and character of early Christianity continues to be one of the more fascinating moments in ancient history. Historians debate over the precise path it took and the degree of dependence it had or did not have on the Hellenistic world.2 Although the origin of Christianity has always been problematic, more than anything, its character was that of a renewed people.

In a real sense, the maxim is true: ''Explain the origin of the religion of Paul, and you have solved the problem of the origin of Christianity."3 Paul, for his part, did not jettison the Old Testament as an old document now obsolete and without continuity. After all, they were the only Scriptures he knew! Their value as "the very words of God" (Rom. 3:2) resided primarily in their fulfilling phenomena, which had their meaning made plain in Christ. During the days following his conversion, Paul claimed to receive the gospel "by revelation from Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1:12).

As he proceeded to unpack that revelation, there was much that was distinctively new as he understood it and proclaimed it. His concept of the church as the body of Christ and the household of faith is basic. With it is bound up his understanding of Christian existence "in Christ." In Christ, social, racial, and other barriers within the human family are eliminated.

These more distinctive aspects in Paul's thinking belong uniquely to the gospel as revelation, while those understandings which he shared with others belong to the gospel as tradition. The latter includes the information he gathered in Jerusalem when he went to make inquiry of Peter in the third year after his conversion.4

It is important to understand the foundation upon which Paul built his revelation. We must face the similarities as well as the dissimilarities in early Jewish Christianity. On the one hand, they were Jews who were Christians.5 They were of one mind in their conviction that God had manifested himself among his people and acted redemptively. Their recognition of Jesus as Messiah set them apart as a distinct Jewish entity. They were not, therefore, simply a sect within Judaism. They confidently perceived themselves living in the days of fulfillment (Acts 2:1621). They knew they were the new

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community of the Spirit and were living in the inauguration of the last days (Acts 2). They were feeling the old being renewed by the Spirit.

On the other hand, they were Christians who were Jews. The early believers were quite sure that they had come into possession of something new. Yet they sought to retain a hold on the forms they had inherited and to construe their new faith by categories provided by the old. They sought justification for this duality on various bases, but primarily on a remnant ecclesiology basis. They generated a strong conviction of their identity as the true Israel, the faithful remnant. As new wine is sometimes put first into old skins, so the earliest believers took for granted that the existing order would in some ways continue. Thus their mission was first to the house of Israel.

Christianity began as one among several parties in first-century Palestinian Judaism. It is not clear theologically, however, when it began. Paul, furnishing our earliest data on the question, is forthright on the matter. One must go back to Abraham, he says. For it is from him, in a sense, that Christianity must be dated. "The gospel," he says, "was preached to Abraham" (Gal. 3:8). The ancient people of God who wandered in the wilderness on their journey to the land promised to Abraham and his kind are specifically called "the church" (Acts 7:38, KJV).

The word for church which Stephen uses in quoting from the Greek Septuagint (LXX) is the Greek word ekklesia. This word appears nearly a hundred times in the New Testament. It always refers to the living people of God and never to an inanimate building. The word is a translation of the Hebrew qahal which signifies the people of God gathered together in assembly before the Lord. It is thus unlikely that an early Christian would have considered the church as a uniquely New Testament phenomenon.

W. Ward Gasque notes that in Matthew 16:18, the Lord

referred to the church in the future sense of the renewed people of God which will come into existence as a  result of the redemption to be accomplished by Jesus. . . . The new [or better, renewed] people of God concerning which the Lord spoke became a reality through the resurrection of Jesus and the coming of the promised Spirit. 6

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The early believers were, in fact, the assembled company whom God rescued and made his own people by covenantal election. Paul sees no incongruity in calling Abraham as "our forefather" (Rom. 4:1). He says that the believing Gentiles have become "children of Abraham" by faith in Israel's Messiah (Gal. 3:614). 7 In his earliest writings, he penned the benediction "to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God" (Gal. 6:16). It is easy to see why these first believers lived out their faith as the legitimate successors of true Israel, fortified both by their sense of corporate solidarity and by explicit apostolic teaching on the same.

The church, then, is the fellowship of all who share in the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant. E. J. Carnell further clarifies this.

The time of appropriation was circumstantial. The fellowship in the Old Testament was the seed, the fellowship in the New Testament the flower. The two phases differ in glory but not in substance. The church is one because the prophets and apostles spoke one word. The church is the seed of Abraham (Cf. Eph. 2:1921).8

Jesus was probably intimating this when he chose twelve disciples, corresponding to the twelve tribes in Israel. The disciples were to be and did, in fact, become the nucleus of the new Israel. In due time, he sent them out to proclaim the fresh news, to call people into the new community he was creating.

Looking at the whole picture, therefore, the new beginning heralded in Jesus' ministry was founded on the old beginning. It was simply the rebirth of the church as God's people. In this sense, the church began with a new and deeper meaning as Jesus' call to "follow me" was heeded in personal response. Those followers received the promise of a new covenant which Jeremiah announced (31:3134), updating the one to which the Jews were unfaithful (Heb. 8:813). They took seriously their opportunity to become God's new society, particularly due to their experience of becoming a "new creation" in Christ by a "new birth," a being born from above! (2 Cor. 5:17; John 3:3).

When Jesus created the Lord's Supper out of the Passover meal, he was, in essence, establishing his church as a continuing community. The new covenant people were forever united with the

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original people of God. Those first believers joyfully and regularly celebrated the cup as "the new covenant in his blood" (1 Cor. 11:24). While the upper-room gathering was the renewed church in embryo, the full realization of it came only after the Easter triumph. Once Jesus emerged as the Lord of Easter and the dispenser of the Spirit, the church burst forth in the fullness of newness!

The Pentecostal phenomenon was essentially the dramatic proclamation of a new calendar for God's people. They believed they were crossing the threshold of a new world, and were claiming scriptural authority for those unusual happenings in Jerusalem. 9 It spread from there into "all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). The earliest churches were small gatherings of committed disciple-believers who found themselves sharing the presence of the living, risen Lord (Matt. 18:20). Whatever else the church may be, it most surely is the community of the risen Lord. It exists in its fullness, as somebody said, "on the near side of what happened at Calvary and on the third day later."

The Social Context of the Renewed People

"Earliest Christianity began as a renewal movement within Judaism brought into being through Jesus."10 Gerd Theissen's opening statement in his Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity is sociologically instructive and pregnant with meaning. The early Galilean disciples probably spoke Aramaic and were at home in their simple rural setting, even as Jesus' parables reflect.

The Jesus movement, however, moved quickly beyond its rural milieu into the world of the Roman Empire. The followers would come from a mixture of social classes. This social transition is of crucial importance in any attempt to construct a sociological model out of the New Testament data. E. A. Judge comments that "the New Testament is itself a product of this shift. Its writers are mainly Jews of Palestinian associations, their readers the Greek-speaking members of Hellenistic communities."11

One of the phenomena of recent decades is the conscious employment of sociological models to explain biblical texts and the history of the early church. Towering figures like Emile Durkheim and Max Weber formulated foundational theses. Durkheim, for

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example, embraced symbols as the sociological key and viewed gods as the symbolic expression of society. He advocated that "the religious surge is nothing more than a feeling which a collectivity inspires in its members," which, when objectified, "is concentrated onto an object which then becomes sacred." 12 In this way, early sociologists sought to explain the supernatural through purely human projections.

Others, however, raise legitimate criticisms concerning the nature of sociological inquiry, pointing to problems of disputable theories, reductionism, and determinism. Even Peter Berger criticizes the sociologist's tendency to debunk the social systems he is considering. In fact, he says, it is the debunking science par excellence.13 This inherent tendency in sociology relativizes religious beliefs. In its relativizing wake, therefore, it cannot determine or deny the truth of any religious belief.

Liberal scholars who concentrated on the social teachings of Jesus often concluded that Jesus' opposition from the religious leaders stemmed from his failure to appreciate their feelings toward established social structures. After all, Jesus had not received the professional training necessary for appreciating the traditional techniques for preserving values.

A further negative but logical corollary is the common assumption that early Christians came primarily from the disinherited lower classes. However, pioneering contributions by E. A. Judge and others revealed a broad representation from every social class among the earliest Christians. This indeed is attested by the New Testament itself.

In The Social Context of the New Testament, Derek Tidball offers a succinct sociological analysis of the nature of the Jesus movement.14 Although no full agreement exists regarding that movement, there are variations on an underlying consensus view among scholars.

This consensus view perceives the Jesus movement as millenarian. Movements in this category arise in situations of social unrest and dissatisfaction with the current social order. A charismatic leader promises heaven on earth through a new social order to include the renewal of all aspects of social life. It is radically different from the existing order, led by a prophet who articulates

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human longings and becomes the key instrument in bringing about the new order.

Millenarian movements, not to be confused with the biblical idea of a 1,000-year reign, do not usually last long. Cherished human hopes of this kind always lead to disappointment or postponement. A metahistorical future where humanity is liberated from all its pain in a utopian heaven simply has not yet arrived among humankind!

Studied caution therefore should deter us from superficially assigning the Jesus movement to the millenarian bandwagon. As Tidball argues, this viewpoint overemphasizes the eschatological aspects of his teaching, assuming that Jesus did not expect his movement to continue after his death. It selects its radical evidence to the neglect of other criteria which presents Jesus as working within a more normal social framework. 15

On the contrary, it is more accurate to perceive the movement Jesus founded as essentially a renewal movement within Judaism. Such a revitalization movement has the capacity to include the truth of the millenarian characteristics in its model. At the same time, it allows Jesus to be the faithful rabbi and the true Messiah of the new Israel.

The House Church as a Sociological Model

In his study of Paul's Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Historical Setting, Robert Banks focuses on the influence of Paul's involvement in many of the significant tensions of his time. For example, he adapted a deliberate policy of accommodation to the varying circumstances in which he found himself. He always took cultural mores seriously. Banks comments on Paul's strategy as follows:

In many respects Paul was very much a man of his times, in others he was astonishingly ahead of them. . . . It is not possible to understand a man or his activities apart from the time in which he lived. This is especially the case with Paul. In responding to the call of Jesus he did not withdraw from the world about him. Rather, he found himself thrown more violently into it.16

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This accommodating attitude went far in fostering his understanding of community as living and dynamic. In contrast to the way they were perceived at the time, Banks believes that we should understand Paul's communities in retrospect as part of a wider social movement toward spontaneous association of persons in society. At the same time, they represented a parallel development to the religious fellowships that were growing in popularity within Judaism and Hellenism. 17

In the ancient world, two types of traditional communities existed. These were the politeia, the public life of the city or state, and the oikonomia, the household order into which one was born or attached. These associations, however, did not provide participation for slaves, various dependents, the unmarried, and the outcasts, thereby creating disenchantment among many. Hence, increasing numbers of people began to find their desires fulfilled in a variety of voluntary associations which were multiplying, especially in Greek cultures.

The novel feature of these groups, Banks asserts, was that individuals from differing social backgrounds were bound together on bases others than geography, race, or national legal ties. The operating principle was koinonia, a voluntary sharing in partnership. "In this proliferation of small clubs or associations, and in the significance they possessed . . . there is an interesting link between the first century and our own."18

In the development of his thesis, Banks compares Paul's understanding of ekklesia with the intellectual and social climate of his day. The Pauline ideal encompassed all three of the contemporary human quests. First, the church was a voluntary association with a small group of like-minded people who regularly gathered together. In this way, it could fulfill the aspirations for a universal fraternity which educated Greeks, Romans, and Jews all contemplated upon. Second, the church had its roots in and thus took on the character of the household unit, a community for personal identity and intimacy for which people longed but could seldom find. Finally, these small church groups were invested with a supranational and supratemporal significance, a common longing felt among the masses.

These characteristics invested Paul's communities with a de-

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cided advantage over its first-century competitors. They offered much moreas well as combined into one groupelements found only by adhering to more than one religious group. In other words, the sociological distinctive in Paul's conception was the combination of all three available models of community. 19

Significantly, the household was the primary structure of the empire.20 While the old senatorial families of the republic declined, household communities increased. The emperor's personal links were strengthened with the households by exploiting the paternalism implicit within the system. Using these emotional ties, he became the pater familias of the empire. As a result, the empire became on a macrocosmic scale what the household was in microcosm. As such, the empire became a complex network of households interlocked into one large system.

A typical household consisted of a number of familiesand sometimes individualswho were bound together under the authority of the senior male of the principal family. Tidball notes that some households worked in a common enterprise, such as agriculture or mercantile, and therefore lived on the same estate. There was apparently no limit to the size of the household, as long as the householder was able to support all the members.

Households operated under a clearly delineated hierarchy of authority. For example, a male heir was sought for the perpetuation of the absolute power of the male head of the family. When necessary, the law provided for adoption, a phenomenon familiar in Pauline writings. (See Rom. 8:1215; Gal. 3:26; Eph. 1:5.)

Friendship within households also merits mention. Friends in a household did not participate in a relationship of passing affection, but rather one of strong intimacy. Even a freed slave could choose to remain in a binding relationship with his master. Judge summarizes:

Friendship was not simply a spontaneous relationship of mutual affection. It was a status of intimacy conferred on trusted companions such as the associates of one's youth or else persons whose help was essential. Friendship conferred authority and prestige, the greater because it was undefined. It was from among friends that Caesar drew his principal advisers.21

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Overtones of the New Testament idea of friendship are obvious here. Jesus' assertion that his disciples were "no longer servants but friends" (John 15:15) reflects a much deeper meaning of friendship than our rather loose contemporary notion. It was friendship predicated on loyalty and even obedience, a relationship which, when threatened with dissolvement, would naturally threaten one's very status. The Jews' warnings to Pilate, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar!" (John 19:12) suggests this understanding.

The quality of friendship which held together households gives credence to the bonding of households upon the conversion of its head. The New Testament phenomenon of household baptisms is more easily understood from this vantage. It points to a solidarity made more firm by a friendship with enormous depth.

A typical household included a somewhat wealthy principal family with its head, friends, and other dependents, together with enough slaves for its daily administration and operation. In his discussion of Roman social institutions, Tidball adds a further insight to the household unit. He notes that such a mixed community needed a strong binding agent. This solidarity was further expressed in the adoption of a common religion chosen by the householder's leader. Tidball says that "religion then served them in a classic Durkheimian way in that it provided the means by which the collective soul of the family re-created itself and bound itself together." 22 In this sense, then, the households had a kind of unified system of beliefs and practices in relation to sacred things.

Thus, the genius of early Christianity, at least in part, was its ability to model itself on an ideal form of the social structure already present in the Roman Empire. Its vitality and success must be attributed to a large extent to its ability to enable persons to relate to others on all three of the available levels they felt they needed.

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Chapter 3

The New Testament House Churches

Beginnings and Characteristics of the Early House Churches

Floyd V. Filson first drew attention to the contemporary failure of scholarship to understand the household concept of the New Testament times. His seminal article, "The Significance of the Early House Churches," bristles with insight. Filson is surely correct when he affirms that

the New Testament church would be better understood if more attention were paid to the actual physical conditions under which the first Christians met and lived. In particular, the importance and function of the house church should be carefully considered. 1

The house churches of the New Testament not only furnish numerous insights into the functioning of early Christianity; they serve as a sociological model as well. Their existence and the data we possess on them point up the practical role they played in being a base of revitalization for the renewed people of God.

If you had asked another for directions to a church in any important city of the first-century world, you would have been directed to somebody's private home! This is significant. The begin-

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ning of these churches is an exciting story to trace. Indeed, Roland Allen once wrote that

in little more than ten years Paul established the church in four provinces of the Empire, Galatia, Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia. Before A.D. 47, there were no churches in these provinces. In A.D. 57, Paul could speak as if his work there was done, and could plan extensive tours into the far West without anxiety lest the churches which he had founded might perish in his absence for want of his guidance and support. 2

The following account of the beginnings and characteristics of those early house churches follows roughly the chronology of that incredible, one-of-a-kind decade.

The House Churches in Jerusalem

In the face of many difficulties, the first church was established in Jerusalem. Although all its members were Jewish, they were not all of the same type.1 The common folk were the ''people of the land." They kept their practices down to the minimal law-standards. Peter was probably typical of this type. There was also the more scrupulous kind, usually with Pharisaic and priestly backgrounds, represented by James. Finally, the Hellenist Jews were represented in the Jerusalem church by Stephen and Philip.

Differences within the mother church clearly existed. For instance, in that famous occasion in Syrian Antioch, Paul boldly confronted Peter. Paul "opposed him to his face"evidently publicly"because he was clearly in the wrong!" (Gal. 2:1113, NEB). Peter was wrong in that he found Paul's company too inclusive and sought a more restricted fellowship. He apparently did not want to make things too awkward for some of his friends back at the Jerusalem fellowship, particularly James, the Lord's brother.

Since the Acts informs us that the church numbered several thousand at its rebirth, it could not meet as a whole in one place. In fact, the references to small groupings is precisely what we would expect. They broke bread "in their homes" (Acts 2:46) and did not stop teaching "at home" (5:42). The mention of a prayer meeting in

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the home of Mary, Mark's mother (12:12), is further evidence that when they wanted to meet together, no place was suitable except the homes of the members.

It is noteworthy that this prayer meeting was apparently not a meeting of the whole Jerusalem church, therefore, but rather only one of the other house churches. Evidence to this phenomenon mounts when, as F. F. Bruce points out, Peter and James apparently did not belong to the same household church. "If Peter belonged to the group which met in the home of Mary . . . he knew that James and 'the brethren' (whoever they were) met somewhere else (Acts 12:17)." 4 Bruce goes on to comment that then, as now, we should expect some of these small church groups to attract the more cautiously conservative while others the more adventuresomely liberal.

The famous "upper room" comes into our purview here. It was in this "large upper room" of an unknown disciple's home that the first celebration of the Lord's Supper was held (Mark 14:1316). Most likely, this is the same large room in Jerusalem where the original group of 120 gathered to wait for the day of Pentecost (Acts 1:15; 2:12).

The House Church at Philippi

The town of Philippi has the unique distinction of having the first house church in Europe. Following the dramatic "Macedonian call" (Acts 16:610) Luke simply recorded that after Paul and Silas came out of prison, they went to Lydia's house. There they met their fellow Christians and spoke words of encouragement to them (Acts 16:14).

Lydia was a successful businesswoman from nearby Thyatira. The Lord opened her mind to respond to Paul's message. She and the members of her household were baptized (16:15). Indeed, it is not difficult to see why Lydia was the first person to turn to the Lord in Europe. She was a hospitable person and invited Paul and his companions into her home. She said, "If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my home." Luke notes that "she persuaded us" (16:15), and the first church of Europe was born!

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The House Churches at Corinth

When Paul sent greetings to the Roman believers from Corinth, he included Gaius, saying, "My host Gaius, in whose house the church meets, sends you his greetings" (Rom. 16:23, TEV). This homeowner was probably the same person as Titius Justus, who put his house at Paul's disposal so that he might carry on the work which he started in the synagogue next door. His full name would then be Gaius Titius Justus, marking him out as a Roman citizen. 5

This house apparently became the first meeting place for the Corinthian church as well as for Paul's headquarters (Acts 18:7, 11). Evidently during Paul's stay in Corinth he lived with Priscilla and Aquila, as he worked part-time for them in their tentmaking business (Acts 18:14). He never had more loyal friends and helpers than this amazing couple.

The church at Corinth is perhaps not only the most problematic but also the most colorful. The Lord had told Paul in a vision that he "has many people in this city" (Acts 18:910). This "many people" aggregate no doubt met in different places throughout the city.

One of those places is strongly intimated in Paul's warm response to the "household of Stephanas" (1 Cor. 16:5). They were the first household to become Christians in the province of Achaia. Paul mentions that he personally baptized only them among the Corinthian converts (1 Cor. 1:1518). Stephanas and his house church^6 devoted themselves in a unique way to diakonia, for they "addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints" (1 Cor. 16:15, KJV).

The probability here is that "they"the whole household as a ministering unitdramatically reflected their unique giftedness in serving the saints which met together in other churches. They "laid themselves out to serve God's people" (16:5, NEB), a service which suggests both their strengths and possessions were used for others, not unlike that quality found in the earlier believers at Jerusalem (Acts 2:44). In other words, the service extended from the local church to churches elsewhere in need.

Barclay reminds us that in the early church such willing and

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spontaneous service was the beginning of a more official leadership position. In such cases, a person's life and servant attitude marked him or her out as one whom all must respect. 7 In the same way, Paul urges the believers to "follow the leadership of such people as these" (1 Cor. 16:16, TEV).

There may have been a third house church at Corinth. "Chloe's people," who are mentioned in the beginning of the letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 1:11), were the ones from whom Paul learned about the rival schools at Corinth. Presumably, "Chloe's household" were members of a well-to-do house churchChloe was the household head and owner of the house.8

The internal evidence of the Corinthian correspondence reveals a "weaker brother" syndrome, the presence of problematic "men of knowledge" ("superapostles''), as well as a four-sided schism (1 Cor. 1:14f.).

If we caricatured the latter four groups, the Paulists would represent the traditionalists, those who played upon the fact that Paul was there first. Peter's people characterize the renewalists, who hark back to the very beginning. Since Peter was an original apostle, a chief builder of Christ's church, they assumed he was the one to rally around. The Apollos assembly could be called the biblicists, followers of Apollos, the seminarian Bible teacher. After all, he was an expert in Greek! The Christ group apparently imagined themselves to be the most spiritual of the church groups in Corinth. Distinctions which the others made are important, they thought, but the simple, basic thing was just to walk with Jesus!

Given these realities, it is a reasonable supposition that each rallying group found each other's company congenial, and therefore met together in separate houses. Filson points to the deep doctrinal differences which divided one group from another in Corinth, suggesting that the proneness to division which we see in apostolic churches was not unconnected with the division of the Christians of a particular city into house churches.9

The House Church at Ephesus

The church at Ephesus centered around the most celebrated couple in the New Testament, Priscilla and Aquila. Aquila had

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probably been born in poverty and slavery, somehow gaining freedom and arriving in Rome. There, he worked at an honest trade as a canvas maker. Fortunately for him, one day he met a most unusual woman who became his wife. Prisca (her formal Roman name) suggests that she was from one of the wealthy and noble Roman families. Together they developed their thriving business, Priscilla evidently providing wise expertise. Her leadership abilities are suggested in the fact that her name usually appears before her husband's.

Then one day they experienced God's sovereign grace in their lives. They became Christians and, as middle-class folk, they faced new problems. These problems were so serious that, for whatever reasons, they and other believers were expelled from Rome by the Edict of Claudius (Acts 18:2). So Priscilla and Aquila went to Corinth, where they sold sailcloth for the tall ships in the port nearby. They also sold their skills and wares as merchants in the tentmaking industry.

Sometime later, however, they moved again to Ephesus, presumably to establish a business there also. Not long after arriving in town, this gracious couple invited the believers there into their house on the Lord's day. The church began using their living room for the meeting place on a regular basis. Not long afterward, Paul, who also left Corinth with them, wrote back to the Corinthian believers with these warm words: "Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets in their home" (1 Cot. 16:19).

Paul's ministry at Ephesus was stormy with adversaries, and it was probably during this time that Priscilla and Aquila "risked their necks" for his life, as he expressed it in Romans 16:4 (RSV).

Obviously, they were a sharing couple. When they shared their home or their faith, they were taking the risk of being rejected. Evidently they almost lost their lives in high-risk sharing with Paul and others. Hostile authorities were after Paul, especially since the howling uproar in Ephesus over Christianity's challenge to the silversmiths' business of making shrines of Artemis (Acts 19). One could hardly shelter Paul and his people in those days without losing status in the business community. Furthermore, to have a church in one's home every Sunday might be acceptable to some, but what

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about all those slaves coming into the group? The stakes were high, but Priscilla and Aquila were more than willing to pay the price.

Indeed, Paul's own unique understanding of the gospel may well have been fostered here in the house church which enjoyed the hospitality of Priscilla and Aquila. After all, it was there that Priscilla and Aquila befriended the brilliant scholar, Apollos. He did not understand the fullness of Christianity, so they took him into their home and shared with him the way of God more accurately (Acts 18:2426).

The Variegated House Churches of Rome

Where did Paul go, and Peter as well, when they visited Rome? Clearly, not to St. Paul's or St. Peter's, for in 60 A.D., there were, of course, no Christian basilicas on Vatican Hill or by the Ostian Way. Actually, Paul was not in a position to "go" anywhere when he first arrived in Rome, since he remained under house arrest for several years. We can assume his tenant flat became the locus for a small household church during his custody, one among others already existing in the great city.

It is doubtful that there was one centrally administered "church" in Rome, based on the evidence of Paul's letter and on the probability of the situation there. He does not use his usual form of greeting which, in this case, would be designated "to the church of God which is in Rome." Rather, he addresses the letter ''to all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints" (1:7). Scholars have debated over the fact that "in Rome" is omitted in one reading, as well as verse 15, together with the personal greetings to 26 individuals by name in chapter 16. In spite of the arguments that direct the final chapter to Ephesus, there is insufficient evidence to detach chapter 16 from the letter to the Romans. It may be, however, that Romans was circulated in several forms. 10

Robert Banks points to Paul's characteristic way of referring to the "churches" of a particular area,11 suggesting that the idea of a unified provincial or national church is foreign to Paul's thinking. He concludes that ekklesia cannot refer to a group of people scattered throughout a locality unless they all do in fact actually gather together. Thus, it is not possible for him to describe all the Chris-

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tians in Rome as a "church." 12

Nevertheless, Paul did expect his letter to reach "all" the Christians there (1:7). It is not necessary, however, to assume that Paul had in mind a single occasion when all would together hear it read. Perhaps as Bruce suggests, Phoebe carried it from one house church to another.13

The most well-known home church in Rome was, most likely, the gathering of believers meeting in the newly established home of Priscilla and Aquila. Most likely they were the copastors of the fellowship. Having lived and worked in Corinth and Ephesus, they had returned again to their beloved Rome, where they probably had first become believers. Paul writes to the fellowship there, requesting them to "greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus . . . not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. Greet also the church that meets at their house" (Rom. 16:45).

Although Aquila was a Jew (Acts 18:2), Priscilla's birthplace may well have been Rome, particularly in view of Paul's preference for Prisca. Barclay pieces together the romance of their story. There is in Rome today a church of St. Prisca, as well as a cemetery of Priscilla, the cemetery being the burying place of the ancient Acilian family. Furthermore, in four of the six references to this couple, Priscilla is named before her husband. The implication is that Priscilla is not a freedwoman, but rather, a great ladya member by birth of the Acilian family.

It may be that at some meeting of the Christians this great Roman lady met Aquila, the humble Jewish tentmaker, that the two fell in love, that Christianity destroyed the barriers of race and rank and wealth and birth, and that these two, the Roman aristocrat and the Jewish artisan, were joined forever in Christian love and Christian service.14

Due credit should be given this unusual Christian couple. Käsemann remarks that we can regard this couple as among the earliest Christian missionaries in the Diaspora. They had begun their work independently of Paul and then continued it in association with him.15 Wherever we find them, we also find a center of Christian fellowship and ministry! Even a cursory reading of the

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New Testament highlights the remarkable emphasis and the high priority the earliest church placed on hospitality. The power and vitality of Christian hospitality obviously played a primary role in gathering together the first Christians into assemblies.

Twenty-four more names in Romans 16 follow those of this famed couple. These names represent a company of friends and acquaintances that Paul had no doubt met in other places. In view of the ease of travel throughout the Roman world, Bruce is probably right in assuming that many of the folks that Paul met on his journeys became resident in Rome. It is also natural that he should send personal greetings to them, as well as to others of whom he had heard.

The significance of the friendship list in Romans 16 lies in its clustering phenomenon, yielding obvious groupings of earlier household churches. Together with the house church in Priscilla and Aquila's home, four other household churches are singled out. These include those "who belong to the household of Aristobulus" (16:10) and those "in the household of Narcissus" (16:11). Another cluster centers around five names in verse 14, together with their brothers. Then five believers are named in verse 15, including "all the saints with them." Banks raises the possibility that two kinds of house churches may be seen in Rome, where guild life was strong and often concentrated in certain districts. The suggestion that a domestic work grouping may lie behind several clusters should be taken into account as well. 16

The sociological clues found underneath this list of names imply a broad racial diversity, including Peris, a Persian; Rufus, an African; and Urbanes and others, Roman Gentiles. Social Christian unity is implied by the side-by-side presence of common slave names with prominent imperial names. There is also a strong current of sexual equality. Six of the 26 are women, and the first-named Phoebe is not only a deacon but a prostatis, a woman set over others as a presiding one, alluding to the probability of elder or pastoral leadership. Junia is considered a fellow apostle, and Priscilla's credentials have been discussed above.

Furthermore, positive ecumenical mobility is implied. Priscilla and Aquila labored among the empire's cities. Paul recognizes by name a wide amalgamation of believers from various parts of the

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empire. These now find themselves "churched" in one of the house churches of Rome.

To these clusters of home-gathered churches in Rome could be added another significant group. It is reasonable conjecture that the epistle to the Hebrews was addressed to a house church. Since the churches in Rome were cosmopolitan, some of the Christian Jews may have still counted themselves as adherents of one of the synagogues. They would soon no longer be able to maintain a foot in both camps. This was perhaps the situation of the group addressed in the epistle to the Hebrews, having come to faith in Christ not long before the Romans document was written.

A well-known advocate of the Roman destination of Hebrews was Adolph Harnack. He believed that it was sent to a house church in that city by someone well acquainted with the addressees. William Manson suggests that a small conservative enclave within the Roman church clung to the more conservative principles of traditional Judaism. He believes Hebrews was addressed particularly to them. 17 Apollos may have been its author, or even Priscilla.

Bruce puts this fascinating query into perspective by noting the fact that Hebrews was well known in Rome, particularly by Clement. Nonconformist Jewish elements existed in the Christian community of Rome. Their Hellenistic orientation implies that the recipients of the Hebrews tractate were second-generation believers who derived their knowledge of the Old Testament ritual system from reading the Septuagint. "Perhaps they formed a 'house church' within the wider fellowship of a city church, and were tending to neglect the bonds of fellowship that bound them to other Christians outside their own inner circle."18

In summarizing the situation of the Roman churches, the word community is not totally appropriate, since they existed in plurality. If it is correct to suppose that Paul found the Roman Christians decentralized, it is also appropriate to conclude that he did little to centralize them. Indeed, a century later Justin Martyr remarked that the Roman Christians did not all meet together "in the very same place," but that he gathered his disciples together "above one Martin, at the Timothian Baths.19 Ignatius and Hermas provide similar evidence that the church was still decentralized and was not yet organized under the administrative authority of a single bishop.

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Therefore, Hermas could write, "In this city you yourself shall read it aloud with the elders who stand at the head of the church." 20

A final comment regarding the Roman house churches. It is widely believed by many scholars that Rome's St. Clement basilica is built upon the remains of an earlier church which dates to about the fourth century. More significant are the remains of a structure on a yet lower level, dating back to the first century. Protestants and Catholics alike point to the probability of this original structure being the first-century home of Clement of Rome.

In his recent work, however, Graydon F. Snyder asserts that as yet no function for this lowest building has been determined. He feels certain that it is not a house. Rather, he supposes a private residence was later built beside the original "public" building. This was later yet transformed into a Mithraic school, therefore making the religious use of the most ancient residence Mithraic rather than Christian.21 Even though uncertainty remains concerning a proper interpretation of the data, nevertheless, the account suggests how an early home or center of Christian interest would grow in esteem and eventually be regarded as a sacred site.

The House Churches at Colossae

The apostle Paul, in his unusual letter to Philemon, writes, "To Philemon our dear friend and fellow-worker, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the church that meets in your home" (Philem. 1:2). The first person addressed in the letter would most naturally be the head of the house. Apphia was probably his wife and Archippus their son.22 It has been traditionally supposed that Philemon was a member of the Colossian fellowship. Philemon's home, therefore, was the meeting place for one of the household churches in Colossae.

Somehow Philemon had been converted to Christianity through Paul's ministry (v. 19). His slave Onesimus robbed him and absconded to Rome, where he came in contact with Paul. Through Paul's influence he also became a believer. Although we cannot know how or why Onesimus visited Paul, Minear suggests that they may have been imprisoned in the same place.23

The brief personal letter is an exquisite sociological model

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reflecting the power of the gospel in effecting forgiveness and in its insistence on equality in Christ's body. Onesimus is returning no longer as a slave but a dear brother (v. 16), implying an incongruity for a Christian master to "own" a brother in Christ. Paul's strategy, armed with the revolutionary gospel, challenged the issue on principle from within, which would in time lead to the abolishment of the outward system itself.

Bruce brings the situation into focus by remarking that Onesimus was now in good standing as a church member. He suggests that he was probably attached to one of the house churches of Rome. He therefore naturally received from the Colossian church the same welcome as that given any other visiting Christian, especially one armed with a letter of recommendation from an apostle. 24

This Colossian house church must have excitedly prepared for a most heartwarming experience. They had just received word from the apostle.

Our dear brother Tychicus, who is a faithful worker and fellow servant in the Lord's work, will give you all the news about me. That is why I am sending him to you, to cheer you up by telling you how all of us are getting along. With him goes Onesimus, the dear and faithful brother, who belongs to your group. Col. 4:79, TEV)

The church fellowship in Philemon's house was evidently not the only house church regularly gathering together in Colossae. Some of "the saints and faithful brethren in Christ at Colossae" (Col. 1:2, RSV) evidently met together in another house fellowship. Paul's greetings to the believers in that city also include best wishes to "Nympha and the church in her house" (Col. 4:15).

It is likely that this second house fellowship, too, was planted by Epaphras (Col. 1:7; 4:1213). He was the evangelist of the Lycas Valley, and was an informant to Paul regarding the churches of that region. Paul had apparently not yet visited the house churches at Colossae when he wrote his letter (Col. 2:1), but he wanted to and may have had the opportunity at a later time (Philem. 1:22).

The Church at Laodicea

When Paul sent his letter to the Colossian church from his

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prison hall in Rome, he also wanted it to be read in the church at nearby Laodicea, about 10 miles away. He wrote,

My own greetings to the Christians in Laodicea, and to Nympha and the congregation who meet in her house. When you have had this letter read in your church [i.e., the house fellowship associated with Philemon], see that the Laodiceans have it read in their church too; and see that you in turn read the letter to Laodicea. (Col. 4:1516, JBP)

Because of slight ambiguity here, some believe the house church associated with Nympha was actually at Laodicea. Although this is a viable interpretation, it is an unlikely one.

By inference, the church at Laodicea can represent other New Testament churches not technically designated a "church in your home." Its close affiliation in Paul's letter with the house churches at Colossae corroborate the probability of its home setting.

Similarly, were there not house churches "scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappodocia, Asia and Bithynia" to which Peter wrote (1 Pet. 1:1)? And how were the seven churches of Asia Minor structured? We know that Ephesus, topping the list and where Timothy later ministered, was structured as a house church. Lacking evidence to the contrary, we can assume the other six were of the same kind. Furthermore, the same home environment existed in the earliest church at Thessalonica, the church at Crete where Titus probably ministered (Titus 1:5f.), and all other churches mentioned or implied within the New Testament documents.

Of course we know relatively little about the Laodicean church. The letter to Laodicea which Paul mentions was probably written by him, but lost. 25 No evidence exists that Paul visited the church.26 However, John's reference to that church in his Apocalypse contains a profoundly serious warning to the church's growing spiritual tepidity (Rev. 3:1422). He admonishes them to repent from their lukewarmness, a condition to which the fellowship apparently succumbed.

The Upstairs House Church at Troas

When Paul and his friends arrived at Troas, they were joined

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by another companion, the author of the travel diary which is incorporated into the published edition of Acts. Luke's joining with the traveling party is unobtrusively indicated by a sudden switch from the third person to the first person pluralfrom they to we (Acts 20:5). There in Troas was a small community of believers probably formed during Paul's distracted and interrupted evangelization of the city and its neighborhood a year or two before. 27

The gathered church met in somebody's third-floor apartment. Paul and his companions enjoyed the fellowship of these early Christians, especially during the Sunday evening before their departure. They met then to break bread, and Paul went on talking with them until midnight. Luke remembered the occasion quite vividly, since a young man of the communityEutychus by namewas overcome by drowsiness while sitting on a window ledge. The longwinded, late-night preacher apparently did not notice the sinking struggle the young man was having. Apparently, due to the fumes from the "many lamps" in the room (v. 8), he fell and was picked up dead. It was a great relief to find Eutychus still alive and well after Paul performed a miraculous resuscitation, possibly in conjunction with a form of artificial respiration (v. 10).

Several things about this house church episode are illuminating. Ralph P. Martin significantly points out that

at Troas we see how the "breaking of bread" service of Acts 2:42, 46 still persists in a Greco-Roman setting but as part of a structure that will later become "fixed" and provide the two-part sequence of the Christian sunaxis or gathering for Sunday worship. The "liturgy of the Word" and the "liturgy of the upper room" are visible in their embryonic forms in the simple house celebration in Troas.28

Obviously, the significance of the worship pattern discernible in the house church in Troas has far-reaching implications for contemporary worship. These implications are considered later in this book.

Another illuminating and instructive facet of the gathering in Troas centers on the fact that Paul did not "preach" to the believers there, as commonly assumed. English translations are generally careless here and therefore only add to the confusion. For example,

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the Jerusalem Bible says Paul "preached a sermon" (Acts 20:7). The earlier edition of the New International Version says that Paul "preached," but later editions read that Paul simply "spoke" to them. The Greek text, in fact, says that Paul dialogued with them (dialegomai). That is, he "conducted a discussion" giving us a clear and vital glimpse into the original and appropriate pattern of communications used in the house churches of the gathered believers.

Other textual clues suggest that the churches to which Paul sent his letters were always house churches. In writing to the Thessalonians, for example, he obviously felt it appropriate to use an extraordinarily strong word to make sure the believers there would get his message. He finished the letter with a charge: "I adjure you by the Lord that this letter be read to all the brethren" (1 Thess. 5:27, RSV).

What could his motive have been for such surprising language at the ending of an overall cordial letter? Could it be that since the basic unit was the house church, it surely must be shared with all the house churches so that one group could not be allowed to monopolize it, as Filson suggests?

Summary Ramifications of the Apostolic House Churches

In summarizing the household concept in the New Testament documents, Filson's research laid a needed foundation upon which others have built. 29 The following ramifications of the house church phenomenon in the New Testament not only enrich our understanding of the apostolic church but also offer insight for contemporary revitalization.

First, the church in the home provided the most dynamic setting for the distinctively unique Christian fellowship and worship. The household structure provided a natural setting and enabled Christians to gather together for worship and fellowship from the earliest days. "It was the hospitality of these homes which made possible the Christian worship, common meals, and courage-sustaining fellowship of the group. The Christian movement really rooted in these homes."30

These small fellowships were not dependent on conforming to temple or synagogue worship, nor on buildings they had erected.

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Archaeological evidence suggests the average size household could accommodate about 30 to 35 comfortably. 31

Although there is no extant church building built prior to Constantine, there are homes which were restructured for Christian assemblies. Graydon F. Snyder finds it amazing that we do not have more remains of such house churches, adding that, indeed, we may have remains of such but cannot recognize them.

The one edifice unquestionably pre-Constantinian is the church at Dura-Europos. It is an ancient city on the modern Syrian desert, established as one of the Selucid fortresses. Strengthened by the Romans and occupied later by the Persians, the city was later abandoned to the ravages of the desert.

Of special interest are the 193031 archaeological excavations on the site. These digs yielded the ruins of an early house church. Snyder affirms that these remains are "one of a kind" and are the most important discovery of pre-Constantinian church practice and architecture.

Nevertheless, he is skeptical regarding the earliest private house being an early house church since it elicits no history as such.32

The isometric drawing (Figure 1) of the house church in Dura-Europos portrays a "photograph" of a domus ecclesiae as it was in the year A.D. 256. Before it was adapted for a Christian meeting place, the house consisted of eight rooms and a courtyard (see Figure 2). Somewhere between A.D. 232 and A.D. 256, the house was altered for use as a gathering place for Christians, adding a baptistry and wall paintings (see Figure 3). The house was well hidden in a cluster of other similar houses. Its appearance remained that of a private house even after its alterations into a Christian church meeting place. After all, the Christians in the third century A.D. had every reason not to make their meeting place conspicuous.

Second, the house church contributed to the experiential understanding of the church's essence. The family-household basis must have had an overwhelming effect on the earliest believers' understanding of the church as family, the very "household of God" (Eph. 2:1819; 3:1415; 5:1; 6:23). Ultimately, as someone has said, every home should be a church, for a church is where Jesus dwells.

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Figure 1

An Isometric Drawing of the House Church in Dura-Europos.

This goes far to explain why there is so much emphasis in the New Testament on family life and interpersonal relationships. The need for making faith work in daily homelife was surely intensified by the dynamic house church structure. We must not forget that the New Testament ideas of Christian education are built upon a ''Hebrew model" 33 of the Old Testament, which placed the responsibility in the locus of homelife (cf. Deut. 6:19).

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Figure 2

Plan of the House in Dura-Europos Used as a Church

Figure 3

Plan of the House Church in Dura-Europos

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Third, the house church was a culturally relevant model. House churches provided a decentralized freedom for creative expression within the varying cultural settings. For Paul, church does not refer to a group of people scattered throughout a locality unless they all do in fact actually gather together. He does, however, occasionally group churches together by referring to the province in which they exist, as "the churches of Galatia," where he uses the plural form (Gal. 1:2). When he refers to the "church" of a given locality, he infers that the house churches of the city gathered together from time to time as part of the larger fellowship of the city ekklesia (1 Cor. 14:23). 34

Small, home-centered gatherings were a generally accepted phenomenon in the context of the ancient world. This cultural mood was an impetus for each small group to move with creative freedom in a particular direction according to its own appreciations. This was, no doubt, a positive factor in the development of the early church. In Corinth, like-minded folks may have gathered in the houses in which Paul, Cephas, or Apollos had stayed during their visits to that city.

Fourth, the house church nurtured a healthy social integration of the earliest Christians. The apostolic church was evidently a healthy cross-section of society reflecting a broad social mixture, from wealthy land-home owner to common slave. It is apparent that the homes large enough to house a church must have been owned by persons of some means. Not necessarily rich, they at least must not have been one of the dispossessed proletariat. Such were those like Gaius, Erastus, Crispus, and Stephanas.

The implications of the healthy integrated amalgamation of the early Christian society have seldom been explored. The New Testament evidences a strong stance on the equality of minority groups, particularly the place of women.

A commonly observed penchant of Eastern people for the practice of hospitality in their homes served as a leveling force. A hierarchy of position would seem out of place in the warm and personal surroundings of a first-century Christian home.

Fifth, the house church positively influenced the development of the church's leaders. The hosts of the churches became the natural leaders of the church. They were most likely persons of sufficient

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education and practical administrative ability. Filson notes that many of the hosts of the earliest Gentile churches were "Godfearers." They had already demonstrated their initiative by leaving their ancestral situations and aligning with the synagogue. Rather than inheriting leadership, the house church structure imparted, through the hosts, actual leadership which in turn determined the form of church life (cf. 1 Cor. 16:16). 35

At the end of the first century, John, the aging apostle, penned his final words to the church fellowships in Asia Minor. Nearly 70 years had passed since he walked with Jesus. Clement of Alexandria later wrote that John "would go away when invited to the neighboring districts of the Gentiles, here to appoint presbyters, there to form new churches, and there to put into the office of the ministry some one of those who were indicated by the Spirit."36

John's third epistle is a brief but poignant glimpse into a house church situation, one of the last apostolic and canonical admonitions to a New Testament church. In it he introduces us to the infamous Diotrephes, whose essential character was manifested in his haughty attitude. John has permanently indebted us to him for introducing this ungentlemanly person to us. The pithy account serves as a forewarning of a common problem in church leadership. Diotrephes was a "would-be leader" (v. 9, NEB) in the house church. He wanted "to be head of everything!"

Here, then, we have the final open window on house churches at the end of the first century. It reveals the common and unending riddle of deviate and eccentric church leaders. In the final analysis, the scene John depicts only strengthens the thesis being argued. The house churches were eminently suited to the training of future leadershipleaders who would be able to provide the guidance needed in the post-apostolic days. The small church communities had been admonished, encouraged, and trained to confront those who were seeking leadership positions apart from being called by the Spirit. The dynamic of the small group at work here went far to insure post-apostolic "succession" of suitable leadership.

Sixth, the household church strengthened the concept of corporate solidarity in Christian conversion. Conversion in the New Testament was not an exclusively individualistic experience. It was often a decision taken by the whole household.

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Sociologically, each society is composed of a variety of subgroups or homogeneous units. Societies have differing procedures for making group decisions, as, for instance, by the consensus of a group of leaders. Thus, we need to discern the pattern of response to the gospel most fitting for that particular culture. 37

References to the household conversions of Cornelius (Acts 10:12), Lydia (Acts 16:1315), Crispus (Acts 18:18), and the Philippian jailer (Acts 16:3134) provide an alternative to contemporary thinking concerning conversion. Here is yet another positive characteristic of the first-century house church which much of the Western, twentieth-century church has lost. Attention needs to be given to conversion as a complex experience. Speaking on this theme, Orlando Costas proposes that conversion is not only a distinct moment and continuum process, but a missional commitment as well. It is a socio-ecclesial reality. It does not take place in a vacuum, but rather within particular social contexts.38

Within our advanced stage of individualism, it will be a healthy sign when our evangelism will again focus on parents as the influences of households, resulting in a stronger affirmation of the household idea of the New Testament.

Seventh, the household as church afforded the basic solution to the problem of early missionary strategy. Another paramount point needs to be made in this context regarding Paul's missionary strategy. Simply put, it was a strategy of households. He needed a meeting place for a center of operation, as well as for gathering the new believers. It is reasonable to assume that when Paul began missionary work in a city, his primary objective was to win a household first. This then became the nucleus as well as the center for the advancement of the gospel in that area.

Church growth expert Donald McGavran enlightens this matter further by saying that the first common obstacle to multiplying churches never appeared in the early church, i.e., the cost of building buildings. The house church overcame the obstacle of introversion by exposing a new section of society in each new house church. McGavran adds, "The physical fact of the house church should be taken into consideration in any assessment of the causes of the growth of the early church."39

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Eighth, the house churches were the embodiment of biblical and Christian hospitality. One wonders how the first churches would have succeeded if the generous attitude of hospitality had not been among their comrades. In his Social Aspects of Early Christianity, A. J. Malherbe speaks to this issue by charging that the theological implications of hospitality as practiced by the early church still await our attention. 40 Malherbe goes on to point out that hospitality was regarded as a virtue since classical times by pagans as well as Jews. Its high priority in the New Testament only serves to show how the first Christians believed they should excel in this virtue to the degree of transforming it into a distinctly Christian principle.

In this way, the household character of a church would be retained as it became larger and existed among other groups of its kind. Malherbe is right that the early Christians believed that they had been called to a higher quality of life than could be expected of their society. They thus took measures to safeguard it in their house church communities. Their enthusiastic practice of hospitality quietly became the very protection of their life together.

Luke seems especially interested in depicting Jesus as both enjoying hospitality and teaching it (Luke 14:7f.). In his Acts, the practice of hospitality is frequently reported. Other narratives assume it. The first beachhead in Europe was afforded Paul by a woman's generous and insistent provision of hospitality (Acts 16:1415). Philemon is urged to "prepare a guest room" (Philem. 1:22) John's last two tiny epistles show that hospitality was still basic to church life and was going strong at the end of the first century (2 and 3 John). The pastoral epistles cite hospitality as a duty of elders (Titus 1:8) as well as of widows on the lower end of the social situation (1 Tim. 5:10).

Furthermore, Paul, like Peter, calls hospitality a spiritual gift (Rom. 12:13). Peter commended the believers to "practice hospitality" to one another without grumbling (1 Peter 4:9, RSV). Phillips gets to the essence by phrasing it, "Be hospitable to each other without secretly wishing you hadn't got to be!" Further, the writer of Hebrews counsels, "Remember to show hospitality. There are some who, by so doing, have entertained angels without knowing it" (Heb. 13:2, NEB).

Hospitality is affirmed in the gospels, particularly in conjunc-

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tion with the sending out of apostles and other heralds. What is striking is that these earliest missionaries were to assume the hospitality of the people to whom they were to proclaim their message (Mark 6:711; Matt. 10:542; Luke 9:25; 10:116). The very success of their heralding depended on the early believer's hospitality.

In "Early Christian Hospitality: A Factor in the Gospel Transmission," R. W. Riddle points to early Christian hospitality as one of the most charming features of the earliest church. By interrogating the extracanonical writings of the New Testament period, Riddle shows that the patristic sources add support to the extraordinary commonality of early Christian hospitality.

These examples of hospitality suggest that the custom may account for a notable phenomenon of those days: the acceptance of the traveling preacher's message by entire households . . . that the primitive churches were house-churches is a detail of this, and an aspect of early Christian hospitality. . . . This brings the student directly to the social processes in Christianity's expansion. One of them was early Christian hospitality. In it one sees an ultimate medium of Christianity's growth. Observing early Christian hospitality, venturing to look into the early Christian household, one sees a very charming, as it was a very effective, aspect of early Christian life. 41

In summary, an overview of the New Testament regarding the house church phenomenon leads one to concur with Filson and others. The apostolic church can never be properly understood without always bearing in mind the distinctive contribution the house churches made. The house church as a model did not provide Paul with his most demonstrative theological model for the church, which was the church as body. It did, however, provide the paramount sociological model whose ramifications were everywhere to be seen.42

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Chapter 4

Historical and Contemporary Significance of House Churches

Perspective on the Small Group

A house church is a small-group phenomenon. Indeed, the small group has survived throughout the ebb and flow of history. J. Long expressively reflects on the origin of small groups.

In the beginning shortly after he created man, God created small groups. God did not populate his world with self-sufficient individuals. Because it wasn't good for man to be alone, God created families. And God worked through family groupings and other forms of small groups to establish his purposes. 1

Contemporary research usually focuses on groups which number from half a dozen to thirty, since it is within this group size that people usually involve themselves. The definition of a group as given by Tubbs is comprehensive: "A group is a collection of individuals who influence one another, derive some satisfaction from maintaining membership in the group, interact for some purpose, assume some specialized roles, are dependent on one another, and communicate face-to-face."2

The small group, therefore, is a unique entity which distinguishes itself from a mere collection of individuals. Features unique

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to the small group include open communication occurring in a face-to-face situation. The group will develop a set of norms which will serve as boundaries, in order to maintain interpersonal communication. It will assign roles to help determine the expected behavior of the group. It will develop a culture of its owncustoms which become a model around which to rally. 3

Elton Trueblood, in The Incendiary Fellowship, notes that two areas of concern in the church's fellowship are the church base and the world's field. Not straying from sociological concepts, True-blood says the base is where members "derive some satisfaction from maintaining membership." It is where they "interact for some purpose" and "assume specialized roles." He contends that "a base is not a true Christian base unless it is a center of affection in which the members accept the principle of unlimited liability for one another."4

Beyond doubt, the most essential and satisfying differentiation between kinds of groups is the distinction between primary groups and secondary groups. Sociologists often find this differentiation useful. A primary group is a group small enough to be characterized by intimate face-to-face association. The result is the fusion of individuals in a common whole. It is a situation in which the individual becomes directly involved and gains a most complete experience of social unity. We associate this close relationship with families and peer groupings.

The secondary group, on the other hand, is larger and more formal. It is therefore more coldly impersonal. In a secondary group, the participants know each other only as adherents of the same organization. They may share a deep common concern, as in a stockholders, meeting, but do not necessarily know each other personally or intimately. The common focus centers on an extraneous concern rather than on each other.

Applying the sociological definitions to the church as structure, a basic dichotomy becomes noticeable. The house church model of the first several centuries was that of a primary group. It emphasized the church as fellowship, as people in a significant relationship. The church model which rapidly developed from the third century, on the contrary, was that of a secondary group. It became the dominant and abiding model, concentrating more on outward

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structure, architecture, organizational systems, and hierarchies. The "sanctuary church" focuses on the church as institution. This understanding of the church raises significant questions about the nature and quality of corporate life together.

Small Groups and the History of the Church

The "original small group" was the one Jesus organized and gathered with him at the Last Supper. The small group then became the basic unit of the church's life throughout the first several centuries. Reflecting on this fact, renewalist Howard Snyder reaches a formidable conclusion with implications for today's church renewal. He writes:

A small group of eight to twelve people meeting together informally in homes is the most effective structure for the communication of the gospel in modern secular-urban society. Such groups are better suited to the mission of the church in today's urban world than are traditional church services, institutional church programs, or the mass communication media. Methodologically speaking, the small group offers the best hope for . . . renewal within the church. 5

The quest for renewal has run throughout church history. Small groups have fostered this quest, since they usually have had a genuine desire for rediscovering and perpetuating the intimate community of Christ's true body as the family of God.

Small sect-type church groups of committed people existed alongside the institutional medieval church in pre-Reformation times. Ernst Troeltsch documented this phenomenon in The Social Teaching of the Christian Church. These small church groups were informed by the New Testament documents and were characterized by voluntary membership and an emphasis upon ethics as proof of the reality of their faith. Troeltsch prefers to call them "sect-type" as a sociological category.6

Church historian Donald F. Durnbaugh shows there is, in fact, a house church tradition identifiable within and throughout the church's history. He notes that the newer renewal movements often copied the earlier ones without having knowledge of them.7

After Constantine's accession, radical advances in ecclesiastical

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hierarchies occurred, resulting in the elevation of the priesthood above the laity and the rise of a sacrificial system. Church became less and less to be regarded as the community of believers. The desert fathers of Alexandria sought spirituality in solitude rather than in community. Over the years, however, such hermit-type persons began to band together, resulting in small-cell communities. In time, these cells evolved into more disciplined communities which, in turn, fostered the monastic movements of the later Middle Ages.

The hunger for genuine spiritual renewal in the church is most obvious from the Reformation times. The Reformation ''radicals" advocated small believers' churches in which they could practice the high spiritual standards the Bible requires. Their understanding of Christianity was not an academic, bookish enterprise. Rather than a ponderous theology, they sought a passionate discipleship.

As for Luther, he bitterly opposed the Anabaptist movement in his penchant for the state-church system and his bent on renewing Catholicism. After defying pope and emperor with his revolutionary theses, he faced the more pragmatic difficulty of organizing an evangelical church. He found himself the leader of a pre-Christian movement which lacked the character of a truly reformed people. Luther published his own revised liturgy in an attempt to incorporate his new understandings into the traditional forms. When he published his own mass in the vernacular in 1526, he stated in the preface the need for a mass in the common tongue for the "simple and unlearned lay folk." Most of them "stand around and gape, hoping to see something new, . . . as if we were holding a service among the Turks or the heathen in a public square or out in a field."

Luther wrote, in fact, about three types of divine services. The Latin liturgy and the German service were for the unlearned people, many of whom were not even believers. Those services should continue, he believed, for the primary purpose of evangelism. However, a third kind of service was most needfula "truly evangelical" one. It would be held privately for those "who want to be Christians in earnest and who profess the gospel with hand and mouth."

Luther describes such a gathering.

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[They] should sign their names and meet alone in a house somewhere to pray, to read, to baptize, to receive the sacrament, and to do other Christian works. According to this order, those who do not lead Christian lives could be known, reproved, corrected, cast out, or excommunicated, according to the rule of Christ, Matthew 18. Here one could also solicit benevolent gifts to be willingly given and distributed to the poor, according to St. Paul's example, 2 Corinthians 9. Here would be no need of much and elaborate singing. Here one could set out a brief and neat order for baptism and the sacrament and center everything on the Word, prayer, and love. 8

With amazing candor Luther went on to say that one could easily meet the structural ramifications if this kind of people could be found. Nevertheless, he wistfully confessed, "As yet I neither can nor desire to begin such a congregation or assembly or to make rules for it. For I have not yet the people or persons for it, nor do I see many who want it. But if I should be requested to do it and could not refuse with a good conscience, I should gladly help and do my part as best I can."9

Luther's third option is what we today call a "house church" with a defined membership based on commitment and a verbal confession of faith. As John Howard Yoder points out, the type of small group Luther is talking about is not the small group within a parish. Rather, Luther was talking about small churches with their own sacramental practice and ministry of the Word.

In other words, this is a very complete description of that view of the church which, just a few years later, Luther was going to call "fanatic." . . . How different the Protestant story might have been if Luther had found a few of those people! (There were some by 1526, but Luther had no contact with them.) Or how different it might have been if he had overcome his fear of being called a maverick and had sought to bring into being what he felt was really right!10

It might come as a surprise to know of Luther's serious consideration of a more biblical and radical approach to reformation. He even confessed that he himself would have rejoiced to participate in this type of small, intimate fellowship of committed believers meeting in homes for instruction and worship! Simply put,

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Luther longed to see the house church model of earliest Christianity revived. He saw it as the most appropriate way to embody and propagate the faith.

In spite of his burst of brilliant longing for authentic Christianity in small packages, he continued to work for renewing Catholicism. Only later did he come to the startling conclusion that the Roman system was the predicted expression of Antichrist! His developed hatred toward Zwingli's doctrines and the liberated habits of the "sectarians" only drove him further from his earlier thoughts. Faced with the dilemma, he took his stand with the masses and a territorial church which included everybody in a given locality. He thus abandoned his earlier vision of a confessional church based on personal faith and commitment.

He must have become discouraged about the impossibility of realizing his vision. Durnbaugh suggests this might be why his revolutionary statements are not more fully known. He goes on to comment that Luther,

as a kind of second bestwent ahead with the type of practice which became traditionally Lutheran. Although this may seem disparaging, it reflects Luther's own interpretation. . . . It is still significant that some erstwhile followers of Luther and Zwingli picked up this vision and were so inspired by it that they wanted to try to put it into practice. 11

Luther's influence, therefore, became a legacy. Indeed, Luther has been called a "congregationalist"12 in view of his ideal preference for a gathered church and his influence on the later Anabaptist free churches and reform movements. Perhaps most significant is this comment:

The origins of modern Evangelicalism as a pan-denominational renewal movement can be traced back to his [Luther's] proposal in the Preface to the German Mass that the church be renewed not by separation but by the formation everywhere of ecclesiolae in ecclesia, little churches within the church.13

What Luther failed to do, as far as house churches are concerned, the sixteenth-century Anabaptists did. So did the

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seventeenth-century Quakers, the eighteenth-century Methodists and Brethren, and other nonconformist movements since then.

One of the contributions of the Anabaptists' Radical Reformation was the expansion of the monastic-type community to embrace the whole body of believers. The intentional Mennonite communities are an example of the small-group principle in post-Reformational history. They became, in effect, geographically separated but open and unenclosed villages of believers in which there was heightened opportunity for sharing and fellowship. There was no abandonment of private property, as there was in the more rigorous Hutterite communities. This type of community life perpetuated some of the better features of the old monastic life without its more negative aspects. 14

The Roman Catholics were governed from the top down through the papal hierarchy, the Lutherans through princes and pastors, and the Calvinists through a presbytery. The Anabaptist movement, on the other hand, grew from the association of many small groups. These groups or house churches felt themselves responsible for admonishing, encouraging, and discipling their members according to the rule of Christ, as they perceived the New Testament to teach.

A dynamic sense of discipleship permeated the movement, producing an impetus for the early Mennonite founders. They viewed the church as a network of relatively small, disciplined fellowships. The decision to follow Jesus was at the same time a decision to join a fellowship of his followers. The church was a unique organism where radical discipleship expressed itself in the cultivating of spiritual gifts and total commitment. This involved joining with others in a small group where love was the rule and where the disciplinary process as described in Matthew 18 was the governing principle. For them, this was the essence of the congregation, the "two or three" in a small house church where Christ himself was present through his Word and Spirit.15

Another deliberate and successful use of the small-group principle in the church's history was the band system of Count Zinzendorf in his microcommunity of Herrnhut in Saxony. The Moravian movement was similar in ways to the Mennonites, but was informed by an urgent sense of gospel mission. Zinzendorf's success

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at Herrnhut in turning diverse peoples into an amalgamated and unified community sufficiently demonstrates that Luther's original plan was viable.

Zinzendorf had worked out a rather elaborate theory of the church and church renewal based on adaptation of the ecclesiola in ecclesia idea. . . . Zinzendorf was a creative and charismatic leader who sought to direct a burgeoning movement toward a renewing impact on the whole church. 16

Zinzendorf's small-group success served as an encouraging paradigm of renewal for John Wesley, who later adapted his ideas into a class meeting structure. Wesley's class meetings were in effect house churches, as Snyder points out in The Radical Wesley. He further notes that these small groups were not "classes," as the term might suggest. Rather, men and women who acted in the role of pastor and discipler led them.17 The groups usually met once every week. Each participant reported his or her spiritual progress or struggles and received the support of the other members.

Wesley considered the class meeting the cornerstone of the Methodist movement, and felt they were the necessary environment for growth in grace. In fact, church historian Richard Lovelace believes that the demise of the class meeting goes far to explain the decline of Methodism itself. Speaking of the class meetings, Lovelace laments that

it is startling that a strategy as obvious and effective as small groups could be discovered and widely used in recent history and then apparently lost until its modern rediscovery in popular religious movements. A generation of formal Christians intervening between awakenings appears sufficient to erase them from the church's memory."18

The house church movement found another stimulus in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Pietist movement, when Lutheran pastor Philip Spener organized meetings in homes for spiritual renewal.

The early Brethren movement was also a house church development. Like the Mennonites, they stressed the local church as

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a disciplined and sharing community. After 1770, however, the Brethren began to build meetinghouses to accommodate their love feasts and growing membership. The earlier Church of the Brethren believers met in homes in imitation of the primitive Christians, asserts their historian. Durnbaugh says some people believe that the early Anabaptists met in homes because of persecution. However, the fact is they preferred it because they thought it more faithful to the practice of the early church. 19

Attempts by the Brethren to regain the small-group intimate worship of their earlier counterparts have persisted in the conviction that renewal requires the smaller house church structure.20

The House Church as a Contemporary Phenomenon

The house church as a structure is a worldwide phenomenon to this day. Billy Graham has "noticed at various church conferences and retreats that emphasis is increasing toward the 'house church' in many parts of the world. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is getting the church ready for trials such as the world has never known."21

It is not only of tremendous consequence but also humbling to our evangelical pride to see the spiritual renewal in China over the past thirty years. One missionary put it bluntly.

Is it not humbling to see what God has been doing in China these 30 years without a single foreign missionary?. . . Yet what an ironic spectacle to see so many foreign organizations jockeying for position and eager to go galloping in to tell mainland Christians how to do things!22

Reports from firsthand observers relate that Chinese Christians are increasing by the thousands, particularly in house churches. Jonathan Chao of the China Church Research Center estimates there are between 25 and 50 million believers in these house churches, an estimate based on recent research. Chao points out that China's house church renewal movement is an expansion of an independent indigenous movement that began around 1911, and a similar indigenous movement that grew out of the persecu-

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tions of 192227. The growth is phenomenal. If each house church averaged 25 persons, he observes, one to two million house churches may exist in China today. 23

Recently, Donna Birkey visited with some Chinese believers in a house church in mainland China. She wrote in her journal:

We proceeded down a rather dark street, went through an open door, and up steps to find 25 or so people still there following the service. The pastor told us he had been in prison twiceonce for two years, and [once] for 20 years. Now he has been out for about six years, pastoring this church which has three groups of about 150 each, meeting at different times during the week. He is not really afraid of what he is doing because he is ready to go to jail the third time if necessary. We visited with the people there, several of whom spoke English very well. We sang a few songs together and prayed together.24

Someone reminded her that this particular church is one of the most open house churches in China. During the decade of hardship and suffering before 1979, the house churches firmly established and prepared themselves for massive expansion after that time. Many continue to meet secretly behind closed doors and windows. Their freedom fluctuates from time to time and place to place.

Representing the Overseas Missionary Fellowship, David Adeney was himself a missionary in China from 1934 to 1950. He points out some reasons for the dramatic modern success of China's house church movement. First, they have had to distinguish between essentials and nonessentials, being forced to exist without church buildings. Thus, most of the organizational apparatus we in the West associate with the church is wonderfully missing. Forced to the essential nature of the church by having all unnecessary externalities taken away, Chinese Christians have learned what it means to be the household of faith.

Furthermore, lay leadership has become strong, particularly among women, who have done most of the teaching of the Word in these small gatherings. The churches manifest a deep hunger for the Scriptures. For example, they enjoy receiving Bibles from distribution organizations and individual Christian travelers from the West.

The most basic form of evangelism in the house church setting is through friendships in which one shares the gospel with relatives

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and neighbors. 25 Probably the most basic lesson here is that suffering is normal and that the "gospel of prosperity" seems precariously out of place in the house church Christianity of China! As the church in that gargantuan land flourishes "from house to house," it strikingly resembles the diffuse New Testament church in its surviving, even thriving, in a vacillating and volatile political climate.

Firsthand reports of the evangelical church in India also reveal an outbreak of house church Christianity. Evangelical Indian leaders^26 describe the many house church gatheringstiny bands of believers who gather together each week for mutual edification, encouragement, and worship. These small churches average about a dozen persons. They gather each week at a centrally located place to worship and identify with the larger church in that area.

Furthermore, there is a multiplication of house churches all over southeastern India, according to Dr. Paul Freed, president of Trans World Radio. He comments that although these churches may be primitive by our standards, he is confident that Timothy, Peter, and especially Paul would be at home in this kind of church.27

Reports of small house church meetings in other hostile surroundings continue to flourish. Christianity Today cites reports filtering out of North Korea of tiny gatherings of believers meeting in homes. No single church building stands in this communist country today, but some estimate the number of house churches to be well over 1,000.

The president of the Gospel Missionary Union writes of the "hidden house churches of North Africa," which face conditions not unlike those of the early church. He believes Paul could write today and say "greetings to the church under the mango tree, or under the palm tree." Dick Darr goes on to relate a house church experience in Morocco, where he excitedly witnessed a bathroom baptism, as two young men were immersed in the tub. The house church movement in North Africa operates behind closed doors, due to hostility to the gospel in this Muslim land. Darr believes these house churches are prime examples of the New Testament process of multiplication in action.28

Missions reports from Vietnam show that Christ's body continues to grow without church buildings, usually in small groups. Similarly, the situation in Cambodia is one of extreme

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hardship, where "the killing fields" are a grim reminder of untold suffering for many, including believers. Joseph Ricke describes their heroic faith in hard times. He says that

because of obvious dangers and political restrictions, the 'look' but not the zeal of the Cambodian church has changed. As a general rule, gatherings of Christians must be limited to one family and to no more than 10 people. At least 35 house churches are meeting, similar to the fellowship groups developed in mainland China. 29

Asian missionary strategist for evangelism, Chandu Ray, was asked how he trains Indonesian young people for church leadership. His answer is both surprising and jolting. He replied,

I am teaching that we should break up the church. By this I mean that we should encourage very small congregations, house churches, and so on, where people will spend time together opening the Word of God. Young people can enter into dialogue, show forth their love, and apply the gospel in their daily lives with the encouragement of such small groups.30

Recent research on the evangelical church in Japan and Korea is also noteworthy. The Korean church has grown largely through people movements among families, relatives, or clans; close friends or neighbors; and business associates. Korean churches tend to conglomerate around large central edifices as, for example, the Full Gospel Central Church in Seoul. Contrary to its penchant for the gigantic, it may be that the church's significance lies not in its enormous gathered congregation, but in its small home cell groups.

A comparison between this influential church and the Soka Gakkai movement in Japan highlights the effective use of the small home group as the base for growth and impact.31

If the church in Japan is to achieve greater success in its growth and influence, advises Mamoru B. Ogata, it will happen through the use of small groups. He believes the Japanese church needs to grow through the people movements intrinsic within their culture.32

"To reach Japan, smaller is better," writes missionary strategist Masumi Toyotome. The size of local churches in Japan remains small, with only nineteen persons in an average congrega-

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tion. The growth rate, however, is higher in these small assemblies than in the large churches both in Japan and in Korea. 33

Mexico City, world's largest urban center, will total over 30 million inhabitants by the end of the century. Within its boundaries are over 1500 "colonias" (neighborhoods) without an evangelical church. Galo Vásquez, director of Visión Evangelizadora Latinoamericana, has outlined his impelling strategy for developing church life in these unevangelized neighborhoods. It is the extraordinary goal to establish 10,000 self-functioning house churches by the year 2000.

Of recent origin are the base church communities, particularly strong in South America. In that context, "base" means more than merely basic. It refers to the sociological basethe poor and marginalized. This includes nearly 80 percent of the population of Latin America who are at the bottom of the sociological pyramid.34

These grass-roots groups, which number in the thousands, are primarily Catholic communities. This has created what William Reed termed "the Protestant predicament."35 This is the dilemma that results when institutionalization causes the church's upward mobility and a subsequent loss of its vitality and grass-roots origin. Guillermo Cook notes a frustrating irony in that the very churches born in European soil as radical base communities have now become comfortably established and prosperous institutions.

The predicament is further reflected in the fact that indigenous Pentecostals, who make up over two-thirds of Brazil's Protestants, began as a base church movement. Nevertheless, most Protestant churches there today are afraid of the very base church movements that gave them birth.36 Cook concludes by calling all Protestants to be more "radical" and oriented toward their roots. Only in this way can they apply experiences from their various heritages to the challenge of the present and overcome the inherent contradiction of the "Protestant predicament."

Base communities usually remain within the mainline denominations from which they emerged. On the other hand, house churches usually form independently. Base churches are socially oriented; house churches stress the spiritual dimensions of Christian living. In his book, The Base Church,37 Olsen defines base as dynamic cellular groupsconnectional gatherings of living cells of be-

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lievers who make up networks with small groups of as few as two or three. To Olsen, a house church is very close in meaning to a base church. He advocates, however, that base communities be connectional, attached to the larger church body. He argues that the base church is rooted in biblical history, particularly in Jesus' creation of his small base group of twelve.

He further points out that contemporary research lists twelve as the number for ideal group dynamics. The apostles, in this perspective, were an intentional base community. Olsen identifies seven different forms of the base church, 38 a paradigm particularly helpful in understanding the contemporary small group or house church phenomenon.

In his documentation of Protestant ventures in community life, Donald G. Bloeseh surveys attempts to recover the small-group community life of the post-Reformation years for the twentieth century.39 His focus is on evangelical communal-type groups rather than house churches. Nevertheless, his research is informative in its portrayal of community life alongside the institutionalized churchboth in Europe and America.

The house church has reemerged in this century in Europe, particularly in England and Scotland. E. H. Robertson cites contemporary pressures as the catalyst for this modern return of the house church movement. He believes it was ''only afterward interpreted as a movement back to the primitive church."40 The movement became widespread in the United States in the early 1960s.

Though not a house church, the Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C., pioneered renewal in America. Founded in 1947, this ecumenical fellowship became a formidable influence in its simplified structure, its disciplined approach to commitment and membership, and its ministry of all members through the gifts of the Spirit. Its unique history and concepts have been well documented.41

Implications of the House Church as a Contemporary Renewal Model

Futurist Tom Sine has noticed that the movement which con-

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quered the Roman Empire was in reality a movement of small house churches. He says "over the centuries, much of the renewal of the church has come through small communities, house churches, and movements in which persons are organically linked to one another in common purpose." 42

In 1971, John W. Miller prepared a study document under the auspices of the Council on Faith, Life, and Strategy of the Mennonite Church in Canada. In it, he reminds the Mennonites that they can find the key to renewal in their own history. It is in the dynamic sense of discipleship which permeated the Anabaptist movement and motivated its founders. The reform document highlights the contrast between church life today and that of yesterday.

This is true of other denominations as well. Congregational life today is often quite different from the congregational life upon which our earlier churches were founded. Simply stated, it is the conflict between the New Testament "house church" model and the rapidly developed "sanctuary church" model from the fourth century. The paper calls for a return to the earlier house church model. "Until the structural discontinuity between these two models is more clearly understood, it is doubtful that we will achieve the goal of congregational reform now visualized," the writers conclude.43

With candid accuracy, the writers of this document go on to admit that the difference between these two models is that between the primary group and the secondary group. The typical Protestant church today is a secondary group rather than a primary onean organization rather than a fellowship. In words with which not everybody will readily agree, Miller says that the

house church usually emerges at that point in history where Christians see the need of creating a missionary counterculture, a society within a society upholding values in significant conflict with the world at large . . . in short, the house church is historically the social vehicle of a missionary minority; the sanctuary church, the ecclesiastical expression of territorial or state Christianity.44

Perhaps the most distressing, albeit illuminating, conclusion reached by the drafters of the reform document follows.

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What is being called for in the reform document, so far as the congregation is concerned, is not some minor modification, but a new structure: the structure of a defined and committed membership functioning together in the manner of a primary group. 45

Surely, the drafters of the Mennonite reform document are no mere dreamers. They readily acknowledge that house churches alone are not an easy answer to their ecclesiastical dilemma. They do say, however, that the small group home structure has been in the pastand might be in the futurethe structure most capable of expressing and propagating the unique faith of biblical Christianity.

Today, "big is beautiful." Only the language of largeness talks in the church numbers game Christians play. What, then, can we say for the smaller churches? Small house churches, in particular, want to recover the vitality of the early church.

This is not to imply a superficial hankering for the good old days. One Nick Butterworth cartoon^46 has Paul reflecting at his desk, pen back in inkwell and finished scroll in hand, saying to a younger associate nearby, "What a day! I've just finished writing to the Corinthians about gluttony, idolatry, party spirit, bickering, arrogance, and incestand to think that in years to come they're going to believe that these were the good old days!"

The small-group community is intentional about becoming a community of primary relationships and strives for simplification of worship approach and church life. A commitment of significant depth can be fostered within an atmosphere of mutuality among men and women appropriate to Christ's body. A major advance in the house church is indifference to quantitative growth. It stresses, instead, quality of life in spiritual development.

The American Church Growth movement has drawn criticismperhaps rightly sofor erroneously assuming that sociological analysis and scientific calculations are amenable to spiritual growth. One cannot use numerical growth as a thermometer for measuring Christian health. Where, for instance, is the biblical evidence that God cares even a bit more about booming "successful" churches than for tiny struggling ones?47

The issue of growth in the house church structure remains problematic. Church strategist Lyle Schaller^48 writes about the

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"glue" which welds a collection of individuals into a cohesive group. A congregation of from twenty to forty members is small enough that it can be glued together by the two great commandments: love of the Lord and love of the members for one another. By contrast, a congregation which gathers from a hundred to two hundred members has become too complex to function as a large "small group."

Schaller lists a number of subtle ways churches keep people from joining. He observes that most congregations are too large to function as a healthy small group. Nevertheless, some try to operate on the false assumption that theirs is one large cell. He says that churches grow only when they change to multicell congregations.

Here Schaller inadvertently affirms single-cell church glue as biblical. Rather than opting to become a multicell style of congregation in order to grow, growth by remaining single-cell can be a positive alternative. By perpetuating the small churches' positive self-image, single-cell house churches can grow by forming an interdependent nexus with one another. In this way each comes under an umbrella of fellowship while remaining dynamically single-celled.

The difficulty of this strategy, however, lies in maintaining strong commitment. Sometimes the commitment must span geographical distances. Only by this kind of high-quality resoluteness can the centrifugal tendency of single-cell groups be overcome.

It is useful to summarize some of the facts of the small group in view of its functioning as the church itself. Aspects of the small group as the church have been helpfully delineated by Richards. (See Figure 4.) 49

Each of the three circles presents a vital function of the small group as the church. (1) As members become more aware of each other, they develop concern and therefore increase their ability to meet each other's needs. By exercising their various spiritual gifts and by functioning as the true priesthood, corporate growth is fostered. (2) The group develops a collective sense of belonging and the ability to make decisions in consensus. It has become a discernible assembly of significance. (3) The developmental sequence leads to the accomplishment of the group's tasks and mobilization for ministry beyond the fellowship.

Not only is it important to understand the small church as

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church, but aspects of the small group within the small church need clarification as well. The church gathered, even if small numerically, should divide into smaller house groups for weekly edification and ministry.

Figure 4

Aspects of the Small Group as the Church

Although groups have formed for nearly every conceivable purpose, they fall into three basic categories. Groups exist "either to accomplish a joint task, foster mutual relationships, or influence members to change their behavior and attitudes . . . of course, there is no such thing as a pure task group, relationship group, or influence group." 50

The smaller group within the congregation, therefore, will help fulfill certain needs. First, a small group will lend support in one's personal struggles and growth. This is the relationship group whose

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primary purpose is to experience koinonia in face-to-face interaction. It centers on learning experiences in group dynamics and supportive sharing.

Second, a small group will encourage accountability in giving and receiving admonition. This is the influence group whose primary purpose is to build disciples in becoming each other's keepers. It searches for biblical answers to personal and contemporary problems through discerning God's will in his Word.

Third, a small group will help to integrate personal growth and ministry in the larger community. This is the task group whose primary purpose is to ministerthrough personal and group giftednessboth in the church and in the world. This type of house group affords an extraordinary opportunity for the discovery and development of the gifts of the Spirit. Sometimes viewed as mission groups, 51 these task groups become the most natural way of accomplishing the ministry and outreach of the church community. Beyond the church gathering for edification and worship, house groups may be the only other necessary organizational framework for the functioning of the organismic body.

What, then, is a house church, and what implications for renewal are intrinsic in its form?

It is false to assume that a house church is merely a smaller fellowship within a larger congregation. A church is not simply a number of "house fellowships" united in a larger congregation.52 This is the essence of the world's most gargantuan church in Seoul. Nor is it simply a collection of interpersonal experiences which weave psychology with theology on a horizontal level, as Philip and Phoebe Anderson have claimed.53

On the contrary, "the house church is church," asserts Lois Barrett. Barrett describes the house church as "a group of people small enough to meet face-to-face, who have covenanted with God and each other to be the church under the authority of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit."54 A house church in the New Testament sense exists where the ascended Lord comes among his gathered people according to his promise in Matthew 18:20. "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (RSV).

David Habegger correctly identifies these words as the very

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essence of the church. He goes on to define the house church as "a group of persons meeting regularly in their homes to experience the meaning of gathering in the name of Christ, and of being God's people." 55 Gerald C. Studer appropriately summarizes:

It may be suggested that this verse had particular relevance to a time and place in which Christianity was illegal but that today the "great congregation" is God's will. I do not believe it is a matter of one or the other, but it does seem that today's church would point us back once again to the realization that the church is somehow more vitally realized in the intimacy of a small group than it can ever hope to be realized in a "great congregation." A. B. Bruce comments on this verse also and says that the number two is "not the measure of Christ's expectation of agreement among his disciples, but of the moral power that lies in the sincere consent of even two minds. It outweighs the nominal agreement of thousands who have no bond of union."56

House churches, on the one hand, will always struggle with certain weaknesses. There are limits to the kinds and quantities of programs manageable. Financial abilities for pastoral support will vary from place to place. Christian education will top the list in sparking paralyzing apprehension in parents. Tendencies toward satisfaction with smallness and disinterest in growth may become a problem. Capable leadership may be lacking. Exclusiveness may deter outreach.

On the other hand, some characteristics of the house church prove to be a positive asset over the more traditional structure. The informal setting and communal atmosphere provides the creative use of space and time. Enormous financial overhead and the limitations of available time in the typical Sunday morning schedule are overcome. Thus, the intended focus can be more personally intense and fruitful. Furthermore, the style of communication is enhanced by face-to-face contact and a freedom for interaction. A nearly total participation is possible, raising the potential for learning, healing, and growth.

Another strength of the house church is that of its self-image. It can easily sense being the body of Christa complete church gathering of priests with gifts for the edification of the whole. Lead-

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ers encourage the development of those with leadership gifts.

Furthermore, the house church can practice consensus in decision-making, an advance over traditional organizational procedures and voting maneuvers. Flexibility replaces rigid traditions. Members of the house church community usually "own" their responsibilities due to the heightened sense of belonging. Because of intimacy, openness to differing perspectives is more likely. Scriptural confrontation is more natural and attainable within its structure, allowing for the practice of biblical principles of discipline. The house church seldom fragments the family according to age or sex. Rather, it functions as an extended family. Children learn to worship in participation with parents and other adults.

The house church, finally, fosters a quality of commitment without hiding places. Participants will usually become involved on a significant level or drop out. Onlookers find it difficult to survive in its hot environment. In fact, the "house church cannot escape dealing with the ordinary concerns and anxieties of men and women . . . it is here that the real obedience of men in their daily lives will be worked out, very slowly." 57

In summary, the advantages of the house church as a contemporary renewal structure appear more and more obvious. Regarding perceptions and attitudes toward "the church in the home," Hans-Ruedi Weber reminds us that the house church is not just another technique on the way to the commonly conceived traditional church. Rather, "the house church represents a first step in finding a new direction for the life of the church."58

From the earliest-known house church at Dura-Europos and throughout the church's history, post-apostolic house churches have succeeded as minorities in alien environments. This

should emphasize to the present-day Christian that the church has survived and, indeed, thrived in such circumstances. The church is quite capable of moving in similar ways today. The prime difference [is that where] the ancient house churches sought to grow in virgin soil, the house church of today must rediscover its roots in an overworked ground.59

Regarding the issue of renewal, Paul M. Miller speaks in unequivocal words.

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Every lasting surge of renewal during the history of the church was carried forward in small class meetings or other primary groups and it must be so now. No . . . hearty backslapping or experiences in the mass meeting can be substituted for this. 60

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PART 2

MINISTRY IN THE EARLY HOUSE CHURCHES

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Chapter 5

Servant Leadership and the Ministry of Women

Servant Leadership in the New Testament House Churches

The original Christian small group had gathered together with their Master-Teacher. The end was pressing upon him. His society had sought him for signs. He refused to give the kind they wanted, but he did signal his most significant clue for all who would follow him. He conquered with the sign of a towel. With the washing of their feet he established the symbol for servant work. He declared, ''I have given you an example" (John 13:15). This lesson was forthrightly simple. Jesus wears the towel-apron of a servant, and we must wear it, too. After all, he said, "No servant is greater than his master" (v. 16).

In this manner, Jesus contradicted all other models of influence and self-importance. The one who makes the towel his or her badge is not the one who maneuvers for a place in the power structures of life. "The sign of the towel was not a put-on. Servanthood was not a role Jesus played on earth's stage, but his real character." 1

Jesus gave servanthood to his body, the church. Jesus conquered with the sign of a towel, and he gave that quality of attitude to his disciples. Leadership in his body is not the real issue

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servanthood is. Life in his church is not the same as life in secular society. On the contrary, kingdom life calls for an entirely new model, not merely a new definition.

Jesus clashed head on, therefore, against centuries-old authority structures. He turned the whole issue of authority on its head and recast it into an issue of servanthood. Jesus acknowledged that the Gentile model of leading was rigidly hierarchical. After a minor scuffle over who was to get the seats near the king (Matt. 20:2528), Jesus unveiled the kingdom model. The Lord went to the core of the problem. He said, "Their great men exercise authority over them" in such a way as to achieve outward behavioral conformity to their ways.

Jesus had a better idea, however. His leadership ethic in kingdom work would achieve inner heart commitment to God's ways. The way of authoritarian leading, he said, "shall not be so among you!" Instead, if you want to get ahead, you will have to succeed at serving. If you want to be first, you must be the very last, the servant of all (Mark 9:35). Greatness among his followers, he declared, will be measured not in quantities of personal rank and acumen, but in qualities of personal humility in servanthood.

A little later, after a bout with the religious elite leaders, Jesus further contrasted the two models of leadership (Matt. 23:112). Faulting and chiding them, he made the distinctions stark. They created a faulty dichotomy between word and deed, but his teaching made them synonymous. They laid heavy burdens on others, but in the kingdom all are brothers and sisters and share. They maintain high visibility for personal praise, but Jesus said that whoever acts proudly will surely be brought down. They gave preeminence to those with titles, rank, and power, but Jesus said the preeminent will be the last in the kingdom. He said they should stop calling their leaders with pompous titles. The Gentile model worked from the top down, the kingdom model from the bottom up.

The church confirmed its servanthood in its ministry. The reason is simple and Jesus' conclusion could not be clearer. "One is your Master, and all you are brethren" (Matt. 23:8). Evidence gathered from the occasional letters to the New Testament house churches and the other epistles provide ample principles and insights for the practicing of servant leadership in Christ's church. It

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is not a question of whether or not we will have leadership, but rather a question of how it will be put into effect.

It may be, suggests Marlin Miller,

that the equivalents for our word "leader" in the first-century culture were not used for the Christian church because of the shifts in understanding that took seriously Jesus' teaching that "among you there shall be servants and not rulers." The old language for leadership was linked with the language for ruling and domination. 2

The language of New Testament leadership is one of horizontal relationships, of leading and following, of voluntary submission and service toward one another. Principles regarding servant leadership which emerge from the New Testament data are as follows.

First, the only final authority believers acknowledge is the absolute authority of Jesus as Lord (Phil. 2:1011). He has no other intermediaries.

Second, the apostles' authority was foundational, concretized in our New Testament canon. They have no successors. Christ delegated authority to them, and each generation of believers shows its continuity by submitting to the apostles' teaching (Acts 2:42). Jesus the Lord implements his authority through the Word and the Spirit.

Third, there resides in no one an inherent right to control another in Christ's church. Nowhere in the New Testament are church leaders instructed to exercise authority over the people of God. Any ecclesial authority is always the authority of the whole (Acts 15). Ecclesial authority is never prepackaged according to sex or status, nor is it ever given to any one clergy or confederation.

Fourth, when authority is inferred in leading the people of God, it is always related to the leaders' functioning, not their ruling. Eldership is always a matter of ministering, not administering. The authority of elders is therefore functional-relational rather than positional-institutional. The Greek word for manage in 1 Timothy 3:45 (proistemi) carries the idea of managerial and supervisory care based upon spiritual maturity, wisdom, and good counsel. Furthermore, the Greek word usually translated obey (peitho) in reference to spiritual leaders is more literally "to be persuaded" (Heb. 13:17).

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Submit (hupeiko) is more correctly "to yield or defer."

Thus, by good pastoral and spiritual leadership the people of God allow themselves to be persuaded to follow. In so doing they yield or defer a contrary opinion on the basis of pastoral persuasion. Rather than a command structure of authority with the right to control, the biblical position arising from these texts is that of leadership with a right to influence by persuasion. This type of leadership evokes corresponding respect and appreciation in Christ's body (cf. 1 Thess. 5:1213). Instead of a chain of command, there is a choice of commitment. There is no spiritual merit per se in submitting to authority which involves the dimension of coercion. Non-Christians do it all the time. God values a submission which is unenforceable and which flows from a servant heart (Gal. 5:13; Phil. 2:35).

Fifth, leadership according to the Pauline style is a matter of modeling, both in the leader's character and his or her communication (1 Tim. 4:1114). Paul's principles of leadership delineated in 2 Corinthians 10 to 13 reveal a servant leader reflecting Christlikeness among God's people. Paul communicates confidence in his followers since he is sure Christ will transform them. He preserves their freedom by deliberately foregoing manipulation and coercion. When necessary to confront with authority, he does so with the force and reality of the authority of Scripture. 3

Sixth, there is only one head of the body, Jesus himself (Eph. 1:1523; Col. 1:1518). When that reality is affirmed, human leaders serve the head as leaders among the people, not over them. Headship, in fact, does not connote the idea of human authority over another. It is never introduced in the context of church leadership,4 contrary to popular opinion.5

The contemporary house church movement has had to struggle through the various options of leadership style toward a rediscovery of the New Testament parameters of servant leading. In "The Recasting of Authority," Marlin Miller traces this search for a biblical model of leadership.6 Some people in house churches drew on their denominational traditions for episcopal or other hierarchies. The charismatic renewal movement tended to reinforce hierarchical structures with strong elder control over the flock. The resulting power struggles have been documented.7

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The alternative to the traditional model reflects a more biblical perspective containing several characteristics. Contemporary house churches usually adopt this model. The emphasis on spiritual gifts levels out leading as a shared responsibility in the presence of the Spirit. House churches build on the biblical precedent of a plurality of elders, further assuring an anti-hierarchical stance. They take servant leading quite seriously.

This servant leadership in the house church takes initiative in helping the group form a consensus rooted in the Jesus tradition and moving in the direction of fullness in Christ. If we see that kind of servant leadership in the sociological context of the house church, it makes much sense. It can manifest itself more wholly in the context of small size and direct interrelationships. 8

Furthermore, the kind of persons equipped to be elders in the New Testament house church are the kind of persons who demonstrate the qualities which encourage and build family solidarity. In this way, the house church context provides a congruity between such characteristics of leaders and the biblical style of leading. Miller concludes:

We have discovered a pattern of leadership in the New Testament house churches which provides both the model and the characteristics of what leadership should and can be in the house churches of our time. The recasting of authority, from the right to rule to the freedom to serve in a community of mutual subordination, is a biblical model which goes beyond both the restoration of hierarchical structures, on the one hand, and egalitarian individualism on the other.9

The Ministry and Role of Women in the New Testament House Churches

Without doubt, the most revolutionary change in the New Testament house churches was the radical equalization of the sexes in Christ's body. The cross eradicated racial and class distinctions of "Jew and Gentile, slave and free." More than that, it triumphed most critically in the "male nor female" demolition in Christ, reaching to the depths of the human dilemma (Gal. 3:28).

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Servanthood as taught and modeled by Jesus contains several important implications for the role of women in ministry. This is discernible in the nexus between Jesus' attitude toward women and the attitude of the early church. The apostles and builders of the first churches apparently understood servanthood as Jesus intended. Men and women together were to consider themselves servant-followers of the Master.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus gave unheard-of attention to unnoticeable women as faith models. He welcomed them as disciples, conversed with them in theological dialogue, and included them in equal and privileged opportunities in his redemption mission.

Age-old arguments that Jesus chose men as disciples and gathered together only men at the Last Supper are arguments which beg the question and are condemned by their own logic. Are women to be barred from the Lord's Supper since we have no record of their presence at the first? Such unwarranted inferences usually backfire. F. F. Bruce reminds us that "in fact, our Lord's male disciples cut a sorry figure alongside his female disciples, especially in his last hours. . . . It was to women that he first entrusted the privilege of carrying the news of his resurrection." 10

Jesus came to establish a new community through a new covenant. The mark of entrance into the old community was a sexually distinctive one. Male-priority circumcision reigned throughout the old covenant times. The mark of entrance into the new community which Jesus and the apostles founded, however, was a nonsexual distinctive. Baptism became the initiatory experience into Christ's body. Paul's use of that doctrine in the context of Galatians 3:2629 has the force of an inaugural statement for the church every time a new believer joins the body of Christ.

The liberating motto of Galatians 3:28 most likely originated, therefore, as a baptismal liturgy in the earliest churches. The text suggests that in the act of baptism all distinctives between people of the old age regarding nationality, salvation history, or social status have been eliminated. On the basis of this new and objective reality, a whole new set of attitudes and reactions are to be ours as Christians.11

Here Paul singles out the three spheres of human relationship

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into which centuries of distinctions had wrought all kinds of prejudice and discrimination: race, class, and sex. In what some call "the magna carta of the new humanity," Galatians 3:28 is the most forthright statement on social ethics in the New Testament. 12 This new creation edict for the new community in Christ includes a cultural mandate (neither Jew nor Greek), a social mandate (neither slave nor free), as well as a sexual mandate (neither male nor female). No longer, says Paul, can categories remain. The Jew must forthrightly stop considering the Gentile a second-class citizen, since Christ has made them both one in him (Eph. 2:14). The master should step down from his lofty power-position and consider the slave to be on his level, since there is now no other level. A master must now come to realize that his Master is the same as his servant's (Col. 4:1).

Most radically of all, the male must now realize that there is no distinction based on gender for all who are free and equal in Christ. The old war between the sexes is over. The apostle is not satisfied for females to remain in their place because, he says, there are no longer any "places." The centuries-old hierarchies have come to the end of their tether, and are broken up by the second Adam. The apostle of liberty has laid the ax of Christ's revolutionary gospel to the roots of the deepest divisions among humankind!

The texts of that revolutionary gospel regarding the role and ministry of women in the New Testament house churches can be summarized around nine theses:

First, women, alongside men, were full-membered participants in the Christian communities. When Paul addressed his letter to the New Testament house churches, he did so to all members of those representative communities. When he refers to "all the brethren," he does not mean the male members alone, since the term embraces "the sisters" as well.13 A comparison of this term with his common all-inclusive and generic terms of everyone, anyone, and each one establishes that women as well as men were participants in the order and well-being of the gathered churches. It is unfortunate that some translations insert men in their translations of passages where there is no basis in the Greek (1 Cor. 5:9; 11:33; 12:15; 14:21; 16:18).

Similarly, Paul's happy designation "to the saints" is always a plural description, stressing the church as a unit in their committed

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relationship to the Lord. Women, as well as men, shared equally in this highest community characterization.

Second, women, side by side with men, were partners in leadership and ministry in the early churches. An unbiased reading of apostolic teaching and practice makes it abundantly clear that gender has nothing to do with either the fruit or the gifts of the Spirit. Paul intends no distinction of status in ministry in his many references to his fellow workers, whether male or female.

For example, Romans 12:8 is genderless. "If (your) gift is leadership, let it be with diligence." Unfortunately, the translators of our English-language Bibles have neglected to follow the original intent as regards gender at many important places in the text, reflecting a common male bias. 14

We recall the female leader Phoebe, a deacon (diakonos) in the church at Cenchreae (Rom. 16:12). Deaconess in some translations is misleading, since it suggests that our modern distinctions existed then. They did not, nor is there a different feminine word for deacon. Phoebe was a minister (prostatis) as well, one who sponsors or presides. This is the word used in references to elders and bishops (1 Tim. 3:45; 5:17).

In referring to an elder (presbutero) in 1 Timothy 5:12, Paul also mentions female elders (presbuteras). In 3:1f. each trait Paul lists for elders applies to women as well as to men. Philip Payne's illuminating research on the Pauline use of pronouns reaches a revolutionary conclusion. "The Greek has not even one masculine pronoun or possessive, nor any other grammatical specification that Paul had men and not women in mind."15

Other women in Paul's life were Euodia and Syntyche, fellow-laborers "who labored side by side with [Paul] in the gospel" (Phil. 4:23, RSV). Prominent women of Thessalonica and Berea were among the founding pillars of those churches (Acts 17:4,12). Paul describes Junia as "outstanding among the apostles" (Rom. 16:7). This significant statement is an important piece of evidence on women in church leadership. Indeed, this designation caused third-century interpreter Chrysostom to exclaim without hesitation, "Oh, how great is the devotion of this woman that she should be counted worthy to the appellation of an apostle!"16

The apostle also greets Mary, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, and

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Persis. He commends each for having worked hard in the service of Christ (Rom. 16:6, 12).

The many references to Priscillagifted leader, church founder, and able teacher of eloquent men like Apollos (Acts 18:4f.)create a colorful mosaic of ministering womanhood in the early days. She, together with her husband and Paul, formed a ministering team. Her influence in several early house churches points most likely to a teaching elder role.

The ministry of women in the house churches is described in terms normally associated with leadership positions. This leads E. Margaret Howe to conclude that "if women are represented in the New Testament as fulfilling functions . . . associated with leadership positions, it is reasonable to assume that they were, in fact, appointed to the offices associated with such activities." 17

Implications for the need of contemporary changes in attitudes toward women in ministry are clear. The notion of ordination as historically perceived and practiced has been challenged and found wanting. The New Testament is silent regarding a formal "office" of minister.18 Whatever we perceive ordination to mean, the same meaning must apply to gifted women as well as to gifted men.

Third, women, along with men, led in public prayer. It is ironic that in the very text used by many to restrain womeneven to absolute silence or nearly complete silencePaul encourages the women with the men "everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer" (1 Tim. 2:89, NIV). The key word comes in verse 9, likewise or in like manner. Grammatically, the main verb missing in verse 9 is found in the main verb of verse 8. The more natural reading is as follows: "Likewise, I desire also that women pray in every place, adorning themselves. . . ." Clearly, the apostle expected the women to lead in praying just as the men, "in every church." Women's praying as well as prophesying is supported by a similar injunction in I Corinthians 11:5.

Fourth, women, alongside men, prophesied in church. Paul could not be more specific. "All can prophesy" so "all may learn" and "all be encouraged" (1 Cor. 14:31, RSV). He says whoever prophesies edifies the church (14:4). Kaiser astutely observes that ''the same group that can learn and be encouraged'all'can compose the group from which the prophets may come'all'!"19 He adds

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that given the large number of women in the early church, this is an even more startling statement. The reality of women prophesying accords with the prophecy Peter quoted in Acts 2:1718, "both men and women."

Fifth, women, with and in the presence of men, had authority in the church body. With feminine decorum in the church as its theme, the context of 1 Corinthians 11:116 is a widely recognized sociological situation focusing on first-century customs related to covering the head in worship. This phenomenon has been the object of much theological debate and research.

Here Paul in addressing headship alludes to the created order which, unfortunately, gives rise to the common vertical "chain of command" notion. However, as Bilezikian has shown, 20 a chronological scheme may fit the apostle's argument more adequately, in which headship is delineated as life-source or fountainhead.

In this text, Paul addresses the issue of authority not in relation to headship as commonly assumed, but in connection with the woman's covering. The almost universal mistranslation veil in verse 10 has created untold confusion, going all the way back to Valentinus, Clement, and Origen.21 This has precipitated such translations as "so a woman should wear a covering ('veil,' RSV) on her head as a sign that she is under man's authority" (LB). Paul, in fact, says nothing about a husband or man in this verse. The King James Version is accurate here, since the text should read, "A woman should have authority ('power,' KJV) on her head."

Whatever conclusions one draws from women at worship in Corinth, Paul "expects Christian women to play a responsible part in church meetings," writes Bruce. The covering "is the sign of their authority to exercise their Christian liberty in their way, not the sign of someone else's authority over them."22

After all the difficulties raised in this precarious passage, in the end Paul drafts a sweeping disclaimer which puts to rest all hierarchical-authority speculations. "In the Lord," he insists, the sequence of male-female creation order has no abiding significance (vv. 1112). That woman found her source in man parallels the second fact. Man has now found his source in woman! Finally, "God is the source of all" (NEB). This aligns women with men on par with the Galatians 3:28 manifesto.

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Within the larger issue of women's role in ministry, the particular problem of defining "headship" is most enigmatic. The variance centers on whether head (kephale) means "authority over" or "priority, origin, source, or fountainhead.'' Some contemporary theologians and authors argue that the notion of "having authority over" cannot be the exclusive meaning of kephale. Clearly, caution is in order. Since Paul uses head here as a metaphor, there is no reason to assume that the first-century use of the metaphor will be the same as its twentieth-century understanding.

On two occasions Paul uses kephale to describe man-woman relationships (1 Cor. 11:3 and Eph. 5:21f.). Here the idea of "origin or priority" clarifies their contexts as well as the entire tenor of the New Testament teaching on male-female unity. This definition also softens the problematic connotations of an assumed "chain of command" and subordination theories within the Trinity. These ideas are at odds with the biblical revelation of the unity within the Godhead.

Marcus Barth 23 contends that the idea of a husband as head of his wife was not prevalent in the New Testament times. Thus, the head metaphor as used by Paul must be original to him. Similarly, Bilezikian claims that headship connoting supremacy or authority arose after New Testament times under the pressure of Latin usage, as reflected in some of the post-apostolic fathers.24

Furthermore, head as "authority" raises difficulties with the doctrine of Christ's lordship. In what way can Christ have authority over man but not over woman at the same time? There is no biblical hint that Christ is Lord over males to an exclusion of females. On the contrary, the New Testament presents his lordship as saviorship in servanthood, over husbands and wives in mutuality (Eph. 5:2123). Head as priority or source also supports the intent of the creation narratives. Head as supremacy, however, is surely at odds with the Genesis account.

Since Paul nowhere expands on his own understanding of the priority notion, we are not entitled to presuppose that he meant supremacy over. In writing to Greek-speaking readers, Paul could have made the supremacy notion explicitly clear if in fact that is what he intended. Otherwise it probably would not have been understood in this way.25

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Colin Brown asserts that if the emphasis is upon the idea of origin, kephale must take on some of the meaning of the Greek arche in the sense of "beginning." He believes, therefore, that head in Paul's understanding does not mean chief or ruler, but rather source or origin. 26 This interpretation of kephale for 1 Corinthians 11:3 is supported by a growing body of scholars and theologians, including F. F. Bruce and C. K. Barrett.

Current debate over the concept of headship, and the meaning of kephale in particular, was stimulated by the landmark article of Stephen Bedale^27 and now centers around lexical disagreement. A clash of the so-called "battle of the lexicons" recently graced the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. Wayne Grudem had previously argued that forty-nine instances of the use of kephale by authors from the 8th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D. referred to a person of superior rank or a ruler. Gilbert Bilezikian, however, contended that Grudem's treatment of kephale is a case of eisegetical fabrication. He maintained that all of Grudem's citations meant either a physical head or source.28

Whatever the outcome of the growing debate over headship, it will not affect the overall biblical view of the relationship between men and women. When one considers the several nuances of kephale in light of the contexts of the Pauline usage, the elemental idea of "prominence in relation to origin" is most likely intended.29

Sixth, women, in particular, were encouraged to learn the Scriptures. The dispute over women teaching and speaking in church, on closer look, is a matter of women learning in church. "Let a woman learn" was an unexpected imperative in Paul's society (1 Tim. 2:11). Since the teaching of women in such times led to persecution, Paul urged that it be done in quietness, or with discretion.30 He also voices a personal preference (epitrepo): women ought not "control or teach a man" during these times. His personal preferences or advice statements are not uncommon, especially in his Corinthian correspondence. One must honestly recognize them for what they are.

Likewise, Leon Morris thinks Paul's words "if they desire to know" in the similar passage of 1 Corinthians 14:34 provide a key for understanding. They point to a cultural situation in which uneducated Christian women needed to learn more about the newfound faith they now professed. Women were at the bottom of the

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pecking order and could become easy victims of ecclesiastical intolerance. They therefore needed to become thoroughly informed about scriptural things, even as the men.

The error at Ephesus needs further attention if we wish to reach solid conclusions about women in church ministry. The situation there was troublesome and dangerous. They were guilty of more than one heresy. Payne has singled out at least six different ones. 31 The problem there was similar to that of women learning at Corinth. The issue centered not around the question of women teaching men in general, but around the kind of teaching taking place. Eve was at Ephesus in the reminiscent sense that some women were teaching heretical beliefs in an authoritative way (1 Tim. 2:1115). The church there could have been destroyed as Adam and Eve destroyed themselves in Eden. Paul wanted to restrain these women from teaching until they themselves became well informed of the truth. Surely Paul never meant for women to remain at the beginning and dangerous stage of growth exemplified by some Ephesian women!

Exegetical precision has pointed to a sinister connotation in the words "have authority over." It may have involved a sexual pressure which some of these women used over men. Catherine C. Kroeger's study of the verb authentein from then-current usage shows that the word often connotes the loose sexual behavior practiced in the pagan cults. In that case, the prohibition here may be against Christian women imitating pagan teachers in this regard. These teachers "made it evident in the course of their lectures that they were available afterward for a second occupation," as Longenecker expresses it.

With this context in mind, Paul commands Christian womenin contrast to the gross immorality of their pagan backgroundsto dress modestly and with propriety (vv. 910). They were not to be seductresses (vv. 1314), they were to realize that their womanly instincts are fulfilled in giving birth to legitimate children (v. 15).32 The force of the entire passage cannot rightly be applied to women as women, Stouffer correctly concludes,33 but to women as ignorant and uninstructed persons employing unworthy means to influence the church. Paul said that the time would come for women to engage in the teaching task of the church the same as

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men, once the local abuses were corrected. "After all," asks Williams, "can she who bears the Messiah-teacher be prohibited from teaching his gospel?" 34

Seventh, women, even as men, had gifts for edifying the body. As noted above, praying and prophesying go hand-in-hand for both men and women in church (1 Cor. 11:45). Edification is the privilege and responsibility for all members of Christ's body, since each is a functioning part of it (1 Cor. 12).

Nevertheless, two texts are problematical in conveying the idea of women remaining silent in church (1 Tim. 2:1115 and 1 Cor. 14:3436). Longenecker focuses the problem.

To appreciate that circumstances played a part in the wording of 1 Corinthians 14:3435 and 1 Timothy 2:1115 . . . is, I would argue, of great importance. Indeed . . . it is extremely hard to believe that the same man who assumes the right of women to pray and prophesy in the congregation when they do so with decorum considered proper in that day . . . also wrote that "women should remain silent in the churches." So we must believe . . . that Paul's words here pertain to the topic of charismatic excess discussed in chapters 1214, are meant to restrict certain aberrations which arose within the worship of the Corinthian church, and should not be turned into a general ecclesiological principle that flies in the face of the confession of Galatians 3:28. . . . it undoubtedly should be taken more contextually and circumstantially.35

Beyond doubt, the most solidly helpful exegesis of this notoriously enigmatic text (1 Cor. 14:34) centers around the phrase, "even as the law says." Kaiser and Bilezikian convincingly argue that Paul's appeal to the Old Testament "law" is in itself proof that he is not the author of the statement made in the same verse. He could never endorse such outrageous "silence" since, in fact, it would contradict both teachings elsewhere as well as his practice.

Instead, the "law" appeal points to a restrictive Judaizing legalism commonplace in Paul's environment, influencing his churches. "Since nowhere in the Old Testament is such an injunction given, the presumption likely refers to a type of legalistic bondage newly raised by the Jewish community."36 Kaiser concludes, therefore, that in verses 33b35, Paul is quoting from the letter sent

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to him by the Corinthians, as he had done in 6:12; 8:8; and 10:23. If, as Kaiser believes, Paul is quoting the Corinthians' letter, the argument on "silence" is corrected. Thus, Paul in 33b35 is disapprovingly quoting a slogan of his opponents in Corinth. As another of the Corinthian "slogans," it should appear with quotation marks.

Eighth, wives, as well as their husbands, were partners in mutual submission, arising out of their mutual love. In the letters to the New Testament house churches, women were expected to share mutually in the marriage relationship. The wives' submission and the husbands' love both find their model in Christ. They turn out to be the one-and-the-same submissive love which is inherently reciprocal. In the major text of Ephesians 5:2133, Paul defines headship not in conjunction with creation priorities, but in relation to the redemption Christ effected. Headship is characterized as servanthood and modeled by Jesus Christ himself.

In this dynamic context, any ideas of headship as authority self-destruct. In the environment of Christ and his body, chain of command hierarchies smack of power ploys reminiscent of the Fall syndrome. Servanthood contradicts every idea of husbands over or above their wives, since submission is a revolutionary thing enjoined on everyone in Christ (v. 21).

As for husbands and wives, no biblical passage commands obedience in either direction. Wives are nowhere told to obey their husbands, even though some English translations have it that way (Eph. 5:24, 33, LB). Furthermore, husbands are nowhere encouraged to exercise authority over their wives, since love and submission are synonymous in union with Christ.

Those who would maintain the husband's authority over his wife frequently ignore another fundamental principle Paul marked out between husbands and wives. Paul asserts that "the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does (1 Cor. 7:4, NASB). In this unqualified manner of speaking, he invalidates unequivocally the syndrome of male rulership which resulted from the Fall (Gen. 3:16). In Christ, male authority is replaced by mutual authority in view of restoring pre-Fall conditions. The importance of this verse for a biblical perspective on male-female relationships cannot be overestimated.

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Ninth, women's sexual roles were not dichotomized or considered at variance with men's roles in Christ. The biblical data shows that the first-century house churches did not assign peculiar roles to women because of their femininity. Nor should we in our contemporary churches. Reflecting on the primal form of humanity, Karl Barth notes the fellowship and unity of man and woman as presented in the creation accounts. Rather than a simplistic dichotomy of the sexes, human sexuality in the Genesis record is implicated in the imago Dei. Man in that image is both male and female, a being-in-fellowship. Only when we understand man theologically, asserts Barth, can we understand him psychologically and biologically. 37

Similarly, one cannot separate female subordination from female inferiority. Since women, in fact, are not inferior to males, then, in fact, they cannot be subordinate to men because of their sex.

Sexual role-relating has become confused in our culture. Archie Bunker will always enjoy a sizable following of believers who long for the good old days "when girls were girls and men were men." The confusion centers around sex roles. Role is a sociological term referring to a pattern of behavior one is to perform under certain situations. The term, in fact, is a word from theater, the actor who plays the role. The role, of course, is not the real person, as Archie Bunker is not the actual person, Carroll O'Connor.

It is sad when a person lives a life in a role rather than in his or her real self. People do this sometimes because roles give a measure of control and help simplify life. Nevertheless, conflict persists. Sociologist John Scanzoni has addressed male-female role conflicts in marriage, predicting that these conflicts will continue to give birth to an emerging role equality.38 Within this context, the so-called women's liberation is, in many ways, more correctly men's liberation. It is a liberation from the bondage of false and debilitating gender roles artificially assumed. It is written of Dorothy Sayers:

The liberation of women was not a cause that she espoused, but a way of life that she practiced on the premise that male and female are adjectives qualifying the noun "human being," . . . male and female are biological categories; masculine and feminine are cultural cate-

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gories. Both are impersonal classifications with real but limited usefulness. 39

Sayers remarked that occasionally "congenital imbeciles and editors of magazines" asked her to write detective fiction "from a woman's point of view." She said she could only say, "Go away and don't be silly. You might as well ask what is the female angle on an equilateral triangle."40

The earliest Christians who lived on the crest of the inauguration of the new age in Christ did not struggle over sex role-differentiation as we do in our modern era. Apparently role consciousness was at a low in the early house churches and did not represent a significant problem. This was partly because of their wholehearted affirmation of the Pauline manifesto of Galatians 3:28 and its liberating principle. Bruce states that principle concisely. "Paul states the basic principle here (Gal. 3:28). If restrictions on it are found elsewhere in the Pauline corpus, . . . they are to be understood in relation to Galatians 3:28, not vice versa."41

Paradoxically, some who affirm Paul as the apostle of liberty, turn about and treat him as a new lawgiver as well. The result is to perceive the Bible as a book of rules. Guiding lines intended for a specific people at a specific time in a specific situation then becomes binding law for all later Christians. Bruce asks what criteria we can safely use to distinguish between elements which are of temporary and local applications and those of permanent and universal validity. He submits that Paul's passionate emphasis on Christian freedom contains a reliable rule of thumb. "Whatever in Paul's teaching promotes true freedom is of universal and permanent validity. Whatever seems to impose restrictions on the true freedom has regard to local and temporary conditions."42

The same author frames the whole issue with an incisive summary comment. He asserts that

the most incredible feature in the Paul of popular mythology is his alleged misogyny . . . The mainstream churches of Christendom, as they inch along toward a worthier recognition of the ministry of women, have some way to go yet before they come abreast of Paul!43

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Chapter 6

Corporate Functioning through Personal Giftedness

One of the fundamental issues facing the church concerns the question of how it will accomplish its goals in its work of the ministry.

Traditionally, the answer given has been predicated on the establishing of an organizational superstructure, pyramidal in form, not unlike the formation and methodology of a business organization. Over the years this solution to the essential issue of church functioning has perpetrated a hardening hierarchicalism which has become the accepted norm of church performance.

Happily, the twentieth-century church has received a commanding rebuke from an emerging movement of the Holy Spirit. The new wind of the Spirit is blowing among churches of all varieties, asserting that the answer to the question of function is in the gifts which the Spirit gives to the people. Since the church is properly a spiritual organism rather than a secular organization, the emphasis on the gifts of the Spirit as the key to corporate functioning is a refreshing breeze in an arid desert. The doctrine of giftedness is germane to the biblical idea of pastoral care, and carries a built-in stimulation for individual functioning within the corporate work of God's community.

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Introduction to Giftedness

Both Paul and Peter provide basic introductory data on the theme of giftedness (1 Cor. 12:17; 1 Pet. 4:911). Their orientation to spiritual gifts suggests that believers have a responsibility to grasp giftedness as personal stewardship in servanthood. In Paul's introduction to the Corinthians, he asserts that giftedness is something that they ought not be ignorant about (12:13). His use of the word pneumatikon, or "spiritual things," implies that he considers spiritual gifts to be part of a broader field of influence in which the pneuma, or Spirit, works within the believer. His more usual term for giftedness is charis, or grace, which shows itself outwardly through the servant ministry of each believer.

Paul's second introductory proposition asserts that giftedness derives from the diversification within the Trinity (12:46). The varieties of gifts come from the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, the purpose of serving the Son unifies the varieties of services inspired by the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the power that energizes the workings of the gifts comes from the Father.

Paul's third proposition is that the Holy Spirit gives gifts for a special purpose (12:7). Gifts are for the common good of the church. Actually, the pneumatic or spiritual finds its earthly form and responsibility in the charismata or tangible gifts. It follows, therefore, that a charisma is a specific concrete form of grace in giftedness. Only their use in the service of the community can validate them. 1

Peter adds several pertinent introductory facts concerning spiritual gifts. Outstanding is his contention that giftedness is primarily a matter of hospitality (1 Pet. 4:911). He argues that the Holy Spirit gives gifts to each believer to serve others. To put them to use is to "administer them as good stewards."

A steward or oikonomos was a household manager, usually a domestic official recruited from among slaves. Peter infers, therefore, that if one belongs to God's household as a steward, it is for administering God's oikonomia of grace through one's spiritual gifts.

Basic to Peter's argument is that hospitalitythe only gift he mentionsis a kind of generic gift upon which the whole gamut of

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giftedness rests. This is extraordinarily significant in that hospitality was a basic gift in the earliest churches of the New Testament. It provided a practical working solution for the multiplication of house churches within the Roman Empire.

Another unique contribution of Peter's theology of giftedness is his twofold understanding of their scope. He implies a category of speaking gifts which concentrate on words, asserting that those who minister through speaking should utter them carefully as God's very words. Peter also implies a category of serving gifts which concentrates on works, asserting that those who minister through serving works should do so with God's strength (v. 11).

Developing the Giftedness Theme

In developing the theme of giftedness to the Ephesian church, Paul unfolds his theology of spiritual gifts. Here he amplifies more fully the source of the gifts and the environment in which they function. First, he insists that gifts are enveloped in charismatic grace (Eph. 4:710). Giftedness comes from God's grace-bounty, but is manifest in Christ's descent and ascension. As a result of his ascension, "Christ's gift" (v. 7, RSV) was the Holy Spirit poured forth at Pentecost. This historic, salvific event culminated in bringing gifts to believers. Theologically speaking, Paul is saying that grace or charis transforms itself into grace-gifts or charismata.

In Paul's theology of giftedness, therefore, sovereign grace comes from the Father who, in turn, concentrated that grace in Christ and his work as saving grace. God in turn pours out saving grace to all in Christ's body in the form of service grace.

The happy fact which emerges here is that every believer is a "charismatic." It is sad that the so-called "charismatic movement" has allowed this New Testament description which refers to all grace-gifted Christians to be attached to a subgroup within evangelical Christianity. To make matters worse, the biblical word charisma has been secularized.

A century ago sociologist Max Weber began using the word in reference to certain leader typesas "charismatic leaders." Other German theologians, however, have used the term with its biblical connotations. The believer as a minister, says Bittlinger, "is a charis-

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matic who has become conscious of his calling, according to his charisma, to a ministry due to the activity of the Holy Spirit.'' 2 Käsemann believes, in view of baptism, that every Christian receives the Spirit and his personal klesis (calling). He is thus a charismatic."3

It remains unfortunate that excesses and erroneous notions have alienated and caused fear of the term among many sincere Christians. Not only do we protest the designation charismatic movement; we would also restore the whole church to its pristine glory as the true "charismatic community."

The second fundamental in Paul's theology of giftedness is that gifts are to be contextualized in the body of Christ (Eph. 4:12). The words body of Christ and head sharpen the importance of "imaging" (v. 15). The impact of one's image of the church cannot be overestimated. Minear's creative treatise on images of the church lists nearly one hundred images, most of them rightly relegated to minor importance. Minear believes that the witness of the New Testament reveals that every congregation was all too prone to blindness. It did not always see itself as it was or as it was meant to be. The images acted as a cure for this blindness, requiring a rebirth of imagination for deeper self-perception.4

The major images of the church blend into a single subtle and significant metaphor: the body. Whatever image a church cultivates, it is unlikely to have a balanced self-perception unless it is conscious of being "the body of Christ." More than a mere metaphor of social and psychological value, the church as body is a statement about the humanity of that relationship between Christ and his people. A major problem among many evangelicals is the failure to gain an incarnational understanding of the church. This failure precipitates erroneous images of the church as, for example, a social institution, a psychiatrist's couch, an evangelistic tent, or a lecture hall.5

Even Jesuit theologian Avery Dulles asserts the church as institution is the least acceptable of the five models he sets forth. The servant image is the most biblical, he says, since it is the servant church that can best claim to be the body of Christ.6 Another Catholic, Hans Küng, perhaps most concisely summarizes the consequential impact of good imaging.

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Our concept of the church is . . . influenced by the form of the church at any given time. All too easily the church can become a prisoner of the image it has made for itself at one particular period in history. Every age has its own image of the church, arising out of a particular historical situation. In every age a particular view of the church is expressed by the church in practice, and given conceptual form. 7

A third fundamental, Paul maintains, is that the Holy Spirit divinely proportions the gifts in the body for organismic growth (Eph. 4:1116). Gifts may be personified for support work. The principle of personification reminds us that in the New Testament there is no real distinction between the gift of teaching and gifted teachers.

Furthermore, pastor-teachers refers to one gift, one group of persons (v. 11). The same may also apply to apostles and prophets, since the occurrence in Ephesians 2:20 and the parallel text in 3:5 have the single definite article controlling both. This suggests that apostle and prophet refers to the same person. In this case, apostle would likely refer to their oral witness and prophet to their literary deposit in the New Testament Scriptures. This was a select group in the early church which combined in one person this double function.8

Not only are some gifts personified, but Paul goes on to declare expressly that the gifts of the Spirit are for the purpose of building up the body (v. 12). The so-called "fatal comma" in the KJV text has fostered untold misunderstanding to the present day regarding "the ministry." As someone said, ''It is without linguistic authority but with undoubted ecclesiastical bias," that the translators inserted a comma between "for the perfecting of the saints" and "for the work of the ministry." This in effect separates the work of the ministry from that which the saints are called to do. Of course, the corrected text reads "to equip the saints for (their) work of ministry."

Unfortunately, many churches continue to act on the KJV mistranslation in their structure and performance of "the ministry." They hire the pastor to do the work of the ministry, while the rest are perceived as lesser servant functionaries called to help the pastor do his or her ministering.

On the contrary, pastor-teachers are to help the gifted saints

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get on with their ministering through giftedness. The text asserts that the immediate purpose of the gifts is to shape up the saints so they can do their work of ministry. The final purpose is to build up the body. Biblically speaking, therefore, "ministers" are spiritually gifted persons as are the "laity." The church needs continual reminding that "in the theocracy of grace there is in fact no laity." 9

Moreover, Paul says, spiritual gifts help one to grow up in Christ's body (vv. 1315). The goal of maturity is spiritual adulthood developed through knowledge and manifested in Christ-likeness. The failure of maturity, on the contrary, is evidenced in instability and lack of discernment. The sign of maturity is unadulterated communication among the members of the body, a transparency of character reflected in "speaking the truth in love." The implication here which needs our concern is that personal failure to mature means failure to minister, since the knowledge and discernment necessary to grasp personal giftedness is lacking.

Moreover, "truthing in love" suggests a high degree of integrity in talk. This, in turn, implies that we cannot avoid conflict. To work through conflict successfully, however, requires a high degree of maturity, a growing up that occurs when one takes personal giftedness seriously.

In his gift theology to the Ephesians, Paul makes a final assertion. Gifts, he says, provide the possibility of a healthy prognosis of the body's life (v. 16). The real concern of the body's head is the health of the body (cf. Eph. 5:2627). Every member is "joined," a term Paul coined implying making decisions in harmony.

Contrary to the well-known Negro spiritual "Dry Bones," the physical body is not made up by combining separate parts. On the contrary, the body is formed by the extension of a single original cell, growing until all the cells share the original life. So it is in Christ's body, the church. Paul is saying that when each part does its work, health will result. However, when one part fails to minister properly, the body suffers ill health.

Focus on Corporate Giftedness

In his extended correspondence to the Corinthians, Paul focuses on corporate giftedness. He does this to develop a healthy

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optimism for each one's interdependent functioning in the body of Christ (1 Cor. 1214). After once again articulating the body analogy (12:1213), he maintains that God arranges the body's parts as he wishes (12:1424a).

In Christ's body there are two crippling gift-complexes. The inferiority complex alludes to the problem of depreciating the gifts, a "charisphobia" which arises out of fear or envy. The superiority complex alludes to the problem of discriminating among the gifts, a "charismania." This latter problem comes from exalting certain gifts as spiritual status symbols or from allowing celebrities to project their assumed gifts on others. 10 Either way, these complexes cripple, and must be overcome so cooperative inter-functioning can develop as God planned.

To carry the argument a step further, Paul says that God adjusts the body for the parts found wanting (12:24b27). He has combined the whole body with deference to the parts lacking apparent importance, so there will be no discord or division. As is true of the human body, he suggests, so there is in the body of Christ a discernible body language which "makes for happiness among the parts" (v. 25, LB). It is a high quality of body language which communicates health both in suffering and in rejoicing (v. 26). The body's consciousness, in which each member is aware of being in harmony with the whole, does not come about by mere commands. Rather, Paul infers, it is a phenomenon which exists by spontaneous relating together and by personally affirming one's interdependent membership in Christ's body, the church.

Finally, the apostle declares that God appoints the body's gifts as needed (12:2831). His rhetorical questions, "are all . . . do all?" elicit a resounding "No!" God sovereignly decides on a gift-mix for each local church, bestowing on each congregation that particular amalgam of gifts to fulfill the ministry appropriate to it. Rather than multi-gifted persons, God's plan is for a multi-gifted body, with each local church gifted well enough to carry out its intended goals in servanthood.

Discovering and Discerning Spiritual Gifts

Although the Bible does not explicitly exhort us to discover

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spiritual gifts, 11 nevertheless, the necessity is implicit in the doctrine of giftedness. In assessing the possibilities for personal giftedness, good answers for the right questions can contribute to their discovery and heighten discernment.

The first is the question of motive. Why should a Christian "eagerly desire" spiritual gifts? In the two places Paul addresses this issue (1 Cor. 12:31; 14:1), all major English translations render zaloute as imperative, as a command to "eagerly desire" spiritual gifts. However, one can also translate it as an indicative, as a rebuke for being jealous of the gifts of others. This translation would read "you are eagerly desiring," that is, in a negative manner.

Some maintain that that Paul would hardly encourage striving for the greater gifts after he had just admonished them to be content with the gifts sovereignly distributed by the Spirit.12 That the indicative may well be the better translation is strengthened by 14:20, where Paul characterizes the Corinthians as people who strive after gifts.13 Whatever the apostle intended, the problem serves as a caution regarding misdirected zeal in spiritual gifts. Motive remains all-important.

A second question concerns the issue of self-analysis. In view of Romans 12:3, a disciplined diagnosis of oneself is needed, a self-analysis given according to the measure of faith one has. In essence, the apostle states that Christians must think soberly about how they think about themselves. This is a major prerequisite on the way to reaching a sane estimate of one's own gift potential. This methodology also provides a safeguard against the vulnerability of failure in giftedness and the blight of envy.14

A third question regards one's interdependent membership, or lack of it. In view of Romans 12:46, Paul assumes that every Christian will become committed to a disciplined community in order to incarnate personal accountability through interdependent relationships. Gifts are living things. They are organismic in function. Gifts are member things; they are congregational in scope. Christ's church is the "gift-evoking, gift-bearing" community which works out its life-ministry as "the company of the committed." Paul seems to be saying that every believer must think and act organismically or suffer the lonely incongruity of independency (cf. Col. 2:19).

A final question concerns how and where to begin in discover-

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ing and discerning spiritual gifts. At the periphery of this question is the issue of differentiating between spiritual gifts and natural talents. They are not the same. Two extremes tend to polarize their relatedness, however. The one is the inheritive view which perceives the gifts as mere natural capacities. This nearly destroys the bond existing between gifts and talents. On the other extreme is the enthusiastic view which perceives gifts as mysterious, supernatural, and sensational. It ignores the fact that Paul makes no sharp distinction among the gifts, between those which are quite mundane and those which are obviously supernatural. Furthermore, we need to guard against Platonic ideas which create a Gnostic-like false dualism between the material and the spiritual.

Gifts in the New Testament are both ordinary and extraordinary, just what one might expect from the Creator of all life. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of creation as well as re-creation. Did Paul lose all he had gained through years of development and training of his natural abilities? On the contrary, Paul recognized that God had called him even before his birth (Gal. 1:1516). When Saul became Paul, the Spirit enhanced his natural abilities and redirected them.

We all know the rest of Paul's story. He then used all his finely trained abilities solely for the glory of God. His attitude, however, was that all his earthly and intellectual attainments were rubbish in comparison to what he had gained in knowing Jesus as Lord (Phil. 3:410). His mental abilities in philosophy, apologetics, and worldly acumen were all heightened in their transformation into spiritual gifts. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit entrusted him with new gifts as well, such as miracles, healings, and discernment.

Thus, the Creator gives his chosen people a kind of genetic giftedness, a conditioning in preparation for their kingdom work. The key to the transformation of a talent into a gift is in one's attitude. A natural talent, if recognized as from God and dedicated to the Lord in ministry in some special way, may become a gift of the Spirit with supernatural expression. 15

Nonetheless, since one cannot clone a spiritual gift, some identifiable differences between natural talents and spiritual gifts remain clear. Everyone has natural talents at birth by virtue of being created in God's image. God gives gifts to believers in their second birth. Talents operate through common grace in all

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societies, motivating toward artistic achievement and appreciation, of beauty and are primarily for one's own enjoyment. Gifts operate through special grace in Christ's body, communicating God's love and truth, motivating toward obedience to God's will. They are not for one's own enjoyment, but for service to others in building up Christ's body.

We gain further insight on the dilemma of discovering one's gifts by evaluating the quality of personal dedication. Giftedness is rooted in a decisive dedication to sacrificial living and renewed thinking (Rom. 12:1, 2). In this way, God's will can be discerned, since giftedness harmonizes with God's will. It is unfortunate that many ignore the gift context of these forceful verses. Paul, however, had spiritual gifts in mind. In essence he says that commitment of this quality will aid one to "discover the will of God" (JB) in personal giftedness.

Moreover, discover implies that one receives gifts according to the grace given. Develop implies that one receives gifts according to the faith given. Inherent is the idea of acting. One must use all the resources at one's disposal to "stir into flame the gift that God gave" (2 Tim. 1:6). Dormant gifts in the body of Christ are, indeed, distressing phenomena. "Do not put out the Spirit's fire," is the apostle's corrective (1 Thess. 5:19).

In summarizing the doctrine of giftedness, a final perturbing question demands an answer. Why should every member of Christ's body take one's giftedness seriously? The answer is clear. It is not the presence of spiritual gifts but the proper use of them that validates them in our servanthood. Therefore, Paul warns, "Do not neglect the gift God gave you" (1 Tim. 4:1416).

The first of the warning exhortations in Hebrews has to do with the use of spiritual gifts. The disconcerting rhetorical question is forthright: "How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?" (Heb. 2:3, RSV). Easily overlooked is what follows. The salvation in view was not only characterized by miraculous signs which attested the apostolic proclamation, but, surprisingly, also by "gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will" (v. 4). When we deny our gifts, writes O'Connor, "we blaspheme against the Holy Spirit whose action is to call forth gifts." 16

A final question is appropriate. When will the believer's gifted-

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ness be complete? The answer is unequivocal: at the time when one's kingdom work is finished, when the Master returns for gift-accounting from his gifted servants. This is certainly clear in the Lord's parable of the talents (Matt. 24:1430). Our gifts are on loan! There will be a reckoning day! The one-talented person needs as much courage in his or her stewardship of giftedness as the ten-talented person. The reason is simple: "It is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy" (1 Cor. 4:2, RSV).

This matter calls for alert diligence in our giftedness. Gift-bestowing on us presupposes gift-accounting by us. The Lord assured us that he would do this according to the fair principle of proportions. For "much is required from those to whom much is given, for their responsibility is greater" (Luke 12:48, LB).

It is obvious, then, that these practical teachings and implications of the gifts of the Spirit motivated those earliest church fellowships to energetic ministry. Clearly, the house churches were recipients of generous apostolic teaching concerning giftedness. Their success in personally appropriating their own gifts and corporately functioning as Christ's body is a matter of biblical and redemptive history. It serves as a corrective challenge to the institutionalization of the contemporary church.

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Chapter 7

House Gathering and the Liturgy of Worship

A glance at church history will confirm that the earliest New Testament believers inherited their worship forms from the synagogue model. This model developed during the transition between the exile and the Christian era.

Worship in the several dozen house churches of the New Testament was clearly consistent with the lessons learned about worship of God from Old Testament times. These simple structures provided an ideal environment to practice Jesus' new teaching about worship. There was no intention of building church buildings, since the believers brought their structure wherever they gathered. They had learned well the lesson which the older prophets were trying to establish: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:20, RSV).

In order to substantiate this thesis, a digressive overview on worship in the Old Testament is necessary. Many assume that the Scriptures support a worship arrangement requiring specially constructed church buildings and, in varying degrees, elaborate sanctuaries. They see ceremony and architecture as aids to the worship of God. In this vein, Old Testament temple liturgies seem to require a New Testament counterpart.

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The biblical data, however, yields a different perspectivea viable alternative to popular contemporary assumptions about worship and worshiping places.

One of the central issues of the older Testament is the problem of worship. That Testament, indeed, portrays a temple complex with associated worship liturgies. In doing so, however, it highlights the debilitating human tendency to localize the Almighty and adulterate his presence with extraneous rituals. Viewed in this light, the older Testament is a veritable call to worship. It summons worshipers away from preoccupation with outward rituals to the inward experience of renewal. A brief survey of worship in the age of promise will highlight this tension.

Worship in the Age of Promise

Incredible as it is, an act of worship provoked the first violent crime! Abel brought the Lord his best and God favored him. Cain had his own ideas about worship which resulted in arousing God's disfavor. So he slew his brother after "church" and fled. He knew he was being driven from God's presence so he became a restless wanderer and settled in Nod, the "land of wandering" (Gen. 4:116).

The first family tragedy solidified humanity's need for community. Adam's son Seth in turn had a son, Enoch, meaning "frail one." He was probably so named because his family felt deeply their own frailty. Happily, the text informs us that they established a regular practice of worship as the first worshiping community. 1 They began at that time to call upon the name of the Lord in worship (Gen. 4:26). It is safe to assume this is the first worshiping house-community.

Abraham then appeared, searching for the permanent city. He built altars because he knew God delighted in permanently settled declarations of faith. However, he pitched his tent because he was intent on following God wherever he led (Gen. 12:8).

Tabernacle-style worship by Moses heightened the concept of God-on-the-move. Even the ark which signified God's presence was specifically designed for mobility. "Make poles . . . to carry it . . . these carrying poles shall never be taken from the rings, but are to

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be left there permanently" (Exod. 25:1415, LB). It is hard for twentieth-century Christians to image church furniture and rituals divinely designed for a movable tent!

The tabernacle was designed by a clear command of God. On the other hand, the temple was only cautiously allowed. Solomon decided to build a temple for God (1 Kings 38). The Lord took note of it and said he would "dwell" in it if the king and the people were faithful to the Lord. When Solomon finished it, he happily exclaimed, "I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell in forever."

Solomon, however, admits the theological paradox of his work. Even when dedicating the temple, the king catches a glimpse of the greater reality and asks, "But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you, how much less this temple I have built!"

Solomon's father, King David, first wanted to build a house for the Lord, but God had a better idea. He said he would build a house out of David, instead! (2 Sam. 7:517). So the Lord made clear that the "house" he would make out of David would stand firm and become an everlasting kingdom. 2 Thus, the beautiful temple could only dimly reflect the real and abiding heavenly sanctuary (Heb. 8:5). At worst it fostered human fixation on the idolatry of lesser gods. Solomon's creative edifice once dazzled the Queen of Sheba, but it did not help her grasp the true nature of his God.

Years later, Haggai and Malachi witnessed the destruction of the temple. Discouraged after bitter exile, the remnant of Israel mused, "Where is God's presence now?" God responded by allowing them to erect again a symbol of his presence. At the same time he warned them that anything they constructed would be but a vanishing shadow of his real dwelling place. This dwelling place was clearly not an earthly shrine, for the Lord went on to say, "I am with you . . . My Spirit abides among you" (Hag. 2:45, RSV).

Contrary to popular opinion, true worship did not take place only in Jerusalem, where the Lord lamented, "Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors!" On the contrary, true worship of God happened in every place the truly committed offered pure offerings (Mal. 1:1011).

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In the dramatic visions described by Ezekiel, the watchman, God's temple-house suffered horrible desecrations, and God's glory left before his very eyes. However, the Lord reminded Ezekiel that he himself had been their real sanctuary all along! He went on to affirm, ''I . . . will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My dwelling place shall be with them . . . when my sanctuary is in the midst of them for evermore" (Ezek. 37:2628, RSV).

As Ezekiel gazes on the apocalyptically glorified temple, he puts the whole into its proper perspective with a dramatic finale. He declares, "And the name of the city from that time on will be: THE LORD IS THERE!" (Ezek. 48:35). In summary, Malachi asserts that genuine worship can abound only when God himself tabernacles among his people, a foretaste of the incarnational advent of the Lord Christ. 3

Worship in the Times of Fulfillment

In the times of fulfillment, the critical issue of worship became and remains permanently concretized in Jesus' words recorded in John 4:2324. He said, in essence, that from now on true worship will not at all concern physical location, but rather the inner domain of persons. It must be "in truth" since all true worship is based on the objective revelation of God. It must be "in Spirit" since only by the Spirit can God's objective revelation be subjectively experienced.

The parable of the wineskins was Jesus' most celebrated statement about his new way of life over against the old forms of religion (Luke 9:3639). He taught that it is fatal to attempt to preserve the vigorous new forms of divine worship in the old obsolete religious structures of the Pharisees. It will be fatal, Jesus says, because new wine will burst old wineskins. "Just as fatal will it be to adapt the principles of Jesus to the old systems."4

The defense of Stephen before the Sanhedren is a pivotal declaration of divine intention and Christian faith (Acts 7). Building his cogent argument on Abraham's obedient journeying to God's call, Stephen develops the theme of God's pilgrim people from the Joseph story and the Exodus sojourn. Moses is the leader-lord of the church in the wilderness. Under him, Stephen recounts, "Our

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forefathers had the Tent of Testimony in the desert." In this way he authenticated the tabernacle as an especially appropriate symbol of God's presence among his pilgrim people (Exod. 35:8).

As sojourners in the land, the Israelites were uniquely qualified to identify with the sojourning quality of Yahweh, whose abiding presence accompanied them by pillar of fire and smoke. In his defense, Stephen intended to undermine the Jews' superstition which they had come to attach to an exalted temple. Morever, he subtly depicts Moses as a prototype of Jesus whom his accusers are now rejecting. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Jewish religious elite accused Stephen of "always talking against our sacred Temple," and that he wanted "to change all the customs" (Acts 6:1314, TEV).

Nevertheless, Stephen boldly advanced his hearers to the very threshold of God's answer to the problem of worship. He said God indeed desires to and does tabernacle among his people (John 1:14). He does not, however, dwell in beautiful man-made temples, but in the Spirit-made temple of Christ's body (1 Cor. 3:1617). In his final retort, Stephen exposes their heresy concerning the Spirit of God. His indictment reverberates with intense emotion.

"You obstinate people, heathen in your thinking, heathen in the way you are listening to me now! It is always the sameyou never fail to resist the Holy Spirit!" (Acts 7:51, JBP). That was too much, so they stoned him.

Vernard Eller has pointed out that Stephen's defense does not center on the usual Christian/Jewish differences, but on the two different concepts of the church as God's people. The Jewish elite, in their custodial concern for holy places and holy customs, saw God's people as a fixed and settled entity. The early Christians, represented here by Stephen, rightly perceived God's people as a pilgrim community.

Eller's argument for caravaning as the style of the church is forceful. He contends that Stephen's defense points to the church as a caravaning community. The church as caravan, says Eller, "is a group of people banded together to make common cause in seeking a common destination. . . . A caravan is a caravan only as long as it is making progress. . . . Once the caravaners stop, dig in, or count themselves as having arrived, they no longer constitute a caravan." 5

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Luke informs us that the early believers as disciples were first nicknamed "Christian" in Antioch, probably as a derogatory description (Acts 11:26). More remarkable, however, is the earliest nomenclature attached to the primitive church (Acts 9:2; 19:23; 24:14). The logical coherence of this phenomenon is self-evident. The over half-dozen references Luke makes to the Christians as "those of the way" accentuates the fact that early New Testament theology understood the church as a traveling community rather than a settled commissary.

Not only does this undergird Stephen's argument; it further corroborates the Exodus typology which is at the foundation of all New Testament theology. The Exodus motif asserts that genuine Christian experience is not a matter of arriving and settling down. The very image is that of movement, of going out, of a journeying people under the leadership of a deliverer.

The author of Hebrews adds to this theme, describing those in the fellowship of faith as strangers and exiles on earth. They are a people seeking a homeland with a passion for a better place than one can find here. They, with Abraham their father, are portrayed as pilgrims on a journey toward their final, certain destination (Heb. 11:1316). It was this quality of faith which the early followers of "the way" radically incarnated. They turned the world "upside down" through small house-church groups, demonstrating to the pagan world that they were indeed God's family on earth, the household of faith. "They met in homes (or catacombs) and were prepared to start enough such house churches to care for the Christian constituency of a locale," concludes Eller. "It was only when the church switched from caravan to commissary that it began to form large congregations." 6

Worship in the Early House Churches

When we look more carefully at early house church worship in the New Testament documents, perhaps the most notable characteristic is that it was dualistic in scope. That is, it followed a movement from divine revelation to human response. First God spoke through his Word, making himself known in the greatness of his glory and grace. Then the believers answered in praiseful worship,

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since genuine worship can only occur in response to God's prior revelation.

This dualistic scope of worship liturgy comes from the New Testament itself, and is visible in the house church worship at Troas. There we see how

the breaking of bread service of Acts 2:42, 47 [still] persists in a Greco-Roman setting, but as part of a structure that will later become "fixed" and provide the two part sequence of the Christian gathering for Sunday worship. The "liturgy of the Word" and the "liturgy of the upper room" are visible in their embryonic forms in the simple house-church celebration in Troas. 7

When we consider the "liturgy of the Word," many immediately think of a preaching service. However, preaching apparently did not exist in the New Testament house churches! When Paul dialogued (dialegomai) with the believers in the third-floor house church apartment in Troas, he was doing what the gathered church always did! (Acts 20:7). Modern debates and articles on the pros and cons of persuasion in preaching may be somewhat beside the point. The point is that a preacher is one who proclaims the gospel to those ignorant of it. A pastor-teacher (Eph. 4:11), however, is one who shepherds the gathered flock of believers. These two are not the same.

Craig A. Evans has developed lexical observations of the kerugma word family as used in classical, New Testament, and post-apostolic times. The word was not used in synagogue worship and teaching. In the New Testament the word is used evangelistically for the proclamation of the gospel to those outside the church. Possible exceptions as 2 Timothy 4:2 do not alter this norm. For the early church leaders, teaching the Word was normative in the assembled church. "Preaching" simply did not occur in a local congregation. Craig summarizes:

There is no mention of preaching pastors and listening congregations . . . concepts of "preacher" and "preaching" are only in contexts of gospel proclamation to unbelievers. . . . Rather than one man preaching to an audience the church of the apostolic fathers experienced active involvement of the membership. This is a proper reflection of the

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picture we have in the New Testament itself . . . monologue is inherent in heraldingappropriate for gospel proclamationbut it can be detrimental for edifying and the "equipment of the saints for the work of the ministry" . . . there are no biblical grounds for a tradition that tends to discourage congregational activity and ministry. 8

Victor L. Walter, too, reflects on the historical perspective of preaching. He asks, "Where did preaching occur?" His answer is piquant.

The difference two thousand years brought is immediately apparent. As the infant church took its first steps into pagan culture, preaching largely occurred outdoors and in often furious interchange with auditors caught up in the street, forum, or on the river bank. Now as the aged church totters toward the end of the age, preaching among English speaking folks at least is almost inevitably indoors and in the context of the worship service. When you cage the sermon behind mortar and stained glass, sustaining and surrounding it with the whine of organelectronic or pipe, when you tame the sermon to twenty minutes tailored to the latest fashion in liturgy, when you display the sermon only to those who voluntarily come into the cage to behold it, the domestication of preaching has been completed.9

Another aspect of the "liturgy of the Word" service was the creeds. The earliest church was already a confessing community in possession of a body of truth with embryonic creedal confessions. Thus, creeds existed from the earliest stage of church life. These articles of faith lie scattered across the pages of the New Testament. Together, they make up "the pattern of the sound words" Paul defended in his later years (2 Tim. 1:13, RSV). They are a rule of faith, concise statements of what one believed in view of one's Christian confession.10

These early creeds found in the biblical text itself met three basic needs. They were useful in delineating the doctrines of the faith, and they tested heresy while guarding orthodoxy. Their most beautiful use, however, was for articulating confessions in worship.

Turning to the second part of early church worship, the "liturgy of the Supper" centered on Christ's presence visually represented by the Lord's table. As a regular rendezvous with the risen

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Lord, their worship was literally a "koinonia in the body and blood of Christ" (1 Cor. 10:1617). Here the body of Christ was most visible. The presence of the Lord was with them at the table, not on it. The symbol was not yet confused with the reality. Rather than creating his presence in some magical or mystical sense, the symbol made them aware of it through faith. They experienced the "real presence" of the Lord because of his real absence.

The older tradition popularized communion as a remembrance or memorial service which represented a backward gaze. The more comprehensive tradition, however, correctly understands the earliest believers' communion as a regular rendezvous with the risen Lord. As such it represented a forward look. The Lord's Supper was to them primarily a post-Easter revelation of resurrection in the breaking of the bread.

These post-resurrection meals probably became the catalyst for gathering together on "the Lord's day" (Luke 24:30f.). Their Lord's real absence made his real presence possible "on the first day of the week" (Acts 20:7) because of the Host's living presence in their gathering together (Matt. 18:20). As I. Howard Marshall points out,

the alleged antithesis between joyful celebrations of the Lord's presence and solemn memories of his death is a false one. . . . Luke's contribution is to stress that the Lord's Supper is the joyous celebration of the experience of salvation in the presence of the risen Lord. 11

The early believers were apparently conscious that the supper before them was indeed the Lord's Supper, not a bishop's. Ignatius very soon would write, however, that "a valid Eucharist is . . . one celebrated by the bishop or by a representative of his."12 Such erroneous ideas were yet foreign to their thinkingideas which would become commonplace among the church fathers.

The Lord's Supper in the early home gatherings was understood as a special means of grace. It was not a means of special grace in which a priest with mysterious powers of sacrifice made an "offering." On the contrary, the resurrected and living Host created and controlled the table experience for his specially-graced guests, the gathered church.

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As they gathered in those small house groupings, they were aware that the table before them was indeed a table, not an altar. To them, nothing was "administered," rather a table was "spread, celebrated, and shared." A Jewish Christian in one of the house churches of Corinth would have no doubt joyfully shared Paul's excitement about the Supper. The original meaning was clear. In Paul's first recorded comment on what the holy meal means, he said, "Our Passover Festival is ready, now that Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed." He added, "Let us celebrate our Passover, then!" (1 Cor. 5:78, TEV).

Thus, the earliest church gathered at a home table in a shared, domestic experience in foretaste of the heavenly banquet. This stark fact led Micks to a formidable conclusion: For the Lord's Supper "a moderately large, well-proportioned room is needed; in its center a table and on the table a bowl of bread and a cup of wine . . . that is all!" This judgment, she says, comes from a leading liturgical architect! 13

In his Last Supper and Lord's Supper, Marshall submits some considerations for the Supper today. He is surely correct to note that the New Testament says nothing about who should serve the supper.

Furthermore, since nothing in the New Testament corresponds to our modern ordination rights, every believer who wishes should share the elements with the gathered church. Further significance for today is found in the use of one loaf and a common cup. The contemporary church could benefit by the ancient church practice, since the single loaf and common cup was part of Paul's intentional concern (1 Cor. 10:1617).

In their celebration of God, certain descriptive qualities attended first-century worship. These qualities are discernible among the New Testament letters, features which Olsen descriptively captures in his portrayal of their worship experiences.

The large assembly area in homes served well, affording intimacy and closeness. The Christians greeted each other with a "holy kiss." They gathered around a common fellowship meal, where they broke bread in remembrance, confessed sins, shared concerns and problems, reported what God was doing, read the Scriptures, read letters from

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other Christians, prayed, and sang. Paul suggested that they should "weep with those who weep" and "rejoice with those who rejoice." Emotion was not avoided. Only in the intimate context of the house group could such deep relationships develop. Out of this corporate life of the church, the gospel was powerfully proclaimed. Words such as "love," "grace," ''forgiveness," "care," and "share," were part and parcel of the members' human experience. They perpetuated the small, base community which was at the heart of Jesus' ministry. 14

The believers described in these letters "worshiped by the Spirit of God" (Phil. 3:3). They had a vivid awareness that they were standing within the "magnetic field of the Holy Spirit," as W. C. van Unnik expressed it.

The first letter to the house church at Corinth, in particular, gives us a most intimate glimpse into first-century worship. The Spirit stimulated these believers by energizing their human capacities for charismatic praise. Singing "psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs" was the happy overflow of being "filled with the Spirit" (1 Cor. 14:15, Eph. 5:1819). Praying in worship was presumably characterized by participation as well as spontaneity and freedom (Acts 2:42; 20:36; 21:5).

The joy of Jesus' presence and the freedom of the Spirit enabled these believers to embrace the biblical invitations to experience the physical side of being spiritual. They were caught up in that freedom and lived out the implications of their being the temple of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17 and 1 Cor. 6:1920). Apparently they deemed it consistent to employ all their bodily powers to extol the Creator's goodness.

There is good reason to suppose that the concern of believers for one another was tangible. This is clear in their willingness to "touch and feel." Touching was important to them as they sealed their belongingness by "the right hand of fellowship" (Gal. 2:9). They practiced "laying on hands" in spiritual affirmation (Acts 6:6) and in the transfer of spiritual capabilities (2 Tim. 1:6). Early Christians also had the freedom to "greet and kiss" one another. The kiss, an old practice, was a sign of love in the church fellowship. Its practice was enjoined in the churches by Paul who called it the "holy kiss" (Rom. 16:16). Peter termed it the "kiss of love" (1 Pet. 5:14), and it later entered church liturgy as the "kiss of peace."

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Early believers also practiced the ancient Hebrew symbolic action of "bowing down and kneeling" as sign of humility in worship. Jesus, Paul, and Peter bowed their knees in prayer as did Paul's friends (Acts 21:5). That posture was natural to them since Hebrew words (shacah and hawah) connote bowing down in the act of worship.

Similarly, early believers expressed their prayer and praise in lifting their hands and calling. Verbal praise and gesturing hands go together in biblical worship. Raised hands in worship was a common phenomenon among the old covenant people of God. 15 Even clapping hands was an act of joyful worship (Ps. 37:1). Paul thought that the raising of hands in worship was an appropriate gesture for all the churches of his day (1 Tim. 2:8). And many have done this in worship throughout the ages as the saints gather before the Lord.

Furthermore, the Old Testament saints knew full well the invitation to "bring an offering and come to worship" (Ps. 16:8). In the same way the New Testament saints in the times of fulfillment knew theirs was to be a "fragrant offering" as well as a "sacrifice to God'' (Eph. 5:12).

The Corinthian letters establish stewardship as an act of consistent and weekly worship in the early church, a "collection for God's people" in the context of regular worship services (1 Cor. 16:12). Its validity depended on the prior offering of themselves (2 Cor. 8:5). Similarly, Paul's point to the Philippian church was that their "fragrant offering" and "acceptable sacrifice" was pleasing to God and was itself an act of worship (Phil. 4:1419).

The various colorful qualities and practices of worship in New Testament times help us to discover a model of the early church liturgy. The passage in 1 Thessalonians 5:1622, for example, reads like "headings" of an early worship service. In view of the clearly charismatic flavor of early Christianity, it is significant that the central concern of this brief "worship outline" is its injunction not to quench the Spirit. The church should not treat prophesying with contempt. The worshipers at Thessalonica are further admonished to test everything in a charismatic worship experience.

In representing early church worship, the following outline contains most of the salient ingredients suggested from the pages of the New Testament:

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The Liturgy of the Scriptures

An affirmation of his presence (Matt. 18:20; Heb. 10:2325)

A confession of faith (1 Tim. 3:16 or Apostles' Creed)

The Scripture reading (1 Tim. 4:13; Rev. 1:3)

The prayers (spontaneous prayingActs 2:42or the Disciples' Prayer)

The teaching of the Word (Acts 2:42; 20:7)

The Liturgy of the Supper

Singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19) accompanied with physical expressions (1 Tim. 2:8; Ps. 134:2)

Thanksgiving in remembrance (1 Cor. 11:2325)

Participation in celebration of his presence (1 Cor. 10:1617)

The congregational amen (1 Cor. 14:16)

The kiss of peace (Rom. 16:16)

The benediction (2 Cor. 13:14)

Tensions of Diversity and Liturgy

These are elements of commonality which feature New Testament worship among the house churches. Nevertheless, tensions are detectable which portray diversity as well. This differentiation exists within the several larger worshiping communities. Ralph P. Martin summarized four stages of a trajectory that runs from Paul to the Johannine communities. 16 The gist of this phenomenon is as follows:

Paul and the Charismatic Community

The worship at Corinth involved full participation in Spirit-motivated freedom (14:26). They did not lack any spiritual gift (1:7), but they did lack discernment of the Spirit's intended unity (12:25). So Paul's primary concern was to hold a tight grip on Jesus' historicity and his lordship (12:3). He urged the Corinthian believers to uphold love as the controlling factor of the charismata (ch. 13), and to concentrate on edification for unity (14:6,12). Strong teaching, Paul believed, would balance the "charismatic" and the "rational" tendencies.

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Luke and the Reminiscing Fellowship

Luke is looking back on the "good old days" of the pentecostal beginning nearly several decades earlier. He recalls the gospel events to show the believers of his day what it means to be the church and how they should live according to the pattern established in the early days. Therefore, he reminds them of the radical break with the temple and sacrifices (Acts 7), and of apostolic standards in worship (Acts 2:42). He reminds them of their conquering joy in worship (Acts 2:4647), and of the power of the Spirit in worship and in the fear of God (Acts 4:31; 5:11).

Timothy, Titus, and Organizing Structures

The Pastorals reflect a later time when there was a conscious need for consolidation to safeguard the heritage of the past. This need was met with a growing emphasis on church organization. The church became the "pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15), with functionaries called "elders and deacons" (1 Tim. 3:1, 8). They were to lead the local church in a proper way (1 Tim. 4), to expose error by the truth (2 Tim. 3:16), and to keep faithfully the "good deposit" (2 Tim. 1:14). In this way, they would guard apostolic truth against gnosticizing debates (1 Tim. 6:2021:2 Tim. 2:1617).

John and Real Spirituality

The aging John sensed a threat to worship in placing too much emphasis on structural forms and therefore suffocating the Spirit. His antidote to this tendency is genuine fellowship with Jesus himself (1 John 1:14) and living out the real test of agape (chs. 34). Genuine worship "in spirit and in truth" is independent of places, forms, and ceremonies (1 John 3:24; John 4:2024).

The remaining evidence concerning the New Testament church's worship does not move beyond this simple portrait. These house-centered and small-group worshiping communities were alive in the Spirit, but moving through the first century with growing concerns about remaining "in the Spirit" of genuine worship.

In view of this, why has there been a proliferation of extrabib-

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lical liturgies since those early days? By what objective criteria can we evaluate all that passes for "Christian worship"?

Martin rightly asserts that one discovers the truest constants in the distinctives of apostolic ways. One must therefore test all later developments and embellishments by that same criteria. He asserts that "Christian worship as we know it today has gathered to itself a sizable encrustation of practices, traditions, and procedures for which New Testament precedent is entirely or nearly completely lacking. . . . We are obliged to test later developments by the criteria of those [NT] principles insofar as we can ascertain and pinpoint them." 17

W. C. vanunnik has spoken of "pan-liturgism" as that tendency to see in the Pauline letters the background of later liturgical traditions whenever a simple parallel in wording exists between them and the much later liturgies. A penchant, therefore, for discovering worship patterns from the post-apostolic Fathers can be a pernicious modus operandi, since the liturgies in them will not likely be in the New Testament itself. It is, in fact, "the pattern presented in the N.T. which must be decisive and not any hypothetical reconstruction based on later extrabiblical sources . . . the church today should beware lest it lose the simplicity and directness of the New Testament pattern."18

Evidences of "pan-liturgism" can be detected in popular attempts to coalesce the post-apostolic Fathers into the New Testament milieu. Robert Webber, for example, roundly defends the idea of sacred places, sacred minister-priests, and sacred rituals. He defends their validity for the New Testament from their connectedness to the Old Testament patterns. Perhaps his faux pas is most easily seen when he attempts to build a theological basis for the use of space in the history of Christian worship.

Beginning with the synagogue model, he vaults over the New Testament data with its plethora of house-churched worship to the Syrian church model and the Roman basilica, and then on to the medieval church. To Webber, the house church was at most incidental, a temporary situation brought about by the tension between being Jewish and Christian!19

Contrary to Webber, the common knowledge that New Testament Christians did not establish their faith around sacred struc-

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Figure 5

Evolution of the Early Christian House of Worship

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tures and elaborate rituals is well documented. The diagrams on the previous page, from Skoglund's Worship in the Free Churches, 20 bear this out. The house church in later New Testament times reflected the stark simplicity of the early upper room model (Figures 5-A and 5-B). Only after the pacem of Constantine did the basilica models emerge (Figures 5-C through 5-F), since their theological and philosophical foundations were laid by the Fathers of the second and third centuries.

The Fathers of post-apostolic times tended to harden in their understanding of grace. Fallacies mixed with truth. For example, the Didache and 1 Clement reflect fussy concerns about set prayers, orderly liturgies, and appointed leaders. As far as Ignatius was concerned, the eucharist was valid only when celebrated by a bishop functioning as a link with the heavenly Father. Baptisms and the Supper services were not valid unless the bishop presided over or authorized them.

"We have traveled a long way from the free spontaneity of church gatherings at Corinth in the middle 50s of the first century."21

The Fathers instigated certain movements which quickly became concretized liturgical patterns. Their liturgies moved away from corporate spontaneity in the Spirit to autocratic bishopric control and sterility. It was first a movement from laity to priesthood.

Furthermore, they moved worship away from the simple and warm environment of the first-century home into cold cathedral complexes to meet the needs of their rapidly developing liturgical systems. It was a movement from the house church to basilicas. Most heretical of all, they moved the Lord's Supper away from a simple every-member shared experience to a pompous elaborate priestly function. It was a movement from the real to the abstract, from the concrete to the elaborate.

Writing from a free church tradition, Vernard Eller argues forcefully against the idea of the Lord's Supper as "sacrament," a liturgical idea he says is "just plain foreign to the New Testament." Deriving from the Latin translation of the Greek mysterion, sacrament connotes something strange, awesome, unfathomable, and ineffable. On the contrary, says Eller, Christ is the great

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"demystifier," the "solver of mysteries rather than the maker of them." 22

Simply stated, the Fathers left us a legacy of exaggerated liturgical mystery and might. The true wine of the Spirit as experienced by first-century believers was diluted out into dogmas like the mass. The elevation of the priesthood elite destroyed the vital experience of corporate and charismatic worship as believers/priests.

The corresponding necessity for appropriate liturgical architecture emerged rapidly. "The phenomenon is supremely simple," notes Marianne Micks. "Constantine allowed Christians to build churches . . . [and] positively encouraged a program of church construction. It has been flourishing ever since. Real estate was not, and is not, an unmixed blessing in the Christian life."23

The institutionalized church of our modern era is constantly facing the temptation to reinstate liturgical systems which God once-for-all demolished in Christ. Those systems fixate around a professional priesthood, a caste conspicuously absent in the New Testament. They center on a new sacrificial modus operandi. In reality none of these systems can offer anything to God since Jesus' once-for-all offering of himself. They also rivet human appreciation on embellished cathedrals and dramatic aesthetics, an admiration for externals which is assumed to aid in bridging the gap between worshiper and the Almighty.

With disturbing words, William Barclay in The Lord's Supper observes:

There can be no two things more different than the celebration of the Lord's Supper in a Christian home in the first century and in a cathedral in the twentieth century. The things are so different that it is almost possible to say that they bear no relationship to each other whatsoever. The liturgical splendour of the twentieth century was in the first century not only unthought of; it was totally impossible.24

In his discussion of worship in the free churches, Skoglund fortifies our conclusions by advocating a return to architectural radicalism, a simplicity which would express the idea of the church as a gathering place for the Christian family. Externally, it would mean that the church would begin to look like homes in its neigh-

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borhood as it takes on the surrounding identity. This would mean in many situations the external appearance of a good modern house, since biblical qualities as hospitality, friendliness, and community life find their expression best in a simple home.

Skoglund concludes, "This may mean going back quite literally to the 'house church' of a far earlier period." 25

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PART 3

AN ALTERNATIVE MODEL FOR REVITALIZATION

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Chapter 8

The Company of the Committed

The Community of One Another

Individuals in the New Testament house churches must have developed a keen awareness of one another, due, in part, to the many reminders of "one another" in the letters to the churches. Nearly fifty references encourage active attitudes believers were to exhibit to one another. Over a dozen times they are exhorted to love one another. John was particularly fond of this exhortation, which he got, of course, from the Lord himself.

It was Paul, however, who penned the distinctive and descriptive term allelon. He used the term frequently in his correspondence with the house churches. His nearly forty references are reducible to a minimum of a dozen interpersonal interactions in the church community. Together they describe love's commitment in action. 1 If John's "love one another" is a clear call to what Christians are to do, then Paul's "one anothers" depict how they are to put the commitment of love into action.

We are, Paul reminds us, "members of one another" (Rom. 12:5), alluding to corporate belongingness in Christ's body. This involves a definitive act of commitment, both from the individual and from the community. All members must devote themselves to one

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another (Rom. 12:10). In the church fellowships, members were exhorted to ''live in harmony with one another" (Rom. 15:56) as they learned to "honor one another" (Rom. 12:10).

The apostle set a high standard of interpersonal expectations for those small church gatherings. Not only were they told to "accept one another" (Rom. 15:7); they were to "serve one another" (Gal. 5:13) as dramatic evidence of their interdependence. In this environment of quality commitment, the injunction to "submit to one another" (Eph. 5:21) is perhaps the most all-encompassing connotation of allelon *. Of all the exhortations, it is the most germane to Paul's understanding of commitment in Christ's body. When believers in community learn to fulfill its extraordinarily high demand, they will find the power to "bear with one another" (Eph. 4:2) as well as to "bear one another's burdens" (Gal. 6:2, RSV).

Furthermore, Paul concentrates on their mutual commitment to "instruct one another" (Rom. 15:14). They must be teachable. They must be willing to receive instruction. Perhaps the success of this practice depends on their ability to "encourage one another" (1 Thess. 5:11).

Finally, amid these interpersonal actions within the community, Paul reminds them to "greet one another" (Rom. 16:16), and to accompany their greeting with the warmth and personal touch of the holy kiss. As a sign of genuine affirmation, the kiss constantly reminded them of the essential ingredient in attaining their community goals: the "one another" of love itself. Perhaps this is why Peter preferred to call it the "kiss of agape*" (1 Pet. 5:14).

The Integrity of Commitment

The dictionary meaning of commitment from Latin connotes "bringing together," an idea that underlies the concept of fellowship. The rebirth of biblical theology has resulted in a commitment-centered message. In a similar way, that message should result in a fellowship of committed people who are willing to be honest with one another. To discover the dimensions of the early apostolic fellowships is to discover the commitment which bonded them as vital parts "one of another."

The body commitment implicit in the New Testament letters

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to the churches has significant implications for the church today. The meaninglessness of church membership is a widespread and disheartening reality. Robert Raines, exercised about this situation, came to see that at the core of the problem was the customary procedure of adding new members without the slightest bit of real challenge to commitment. He became aware that many good, attractive people were coming into the church without the vaguest conception of discipleship. He learned that among those seeking membership, there are three groups. The largest group are the nominal Christians. The next are happy, genial pagans. The smallest group, however, is always the group of committed disciples. 2

Perhaps the Church of the Saviour is the most progenitive fellowship in spawning a rediscovery of disciplined depth of membership. As Pastor Gordon Cosby pondered the task of renewing the church, he became convinced that integrity in membership was the place to begin. The drama of renewal was the happy result of his quest.

Elizabeth O'Connor wrote about their attitude to integrity in church membership in Call to Commitment. In it she outlines their perspective and methodology in their attempt to recover something of the New Testament dimensions of commitment which must accompany genuine membership. O'Connor rightfully argues that "the refusal to grapple with the issue of entrance into the Christian church is not toleration: it is betrayal of the gospel which we preach . . . a surrender to Christ is a surrender to His peopletotal involvement in the life of the church."3

O'Connor goes on to outline the prerequisites of membership at the Church of the Saviour. Candidates must explore their faith seriously. The church's determination to make membership genuineeven difficultrather than nominal, is shocking and even resented by Christians of a softer inclination. Nevertheless, O'Connor asserts, the one who joins must assume the same responsibility for all the other members of the community. Commitment in a community environment means participants can no longer commit themselves to the Lord in the abstract. Nor can they commit themselves to one another on a superficial plane. Community always tests the integrity of commitment.

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The Company of the Committed

The highest sign of friendship is that of giving another the privilege of sharing one's inner thought. This is a personal gift of self-commitment, says psychiatrist Paul Tournier. "By choosing, the person affirms himself, for the fundamental privilege of personality is that of freely committing oneself." 4

Commitment is at the foundation of all human relations. In fact, it is the warp and woof of societies everywhere, since to be human is to long for commitments with others. "Whatever happened to commitment?"5 is the fundamental question the church cannot evade.

Theologically speaking, the church must become in practice what it isa "company of the committed." Paul's personal struggles reverberate with a quality of commitment on the highest plane. He considered himself a "one-thinger" ever since his priority revolution arising out of his encounter with Jesus as Lord. He clarified his stance to the Philippians (3:1217), urging them to join with him in concentrating on just one thing. He said, "grasp that purpose for which Christ grasped you" (v. 12, JBP). He expressed confidence that God would help them see the light on personal commitment, since all mature believers agree on it (v. 15).

To the Roman believers he acknowledged that they had "become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which [they] were committed" (Rom. 6:17, RSV). It is important to catch the apostolic point here. He is saying that God's prior commitment of us to his truth makes Christian obedience sure. All talk of commitment should arise out of this categorical fact. The inevitable effect of God's prior determination is that wholehearted obedience to the apostolic teaching in turn leads to freedom from sin and enslavement to rightousness (19f.). Its final effect is the wholehearted commitment of every sincere believer to the Lord, his Word, and his people. Such commitment is not an option; it is of the essence.

In his robust book, The Company of the Committed, Elton Trueblood writes incisively of the nature of the church which demands the relationship of belonging. He rightly believes the crucial question is not whether we must have a fellowship, but rather, What will be the character of the fellowship? He is certain it must be

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a fellowship of the committed. The concept of membership based on commitment begins with awareness of our personal need for the community's holding us accountable to our call and ministry. The early Christians did not seek God and his will in individual isolation. Rather, they found a small house fellowship that was quite different in character from that of people sitting in an auditorium listening to a homily. Trueblood wisely observes that

we shall not be saved by anything less than commitment, and the commitment will not be effective unless it finds expression in a committed fellowship. If we have any knowledge of human nature, we begin by rejecting the arrogance of self-sufficiency. Committed men [sic] need the fellowship not because they are strong, but because they areand know they arefundamentally weak. 6

When we search for a biblically based paradigm of Christian commitment, we discover a substantial threefold consensus on the issue. Three biblical word-concepts interrelatewords which describe the three aspects of the body's life and which form the basis of the Christian's lifestyle. The Greek words are kerugma, koinonia, and diakonia. They form a paradigmic triad in clarifying the theology of Christian commitment.

Kerugma is the proclamation of the gospel. Paul expressed its meaning through the "foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe" (1 Cor. 1:21). The kerugma is a personal message to which an individual may respond in faith. Its goal is not, therefore, simply the imparting of information, but self-surrender and trust (1 Cor. 15:11). The practical effect of the kerugma is to cause a would-be disciple to turn over the management of his or her life to Jesus as Lord by an act of the will. This is the foundation, the starting place for life in the kingdom.

Koinonia refers to the fellowship of the saints. The word comes from the adjective meaning "common," the ruling idea being "sharing" in commonality. Theologically, it is the common inheritance in Christ's life in which every believer shares. The possibility of koinonia comes to us from above, the vertical dimension of fellowship (1 John 1:2). The practice of koinonia is relational, on the horizontal plane (1 John 1:3), resulting in a fellowship of commonality in Christ.

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The Holy Spirit creates koinonia among the believers. It is the splendid consequence of "the fellowship of the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 14:13). Believers participate in it dramatically every time they gather in community at the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 10:1617). Practically speaking, koinonia means living out an in-depth relationship of commonality with others in Christ's body. Koinonia is costly. It is never "cheap," since the fellowship which koinonia produces requires mutual trust. It results in unconditional commitment to one another in the body of Christ.

Diakonia is the ministry of service to others. It expresses the occupation implied by the verb, meaning service. Jesus himself was the paradigm of servanthood and he passed the ministry of serving on to his disciples (John 13:115). Leaders are to function in such a way that they are always serving (Luke 22:26). Even the gifts of the Spirit are "services" (Rom. 12:7; 1 Cor. 12:5; 1 Pet. 4:10). In fact, the whole church becomes a body for service to each other and to the world, since each member of it is a servant (Eph. 1:116). Diakonia therefore means entering into the ministry of serving one another within the body and toward the world without.

The biblical priorities of commitment logically and consistently flow in the same direction. They apparently collapse in any attempt to rearrange or substitute the parts. Simply stated, they are:

Priority 1: Commitment to Jesus as Lord

Priority 2: Commitment to Christ's Body in Community

Priority 3: Commitment to the WorldMy Work in It and My Witness to It

This model uses different nomenclatures. Ingle's provocative definition places commitment in the genre of conversion. 7 He says every person needs to have three conversions. First, one needs to be converted to Jesus Christ. Second, one needs to be converted to his body. Finally, one needs to be converted back to the world.

Bruce Larson, on the other hand, describes the same idea as the experience of grace in three giant steps. The first was his affirmation of Jesus as the center of his life. The second step was his awareness and commitment to the people of God. Finally, his last step involved him in doing God's will in ministry to others.8

Howard Snyder expresses commitment in the form of priest-

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hood. First, all believers have direct access to God. Second, we are priests to each other. Finally, priesthood is not just for the internal life of the church, but for the world as well. 9

Even when considering the modern missionary movement, these same commitments are appropriate. Many missionaries consider their task more important than their relationships to each other in Christ's body. Since some missionaries have problems with authority, they often do not sense the need for commitment toward one another.10 The regrettable result is that too often missionaries continue to live individualistically.

World Vision has suggested a remedy for this malady on the mission fields of the world. Sending churches must accept body life as a mission concept as well as in their own life together. Their summation is a three-leveled model: "Our highest level of commitment is to God in Christ. Our next level of commitment is to the Body of Christ, toward one another. Only after we have established these first two do we come to the third level, our commitment to the work of Christ."11

In a similar fashion, O'Connor talks about engagement with oneself, engagement with God, and engagement with others. She asserts this is bound up in the whole concept of the church as a people committed to God in Christ and therefore to one another. Cosby clarifies this idea of commitment.

It says to a specific group of people that I am willing to be with you. I am willing to belong to you, I am willing to be the people of God with you. This is never a tentative commitment that I can withdraw from. It is a commitment to a group of miserable, faltering sinners who make with me a covenant to live in depth until we see in each other the mystery of Christ himself and until in these relationships we come to know ourselves as belonging to the Body of Christ.12

Commitment means that engagement with others in depth is always difficult to achieve. This is probably why there is so little genuine Christian community. In other types of societal life, one is more or less free to choose those persons to be close with and those to keep at a distance. The church is the one place where this cannot persist, since it is the Lord himself who calls those whom he wishes into his body membership.

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This, however, can be quite threatening, since the persons he calls are sometimes persons with whom we do not wish to have intimate belonging. Nevertheless, Christ's community is a community where commitment is not tentative; rather, it is intentional and specific.

The New Testament knows very little about the church as mystical. It is concerned with persons who have a real life together. It is about people learning about forgiveness and what it means to be forgiven by others. It means freely remaining in a concrete web of relationships until we come to know ourselves as "membered" to one another in Christ's body.

It is for these three dimensions of commitment that the church must structure its life. Structures formed by the Spirit exist to help us do God's will in community. They can only be embraced in the spirit of joy and in the freedom of obedience.

The Process of Commitment in Community

Commitment is a spiritual process. It arises out of the dynamic of being a membered participant in Christ's body. The headship of Christ implies that he maintains a perceptive awareness of each member and that he has a goal of health for each local assembly. Membership in a local church is appropriate only when one becomes personally aware of one's need for spiritual health and a structured community experience that can hold one accountable to one's call and ministry.

The working assumption here is that wherever there is community there is also structure. We should not, however, create counterproductive structures. We must always be aware of the danger of erecting legalistic forms. Fortunately, legalism cannot persist where there is a genuine hunger for obedience to God's will, his "royal law . . . the law of liberty" (James 2:8, 12, RSV).

A "company of the committed" can facilitate vitality in participation. Procedures for prospective membership in a "company of the committed" should be clearly outlined. Becoming a "member" can be a simple but dynamic process in which a mature member tutors the prospective member in the basic New Testament commitment priorities. One can develop guides for this process around the

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three dimensions of commitment found in the Scriptures. This feature makes the process extraordinarily biblical, since the guide will embody primarily Scripture and the principles of commitment derived from it.

Upon completion of this orientation, the intentional member interacts with the elders for further clarification. When they complete the tutoring and affirmation process, then the person verbally declares his or her personal covenant of commitment to the church gathered. The church members affirm their covenant by prayers and with the laying on of hands as a gesture of community identification and affirmation.

Since the local church body has many individual parts, it is important to maintain the body's health. The principle of recommitment can help keep each member's commitment priorities healthy. Periodically, every member will review his or her covenant of commitment. If at any time the structures and disciplines of community commitment lose their meaning to a member, that member should not recommit. Yearly recommitment enables any person not willing to struggle with these priorities to drop out without awkwardness. One is always free to break one's covenant should it become an alien pressure, rather than an imperative from within. This should never happen by default, however. The process should always be in community with the whole membership and elders.

Another consideration for commitment-centered membership regards the issue of one's spiritual gifts. There is ample evidence that every believer has gifts of the Spirit for the specific purpose of ministry to Christ's body. Since one's giftedness is intrinsic to being a participant in Christ's church, the intentional member's attitude toward one's own gifts should be a matter of commitment priority.

A "member" will thus be a person who feels he or she should have a ministry in and through a particular local fellowship, according to one's own personal giftedness. This means that in the tutoring process, the intentional member will identify one's spiritual gifts and state how one intends to use them in ministry in the church fellowship. After the person becomes a member, that person will minister according to the intended plan.

At the time of recommitment, every member writes a personal progress report for evaluation by the others in the membership. If

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there is genuine progress in one's ministering, one should continue. The church will encourage the same. If, on the other hand, one has significant difficulty in ministering, that person may have suffered mistaken gift identity. In that case, the community can encourage the person to consider other gifts and a new plan of personal ministry.

In this understanding of membership, everyone who attends the church fellowship is heartily welcomed and will be encouraged to be participants in the church to the level they wish. The church should not "push" membership. One cannot have a valid commitment, however, without a personal ministry among the body.

This outlook is consistent with the biblical insistence that only through the gifts of the Spirit can each member be "working properly" (Eph. 4:16). Moreover, it is congruous to the way the body of Christ functions, and provides a method for taking spiritual gifts seriously and providing an impetus toward every-member servanthood.

Mention should be made of certain conflicts which will inevitably arise within a commitment-centered membership. A nonmember might assume the "members" to be an elite cadre, and thus reject the integrity of membership. Or, once a person becomes a member of the company of the committed, one may not have the personal capacity to consistently fulfill the high level of expectations and demands incurred. Furthermore, a member may become unable to accept criticism and guidance from the membership group, particularly in the recommitment process.

The level of honesty and personal integrity required to succeed here is high. One who is having personal struggles with the commitment structure might easily become offended when the committed community agrees together that indeed he or she should not recommit. Rather than struggling through the difficulties to a renewed commitment, such persons may find it easy to blame others for their own failure. They may even become offended to the extent of leaving the church fellowship.

Another prerequisite of community is consensus. Within the environment of a "company of the committed," consensus becomes a working modus operandi. In a large group of the uncommitted, consensus remains a near impossibility. Consensusthe agreement

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of all or nearly allremains the best way to make decisions in the body of Christ. "The divisive effect of the vote is one which cannot be tolerated in the church, for the church is uniquely one," reminds Richards. "It cannot be forced to take sides and remain true to its nature." 13

Consensus succeeds at the very point at which other methods fail, since it draws out commitment necessary to follow through on a decision. Consensus is, therefore, a shared conviction that a particular decision is right. Richards outlines the steps toward consensus, a process which clearly takes time. Research, however, confirms that it is worth the time and effort, since the quality of a consensus decision is nearly always higher than that of a decision reached by other means.14

In the early church, consensus matters ranged from the problems of discipline or settling a dispute (1 Cor. 6) to giving an offering for those in need (2 Cor. 89). Acts 15 provides us with a candid look at the early church in crisis, primarily over doctrinal differences. At the gathering of the church in Jerusalem, the church leaders and the whole assembly met together (vv. 67, 12, 22, 25, 30). Peter stated a fact and a deduction (vv. 711), Paul and Barnabas gave a special report (v. 12), and James issued a strong biblical judgment (vv. 1321). Then the assembly reached a decision by consensus. "It is the decision of the Holy Spirit, and our decision" (Acts 15:25,28, NEB).

The issue of commitment will remain a major dilemma for house churches. Functioning in this kind of environment requires a high level of determination. Unhappily, commitment can easily wax and wane according to external and internal pressures and difficulties. This is why commitment must have a covenant in order to experience genuine community.

Christian community starts at the point of commitment and covenant. There is no genuine Christian community without a covenant. . . . Christian community cannot exist without commitment to Jesus as Lord and to each other as sister and brother. And this must be more than a general mental commitment. It must be specific and explicit, involving our time, energy, and resources. Covenant is not just a nebulous commitment to each other; it takes specific shape in history.15

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Chapter 9

The Pentecostal Paradigm

We will now return to our introductory quest for a theology of renewal, with the intent of bringing into final focus a paradigm germane to that pursuit. On the contemporary scene there is talk about charismatic renewal, liturgical renewal, pastoral renewal, and structural renewal. Whatever one's particular vision of renewal may be, renewal is surely a need in all dimensions of church life.

How might one recognize a renewed church? By what criteria would we be able to discern it? What would a truly renewed church look like? In Acts 2:42, Luke described the first Christian church in which God's people became the Spirit-filled body of Christ. The inspired historian recorded that these earliest church members devoted themselves to four major disciplinesdiligent practices which maintained their renewal in the Spirit. Luke was extremely economical in his descriptions. He set forth the irreducible minimum requirements for renewal in Christ's communities.

The first evidence of the Spirit-renewed church was concentrated study. It may comes as a surprise to discover that the first mark of a Spirit-filled church is the study of doctrine! The record stands. ''They devoted themselves" to it. To be sure "the new converts were not enjoying some mystical experience that led them to despise their

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intellect . . . they did not despise the mind. They did not disdain theology, nor did they suppose that instruction was unnecessary." 1

The first Christians in the first New Testament church were, therefore, a people bent on learning. They wholeheartedly affirmed the apostles as founders of Jesus' church, and their teaching as the Lord's authoritative truth. It is urgent for church believers of these latter days to recover an understanding of the unique and abiding authority of Christ's apostles. The new community formed at Pentecost structured itself on the basis of the apostle's teaching because it was the teaching which the Lord communicated through the apostles. True apostolic succession continues wherever a Christian community continues steadfastly in that same doctrine.2

Unfortunately, Christian thinking has pushed out of those apostolic parameters into embarrassing extremities. Armed with post-Christian presuppositions, the liberal mind has succumbed to immense erosion from its earlier Christian-biblical matrix. Moreover, in many respects the evangelical mind is becoming deplorably fuzzy, nearly indistinguishable from secular opinion. Historic Fundamentalism of the early twentieth century embodied an inherent intellectual rigidity. This in turn evoked an anti-intellectual suspicion of theological and philosophical thought beyond its narrow vision.3

Failing to connect conviction with the classic creeds of the church, Fundamentalism did not remain merely a movement; it became a mentality as well. Its tendency to divorce biblical thought from God's work in the world, its provincial suspicion of modern science, and its cultic and stringent mentality were incisively exposed decades ago.4 Notwithstanding, Fundamentalism's negative ethics and reactionary apprehension have not abated.

Furthermore, Pentecostalism's penchant for "not doctrine but experience" shows its underlying anti-intellectualism tantamount to making subjective experience truth's major criterion. Even liturgical Christianity with its emphasis on outward ritual and proper performance falls prey to the same phenomenon. Extraneous ceremonies become a bewildering end in themselves and a substitute for intelligent worship.

An unspoken supposition partially responsible for this underlying suspicion of the intellect is traceable to some of the early

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church fathers. The idea that knowledge was the culprit in Eden's Fall and that the common believer will also be deceived by it is still with us. Knowledge, however, is not the hazard. Good thinking desperately needs to be embraced as a compatible companion to good believing.

Harry Blamires, British educator and one-time friend of C. S. Lewis, was provoked by the realization that the modern Christian, as a thinking being, has succumbed to secularization and relativism. He laments,

The Christian mind has succumbed to the secular drift with a degree of weakness and nervelessness unmatched in Christian history. It is difficult to do justice in words to the complete loss of intellectual morale in the twentieth-century church. One cannot characterize it without having recourse to language which will sound hysterical and melodramatic. There is no longer a Christian mind. There is still, of course, a Christian ethic, a Christian practice, and a Christian spirituality . . . but as a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization. 5

Blamires asserts that the failure to distinguish clearly between Christian truth and truth as popularly cherished has been an unfortunate neglect of our times. Secular thinking asserts the opinionated self as the only judge of truth. Christian thinking, on the other hand, embraces God's divinely given revelation as the final truth. He writes,

The marks of truth as christianly conceived are: that it is supernaturally grounded, not developed within nature; that it is objective and not subjective; that it is a revelation and not a construction; that it is discovered by inquiry and not elected by a majority vote; that it is authoritative and not a matter of personal choice.6

When writing his essay, "Your Mind Matters," John R. Stott nearly subtitled it "The Misery and Menace of Mindless Christianity." Calling the anti-intellectualism cultivated by some Christian groups evil, he believes that to denigrate the mind is to under-mind foundational Christian doctrines. These are the doctrine of creation: God created us thinking beings; the doctrine of revelation:

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God communicated with us through intelligent languages; the doctrine of redemption: God renews our mind and gives us the mind of Christ; and the doctrine of judgment: God holds us responsible for the knowledge we have. 7

Paul underscores the existence of a distinctively Christian mind when he insists on being "transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom. 12:2). The apostle frequently refers to rational activity in a wide variety of contexts. He accords it a fundamental place. In his references to the thinking processes of Christians, he uses nearly a dozen different words related to the same.8 The mind (nous) is the faculty of physical and intellectual perceptions with the power to arrive at moral judgments. Paul acted as the historical link between the early church and its Hellenistic environment, as he considered the theological relationship between faith and knowledge. He adapted concepts and methods of formulating problems from his Hellenistic background, but he rejected the Greek attempts at solving them.

It was Paul, then, who relegated reason to its proper and inalienable place by both freeing it as well as limiting it through the Christian faith.9 Because of the gospel of revelation given him and the apostles, he sharpened the meaning of the whole corpus of Greek words associated with nous. Although this corpus covers the whole range of human personality as reflected in the intellect, emotions, and will, the emphasis is always on mind as rational understanding related to the will. The emotions thus take a secondary place in the theology of Christian thinking.

With this background, some of Paul's exhortations take on new vitality. He counsels believers, "Keep your minds fixed" (Col. 3:2, TEV), "Have this mind among yourselves" (Phil. 3:15, NEB). He chides the Corinthians to "stop thinking like children." He says, ''In your thinking be adult" (1 Cor. 14:20). Due to the authoritative revelation given the apostles and the inner work of the Holy Spirit within those regenerated, Paul reached the conclusion that indeed, "we have the mind of Christ!" (1 Cor. 2:16).

It is clear, then, that Paul considered the calling of the Christian a call to a battle of ideasa call to outthink all opposition to the revelatory truth of God's Word. He wrote, "We demolish sophistries, and the arrogance that tries to resist the knowledge of

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God. every thought is our prisoner, captured to be brought into obedience to Christ" (2 Cor. 10:4, JB). In the things of the Spirit, the early Christians knew their minds did matter, and it is the same today in the worshiping community of the thinking Creator. The God of the Bible is a thinking God who works out his purpose in creative ways through imperfect situations brought about by imperfect people. Let us therefore propose a quest toward the renewal of the Christian mind. 10

The second evidence of a Spirit-renewed church was spirited fellowship. Although many structures emerged in the Acts, the book is conspicuously absent of any exposition or prescriptions about structures. The church apparently created them simply to meet arising needs in different circumstances. At the core of their structure was koinonia, those things they shared in common. For the early Christians, fellowship implied dramatic consequences, even to selling possessions for the sake of others, for "they had all things in common" (2:44).

Koinonia, suggests Howard Snyder, is not a superficial social fellowship, nor simply some mystical communion that exists without reference to the structure of the church. Rather, it is a function of the gathered church, and flourishes only in structures that allow and encourage communication and are sufficiently informal and intimate to permit the Spirit's freedom.11 It follows, therefore, that a structure built around "the fellowship of the Holy Spirit" (2 Cor. 14:13) will instinctively elicit an openness to the charismatic dimensions of the Spirit. Evangelicals are sometimes shocked when they meet Bultmannian thinkers who delight in cutting out of the Bible certain features to which they take exception.

Nonetheless, observes Pinnock, there is a degree of demythologizing going on in our ranks.12 He is referring to the charismatic dimension of the apostolic teaching, in which the evangelical church has experienced an opening up to a dimension of the Spirit's work hitherto considered unorthodox. Pinnock rightly submits that it is not a new doctrine we need, but rather a new dynamic which will make all the old evangelical convictions operational. Rather than a doctrine of the Spirit, we need a movement of the Spirit along the dimensions of the earliest church in Jerusalem.

As evangelicals we believe the church should be continually

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reformed by the criteria of God's Wordthat is, the apostles' doctrine. However, to what degree are we to hold to the apostles' teaching but not their practice of fellowship? Can we be consistent by holding firmly to their orthodoxy while holding loosely to their orthopraxy?

In its historical situation Anabaptism was a radical reform movement which called for fundamental changes in the church and society based on a fresh understanding of the New Testament. Some would even call the Anabaptist movement a charismatic movement, 13 but without the modern post-conversion theology of the baptism of the Spirit. Commonalities and differences between evangelicals and Anabaptists have been clarified.14 Even so, evangelicals could profit by a stronger affirmation of Anabaptistic radicalness in their attempts at reform and renewal. The Anabaptist reformation largely succeeded in its attempt to restore New Testament teaching and practice, partly because it was willing to be "radical."

On the road to rediscovering fellowship in community as understood in the New Testament, we might desparingly question whether the church as we know it can ever be genuinely renewed.15 If, indeed, the church of the New Testament is more accurately charismatic rather than institutional, then none dare assume that simply adding small groups to church programs will produce anything more than "koinonitis." No substitute will suffice for the koinonia dimension of the Holy Spirit actually working throughout the whole structure.

The third evidence of a Spirit-renewed church was spiritual worship. They "devoted themselves . . . to the breaking of bread and the prayers." The Spirit-filled community was a worshiping community. They regularly "broke bread" in regular observance of the Lord's Supper (Acts 2:46b).

At the outset, the first Christian Jews regarded it a natural thing to continue attending temple functions (Acts 2:45a; 3:1ff.). The question of their participation in the sacrificial system is problematic.16 The temple freedom they enjoyed, however, did not last long. The open temple soon closed its doors to the believers, and persecution caused many to move away (Acts 8:1).

In any event, Luke says that they ate together "with unaffected

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joy, as they praised God" (Acts 2:4647, NEB). The word for joy expresses a high degree of emotion, even exultation. Worship in the first Christian assemblies was a celebration of God's worthiness, grounded in a vivid awareness of what God had done in Christ. The living Lord was with them, and they could not cease expressing it in praise and prayers. Even so, as chapter 7 recounts, spiritual worship remains one of the vital evidences of a renewed community.

The fourth evidence of a Spirit-renewed church was a committed membership. The record says that "the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved" (Acts 2:47). The Lord adds to his church those he saves. "He does not save them without adding them to the church, and he does not add them to the church without saving them," says Stott. "Salvation and church membership go together. They did in those days and they still do today.'' 17

It is significant that we can see hereat the very beginning of the New Testament churchthe concept of a committed membership, at least in embryonic form. Even though the believers in the Jerusalem church were at first "highly respected by the people," yet "no one else dared join them" (Acts 5:13). There is here the suggestion that they considered themselves "membered" in a common commitment. They were a "company of the committed" which caused the people at large to frequent lightly their gatherings. After all, the fate of Ananias and Sapphira was a stark reminder how perilous pretended or halfhearted membership might be!

We argued in the previous chapter for a restoration of integrity in church membership. It is apparent that the earliest church lived with the conviction that every believer was a vital member in the community life. Any ideas of being a Christian without being a membered and vitally committed participant in Christ's church arose after the close of the New Testament church era.

It is common to interpret the fourth mark of the renewed church as aggressive evangelism instead of committed membership. That they were a witnessing people is indisputable, but their witnessing seems to have occurred as a direct result of their being membered in Christ's body. Their witness in evangelism was the overflow of their fellowship, their joyful life of praise, and their persistence in the apostle's teaching. In fact, everywhere they went,

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they evangelized, since they could not help speaking about what they had "seen and heard" (4:20). They witnessed in the temple precincts as well as in their homes (5:42). When forced out of the temple environment, they simply shared their faith wherever they were scattered (8:1, 4).

Church membership and church evangelism are parts of the same process. The New Testament does not instruct churches to set up programs of evangelism nor to engage in evangelism as we usually think of it today. Rather, it propagated its faith incarnationally, as every member committed to Christ's church shared his or her faith in daily life situations.

In summarizing the four evidences of a renewed church in Acts 2, it is perhaps instructive to notice that they concern four relationships. First, they related to the apostles as a learning people. Devoted to the explanation of God's revelation, they learned to fear God (v. 43). Second, they related to one another as a sharing community and thus experienced equality (vv. 4445). Third, they related to God as a worshiping community, resulting in expressions of joyful praise and heart-felt sincerity (vv. 4647). Finally, they related to the Head of the body as a confessing and witnessing community. This resulted in consistent allegiance to the local assembly and in witness to those outside the Christian community.

Is it discreet to suggest that these same evidences are those traits which sincere seekers of renewal are still looking for today? Probably so. As an alternative to the traditional model, the house church contains within its structure the potential of realizing these marks of church vitality. No one dare assume, however, that the model is self-authenticating nor can one perceive it as a panacea for the many ills of the traditional church.

There are, to be sure, difficulties in the house church structure. The conclusion of the framers of the Study Document referred to in chapter one still stands:

It would be wise to acknowledge . . . that the house church is one of the more difficult forms of human associations to realize. If we should decide to move in this direction, careful thought, much mutual consultation, and above all the guidance and grace of God will be needed. For persons of all background and all degrees of maturity

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and immaturity, for people marred and scarred by sin, crippled by egotism, often grossly lacking in wisdom, to come together in a primary group where the accent is on sharing and caring is fraught with problems. In such a close association one quickly discovers why history is characterized by wars and rumors of wars, and why it is that the Bible says that our righteousness as human beings is nothing to be proud of. There are definite reasons why the house church movements of the past have again and again died out in favor of looser, less demanding,. . . "colder" structures of congregational life. The house church as a form of congregational life can and will survive only so long as there is the vision and will for it. Unlike the sanctuary church, it is not an institution with survival power beyond the strong commitment of those who are involved in it. And in general . . . this commitment remains alive only so long as there is a living faith in and experience of that one who first stimulated the house church movement of early Christianity: Jesus of Nazareth. 18

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NOTES

Chapter 1

1. Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1980), p. 293.

2. Tom Sine, The Mustard Seed Conspiracy (Waco: Word, 1981), pp. 1112.

3. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p. 71.

4. Vernard Eller is not sure if it was Karl Barth's original terminology, but the distinction between theology done "from above" and that done "from below" is classic. Towering Babble (Elgin: Brethren Press, 1983), p. 26.

5. The history of the church is replete with movements which try to correct weaknesses in the church community by going to the opposite extreme. Some renewal movements have become institutionalized. They themselves become a fertile field for the growth of a new movement reacting to a new set of weaknesses. Often the new renewal movement is actually harking back to the strengths of the church several generations before which were left behind in the previous generation's renewal.

6. Bernard Ramm, "The Holy Alliance," His Magazine, February 1974, p. 13.

7. See 1 John 1:17.

8. There must be a criterion for judging the validity of any experiential theology. Based on the priority, of the Word over Spirit, this criterion must be the ability and the success of those theologies in moving from the Sprat to the Word. Friction in that movement should be nonexistent, given the correctness of the criterion.

Schleiermacher's failure, for example, to move his "feelings of absolute dependency" theology to the Christological center of the Word suggests that the spirit at the heart of his theology was not the Holy Spirit of the written Word of God. Fading the trinitarian test at this point, his theology of experience proved to be sub-Christian. See, e.g., Robert K. Johnston, "Of Tidy Doctrine and Truncated Experience," Christianity Today, February 18, 1977, p. 12.

9. Ibid., p. 13.

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10. See Rom. 8:14; 1 Cor. 2:1016; Gal. 5:225.

11. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p. 16.

12. Wesley M. Pinkham, "Church Renewal," unpublished article for Tyndale Family Encyclopedia, 1978, p. 2.

13. Howard A. Snyder, The Community of the King (Downers Grove: lnterVarsity, 1977), p. 119.

14. Pinkham, "Church Renewal," p. 2.

15. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p. 197.

16. John R. W. Stott puts this fact into sharp focus in his preface to studies on the Sermon on the Mount. He says, "Indeed, if the church realistically accepted his standards and values as here set forth, and lived by them, it would be the alternative society he always intended it to be, and would offer to the world an authentic Christian counter-culture." Author's preface, Christian Counter-Culture: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1978), p. 10.

17. Howard Snyder is a perceptive renewalist. Particularly incisive is his treatment of "The Church as Counter-Culture Community" in Liberating the Church: The Ecology of Church and Kingdom (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1983), pp. 120124.

Chapter 2

1. F. F. Bruce, The Time Is Fulfilled (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), p. 32.

2. Ronald H. Nash, Christianity and the Hellenistic World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, and Dallas: Probe, 1984). This is a recent treatment on the common claim that early first-century Christians borrowed some of their essential beliefs and practices from the pagan religions and philosophical systems of that time.

3. Richard N. Longenecker, Paul, Apostle of Liberty (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p. ix. This statement is attributed to J. Gresham Machen.

4. Bruce, Paul, Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), pp. 8788.

5. Richard N. Longenecker, 1968, "Early Jewish Christianity at Jerusalem," Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

6. W. Ward Gasque, In God's Community: Essays on the Church and Its Ministry (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1978), pp. 1, 3.

7. Ralph P. Martin, The Family and the Fellowship (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), pp. 2223.

8. Edward J. Carnell, The Case for Orthodox Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959), p. 21.

9. Martin, Family and Fellowship, pp. 23, 25.

10. Gerd Theissen, Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), p. 1.

11. E. A. Judge, The Social Pattern of Christian Groups in the First Century (London: The Tyndale Press, 1960), p. 9.

12. Edwin Yamauchi, "Sociology, Scripture, and the Supernatural," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, vol. 27 (June 1984), p. 177.

13. Peter L. Berger, A Rumor of Angels: Modem Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural (Garden City: Doubleday, 1967), pp. 32, 38.

14. Derek Tidball, The Social Context of the New Testament: A Sociological Analysis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), pp. 2340.

15. Tidball, Sociological Analysis, p. 27.

16. Robert Banks, Paul's Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Historical Setting (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 7, 13.

17. Banks, Paul's Idea of Community, p. 22.

18. Banks, Paul's Idea of Community, p. 17.

19. Banks, Paul's Idea of Community, p. 49.

20. Tidball, Sociological Analysis, pp. 7980.

21. Judge, Social Pattern, pp. 3334.

22. Tidball, Sociological Analysis, p. 81.

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Chapter 3

1. Floyd V. Filson, "The Significance of the Early House Churches," Journal of Biblical Literature 58 (1939), pp. 105106.

2. Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours (London, 1927), p. 3, cited by F. F. Bruce, Heart Set Free, p. 18.

3. Longenecker, 1968, "Early Jewish Christianity at Jerusalem," Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

4. F. F. Bruce, "Lessons from the Early Church," in In God's Community, eds. D. J. Ellis and W. Ward Gasque (Wheaton: Shaw, 1978) p. 154.

5. E. J. Goodspeed, "Gaius Titius Justus," Journal of Biblical Literature 69 (1950), p. 382.

6. K. Hess, "Serve, Deacon, Worship," in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 3 vols., ed. Colin Brown (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), Vol. 3, p. 547.

7. William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), pp. 16667.

8. Bruce, Heart Set Free, p. 258.

9. Filson, Early House Churches, p. 110.

10. William Barclay, The Letter to the Romans (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), pp. 910. See also Bruce, Heart Set Free, pp. 386388.

11. See, for instance, Gal. 1:2, 22; 1 Cor. 16:1; 16:19; 2 Cor. 8:1.

12. Banks, Paul's Idea of Community, pp. 37, 40.

13. Bruce, Heart Set Free, p. 384.

14. Barclay, Romans, pp. 210211.

15. Ernst Kasemann[Käsemann], Commentary on Romans, trans, and ed. by Geoffrey W. Bromily (G rand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), p. 413.

16. Banks, Paul's Idea of Community, p. 40.

17. Summarized by F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition and Notes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), p. xxxv.

18. Bruce, Hebrews, p. xxx.

19. Bruce, In God's Community, p. 155.

20. "The Shepherd of Hermas," trans. by Graydon F. Snyder, in The Apostolic Fathers: Contemporary Translations, ed. Jack Sparks (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1978), p. 167.

21. Graydon F. Snyder, Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1985), p. 76.

22. Bruce, Heart Set Free, p. 405.

23. Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction: The Pauline Epistles (Chicago: InterVarsity Press, 1966), p. 247.

24. F. F. Bruce, Commentary on the Epistles to the Ephesians and the Colossians: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition and Notes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), p. 302

25. Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, p. 175.

26. Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 124.

27. Bruce, Heart Set Free, p. 340.

28. Ralph P. Martin, The Worship of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 203.

29. David Armstrong, "Biblical Role of House Churches" (D. Min. dissertation, Fuller Theological Seminary, 1982), pp. 1416.

30. Filson, Early House Churches, p. 109.

31. Banks, Paul's Idea of Community, pp. 4142.

32. Graydon F. Snyder, Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine (Macon: Mercer University, 1985) pp. 6869. Figures 1, 2, and 3 presented here are from the same source.

33. D. Birkey, "A Hebrew Model," Bethany Theological Seminary, 1984.

34. Bruce, Colossians, p. 310.

35. Filson, Early House Churches, p. 112.

36. Eusebius III 23.6, cited by J. Stott, The Epistles of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), p. 40.

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37. This need led the consultation on gospel and culture at Willowbank, Bermuda, to "recognize the validity of the corporate dimensions of conversion as part of the total process, as well as the necessity for each member of the group ultimately to share in it personally." John R. W. Stott and Robert Coote, Down to Earth: Studies in Christianity and Culture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), p. 238.

38. Orlando Costas, "Conversion as a Complex Experience," in Down to Earth: Studies in Christianity and Culture, ed. John R. W. Stott and Robert Coote (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 18387.

39. Donald McGavran, Understanding Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), pp. 192193.

40. Abraham J. Malherbe, Social Aspects of Early Christianity (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), p. 67.

41. Donald Wayne Riddle, "Early Christian Hospitality: A Factor in the Gospel Transmission," Journal of Biblical Literature 57 (1938), pp. 152154. See also J. B. Jordan, "God's Hospitality and Holistic Evangelism," The Journal of Christian Reconstruction 17 (Winter 1981), pp. 87113.

42. Tidball, Sociological Analysis, p. 86.

Chapter 4

1. J. Long, "And God Created Small Groups," His Magazine, March 1988, p. 6.

2. Stewart L. Tubbs, "A Systems Approach to Small Group Interaction," in Christian Perspectives on Sociology, eds. Stephen A. Grunland and Milton Reimer (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), p. 152.

3. Grunland and Reimer, Christian Perspectives, p. 151.

4. Elton Trueblood, The Incendiary Fellowship (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), p. 86.

5. Howard A. Snyder, The Problem of Wineskins: Church Structure in a Technological Age (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1975), p. 139.

6. Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1931), Vol. 1, pp. 329433.

7. Donald F. Durnbaugh, "Intentional Community in Historical Perspective," The House Church Evolving, Arthur L. Foster, ed. (Chicago: Exploration Press, 1976), pp. 1422.

8. Ulrich S. Leupold, ed., Liturgy and Hymns, Vol. 53 of Luther's Works, ed. Helmut T. Lehman (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1965), pp. 53ff.

9. Ibid.

10. John Howard Yoder, "Martin Luther's Forgotten Vision," The Other Side, April 1977, p. 70.

11. Durnbaugh, "Intentional Community," p. 17.

12. George H. Williams, "'Congregationalist' Luther and the Free Churches," Lutheran Quarterly 19 (August 1967), pp. 285286, 294.

13. Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1980), p. 294.

14. Ibid., p. 164.

15. John W. Miller, "Church Reform and the Missionary Congregation m the 1970s," a study document prepared under the auspices of the Council on Faith, Life, and Strategy of the Mennonite Church, p. 2.

16. Howard A. Snyder, The Radical Wesley and Patterns for Church Renewal (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1980), p. 47.

17. Ibid., p. 54.

18. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p. 167.

19. Durnbaugh, "Intentional Community," p. 18.

20. William R. Faw, The Brethren Encyclopedia (Philadelphia, Pa., and Oak Brook, Ill.: The Brethren Encyclopedia, Inc., 1983), Vol. 1, p. 632.

21. Quoted by Dave MacPherson, in "Eutychus and His Kin," Christianity Today, January 1, 1971, p. 30.

22. James H. Taylor III, in "Brief Case," Eternity, June 1983, p. 14.

Page 161

23. Jonathan Chao, "Churches in China: Flourishing from House to House," Christianity Today, June 18, 1982, pp. 24, 26.

24. Donna Birkey in a personal report to Living Bibles International, July, 1984.

25. David Adeney, "Springtime for the Church in China?" Christianity Today, June 18, 1982, pp. 2831.

26. B. A. G. Prasad and P. L. N. Murthy, from personal conversations.

27. Paul Freed, "God Is Working in India's House Churches," Trans World Radio Magazine, November 1981, pp. 23.

28. Dick L. Darr, "The Bottom Line," The Gospel Message, Jan/March, 1981, pp. 1, 9.

29. Joseph Ricke, "Indochina 10 Years Later: How the Church Has Been Faring," Pulse, Oct. 25, 1985, pp. 26.

30. Chandu Ray, "Asian Strategy for Evangelism" Christianity Today, Aug. 27, 1976, p. 17.

31. Mamoru Billy Ogata, "A Comparative Study of Church Growth in Korea and Japan with Special Attention to Japan" (Dissertation for Master of Theology in Missiology degree at Fuller Theological Seminary, June 1984), pp. 238274. See also David J. Hesselgrave, Dynamic Religious Movements (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), pp. 129148.

32. Ogata, "A Comparative Study," pp. 227228.

33. Masumi Toyotome, "To Reach Japan, Small Is Better," Evangelical Missions Quarterly 21 (July 1985), pp. 230237.

34. Guillermo Cook, "The Protestant Predicament: From Base Ecclesial Community to Established ChurchA Brazilian Case Study," International Bulletin on Missionary Research, July, 1984, pp. 98101.

35. William R. Reed, New Patterns of Church Growth in Brazil (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), p. 222.

36. Dave Cave, "House Churches and Basic Church Communities," Third Way, June, 1984, p. 7.

37. Charles M. Olsen, The Base Church (Atlanta: Forum House, 1973). See especially pp. 6, 1723.

38. Ibid., pp. 7287.

39. Donald G. Bloesch, Wellsprings of Renewal: Promise in Christian Communal Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974).

40. Donald R. Allen, Barefoot in the Church: Sensing the Authentic Through the House Church (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1986), p. 27.

41. Elizabeth O'Connor, Call to Commitment (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), and Journey Inward, Journey Outward (New York: Harper and Row, 1968).

42. Tom Sine, The Mustard Seed Conspiracy (Waco: Word, 1981), p. 160.

43. John W. Miller, "Church Reform," pp. 45.

44. Ibid., p. 8.

45. Ibid, p. 11.

46. Nick Butterworth in Christianity Today, Sept. 7, 1984.

47. Vernard Eller, The Outward Bound: Caravaning as the Style of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 3956.

48. Lyle E. Schaller, Assimilating New Members (Nashville: Abingdon, 1978), pp. 23, 59.

49. Lawrence O. Richards, A New Face for the Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), p. 154.

50. Em Griffin, Getting Together: A Guide for Good Groups (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1982), pp. 2627.

51. Gordon Cosby, Handbook for Mission Groups (Waco: Word, 1975).

52. See Paul M. Miller, "A Shape for the Congregation of the Future," Mission Focus, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Nov. 1973), p. 2.

53. Philip and Phoebe Anderson, The House Church (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1975), pp. 1331.

54. Lois Barrett, Building the House Church (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1986), pp. 18, 20.

55. David Habegger, "The House Church: A Model for New Churches," unpublished paper, p. 2.

Page 162

56. Gerald C. Studer, "Evangelism Through the Dynamics of a Christian Group," Concern 5 (June 1958), p. 47.

57. Hans-Ruedi Weber, "The Church in the House," Concern 5 (June 1958), p. 25.

58. Ibid., p. 20.

59. Allen, Barefoot, p. 25.

60. Paul M. Miller, "Can the Adult Sunday School Class Be the 'House' Within Which the True Church Is Experienced?" Concern 5 (June 1958), p. 41.

Chapter 5

1. Clifford Christians, Earl J. Schipper, and Wesley Smedes, Who in the World? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), p. 129.

2. Marlin E. Miller, "The Recasting of Authority: A Biblical Model for Community Leadership," Sojourners. February 1979, p. 25.

3. Lawrence O. Richards, "Regions Beyond," in "Bible Alive Series" (Elgin: David C. Cook, undated study curriculum), pp. 159168.

4. Mary J. Evans, Woman in the Bible (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1983), p. 109.

5. Ray C. Stedman, "What Is Headship," Discovery Papers 3593 (December 3, 1978), p. 1.

6. Marlin E. Miller, "The Recasting of Authority," pp. 2427.

7. Michael Harper, Three Sisters (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1979), chapter 7, "Hot-Dog Christianity? Charismatic Liabilities," pp. 7796. See also Jerram Barrs, Shepherds and Sheep: A Biblical View of Leading and Following (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1983).

8. Marlin E. Miller, "The Recasting of Authority," pp. 2526.

9. Ibid., p. 27.

10. F. F. Bruce, "Women in the Church: A Biblical Survey," The Christian Brethren Review 33, 1983), p. 8.

11. Richard N. Longenecker, New Testament Social Ethics for Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), p. 30.

12. Ibid., p. 31.

13. Robert Banks, Paul's Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Historical Setting (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 122123.

14. Berkeley and Alvera Mickelsen, "Does Male Dominance Tarnish Our Translations?" Christianity Today, Oct. 3, 1987, pp. 2327.

15. Philip B. Payne, "Libertarian Women in Ephesus: A Response to Douglas J. Moo's Article, '1 Timothy 2;1115: Meaning and Significance,'" Trinity Journal, n.s. 2 (Fall 1981), pp. 194195.

16. Chrysostom, The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 11, p. 555.

17. E. Margaret Howe, "The Positive Case for the Ordination of Women," in Perspectives in Evangelical Theology, eds. K. Kantzer and S. Gundry (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), p. 276.

18. Marjorie Warkentin, Ordination: A Biblical-Historical View (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982); Paul K. Jewett, The Ordination of Women (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980); and E. Margaret Howe, Women and Church Leadership (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982).

19. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., "Paul, Women, and the Church," Worldwide Challenge, Sept. 1976, p. 11.

20. Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), p. 18.

21. Kaiser, "Paul, Women, and the Church," p. 11.

22. Bruce, "Women in the Church," p. 10.

23. Marcus Barth, Ephesians (Garden City: Doubleday, 1974), p. 618.

24. Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles, p. 240.

25. Mary J. Evans, Woman in the Bible (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1983), p. 66.

26. Colin Brown, ed., The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), vol. 2, pp. 157, 160.

Page 163

27. Stephen Bedale, "The Meaning of Kephale in Pauline Epistles," Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 5 (1954), pp. 211215.

28. Wayne Grudem, "Does Kephale ('Head') Mean 'Source' or 'Authority Over' in Greek Literature? A Survey of 2,336 Examples," Trinity Journal, 6NS (1985), pp. 2859; Gilbert Bilezikian, "Case-Study of an Eisegetical Fabrication: Wayne Grudem's Treatment of Kephale in Ancient Greek Texts" (Wheaton College). See also David Neff, "The Battle of the Lexicons," Christianity Today, January 16, 1987, pp. 4445.

29. James H. Olthius, I Pledge You My Troth: A Christian View of Marriage, Family, and Friendship (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), p. 137.

30. Kaiser, "Paul, Women, and the Church," p. 12.

31. Payne, "Libertarian Women," p. 185.

32. Richard N. Longenecker, New Testament Social Ethics for Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), p. 87.

33. Austin H. Stouffer, "The Ordination of Women: Yes," Christianity Today, Feb. 20, 1981, p. 15.

34. Don Williams, The Apostle Paul and Women in the Church (Glendale: Regal, 1978), p. 114.

35. Longenecker, New Testament Social Ethics, pp. 8687.

36. Kaiser, "Paul, Women, and the Church," p. 10.

37. Paul K. Jewett, Man as Male and Female (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), p. 37.

38. John Scanzoni, Sexual Bargaining: Power Politics in the American Marriage (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1982).

39. Mary McDermott Shideler, "Introduction," in Sayers, Are Women Human? pp. 7, 12.

40. Sayers, Are Women Human? pp. 3031.

41. F. F. Bruce, Commentary on Galatians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 190.

42. Bruce, "Women in the Church," p. 11.

43. Bruce, Heart Set Free, p. 457.

Chapter 6

1. Käsemann, Commentary on Romans, pp. 333334.

2. Arnold Bittlinger, Gifts and Ministries, trans. Clara K. Dyck (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973), p. 24.

3. Kásemann, Commentary on Romans, p. 334.

4. Paul S. Minear, Images of the Church in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), p. 250.

5. Robert E. Webber, Common Roots: A Call to Evangelical Maturity (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), p. 51.

6. Avery Dulles, Models of the Church (Garden City: Doubleday, 1978), p. 204.

7. Hans Küng, The Church, trans. Ray and Rosaleen Ockenden (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967), p. 4.

8. Martin, Family and Fellowship, p. 74.

9. E. K. Simpson, Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians and the Colossians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), p. 95.

10. C. Peter Wagner, Your Spiritual Gifts (Ventura: Regal, 1979) pp. 52, 56.

11. Gene Getz, Building Up One Another (Wheaton: Victor, 1976), p. 9. See also his Sharpening the Focus of the Church (Chicago: Moody, 1974).

12. Michael Griffiths, Grace-Gifts: Developing What God Has Given the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), p. 75.

13. Arnold Bittlinger, Gifts and Graces, trans. Herbert Klassen (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1967), p. 73.

14. Elizabeth O'Connor, Eighth Day of Creation (Waco: Word, 1971), pp. 40, 4849.

15. David R. Mains, Full Circle: The Creative Church for Today's Society (Waco: Word, 1971), p. 62.

16. O'Connor, Eighth Day, p. 16.

Page 164

Chapter 7

1. H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1942), Vol. 1, pp. 227228.

2. Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Toward an Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978), pp. 149150.

3. Joyce Baldwin, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1972), pp. 229230.

4. Norval Geldenhuys, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition and Notes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), p. 196.

5. Vernard Eller, The Outward Bound: Caravaning as the Style of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 1314.

6. Ibid., p. 24.

7. Ralph P. Martin, The Worship of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), p. 203.

8. Craig A. Evans, '''Preacher' and 'Preaching': Some Lexical Observations," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 24 (December 1981), pp. 315322.

9. Victor L. Walter, "Preach the WordGrippingly," Trinity Journal, 2 NS, 1 (Spring 1981), p. 51.

10. See Acts 2:42; Rom. 1:16; 10:910; Phil. 2:1611; 1 Cor. 11:2; 15:35; 1 Tim. 3:16; 4:6; 2 Tim. 4:3; Heb. 3:1; and Jude 3.

11. I. Howard Marshall, Last Supper and Lord's Supper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 132133.

12. "The Letters of Ignatius of Antioch," trans. Robert M. Grant, in The Apostolic Fathers: Contemporary Translations, ed. Jack Sparks (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1978), pp. 112113.

13. Marianne H. Micks, The Future Present: The Phenomenon of Christian Worship (New York: Seabury, 1970), p. 124.

14. Charles M. Olsen, The Base Church (Atlanta: Forum House, 1972), p. 27.

15. See Ex. 17:17; 1 Kings 8:54; Lam. 3:41; Ps. 63:4; 134:2; 141:2; and Neh. 8:6.

16. Martin, The Worship of God, p. 208.

17. Martin, The Worship of God, pp. 190191.

18. Marshall, Last Supper, p. 146.

19. Robert E. Webber, Worship Old and New (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), p. 37.

20. John E. Skoglund, Worship in the Free Churches (Valley Forge: Judson, 1965), p. 113.

21. Ralph P. Martin, The Family and the Fellowship (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), p. 68.

22. Vernard Eller, In Place of Sacraments (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), pp. 910.

23. Micks, The Future Present, pp. 101102.

24. William Barclay, The Lord's Supper (Nashville: Abingdon, 1967), pp. 99100.

25. Skoglund, Worship in the Free Churches, p. 34.

Chapter 8

1. Gene A. Getz, Building Up One Another (Wheaton: Victor, 1972), pp. 47.

2. Robert A. Raines, New Life in the Church (New York: Harper and Row, 1961), pp. 109110.

3. Elizabeth O'Connor, Call to Commitment (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 25.

4. Paul Tournier, The Meaning of Gifts (Richmond: John Knox Press, 1970), pp. 3940.

5. Ed Dayton, What Ever Happened to Commitment? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984).

6. Elton Trueblood, The Company of the Committed (New York Harper and Row, 1961), pp. 2223.

7. George Ingle, The Lord's Prayer, cited in "How Many Conversions Have You Had?" Eternity, May 1968.

8. Bruce Larson, "The Christian Uniform," Faith at Work, Aug. 1971, p. 24.

9. Howard A. Snyder, Liberating the Church (Downers Grove, InterVarsity, 1983), pp. 171172.

Page 165

10. "Body Life as a Mission Concept," MARC Newsletter of World Vision International, May 1974, pp. 45.

11. Samuel Wilson, "Body Life," pp. 45.

12. Gordon Cosby, quoted by Elizabeth O'Connor, Journey Inward, Journey Outward (New York: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 24.

13. Lawrence O. Richards, A New Face for the Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), p. 189.

14. Ibid., p. 191.

15. Snyder, Liberating, p. 127.

Chapter 9

1. John R. W. Stott, "Setting the Spirit Free," Christianity Today, June 12, 1981, p. 18.

2. F. F. Bruce, Commentary on the Book of The Acts: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition, and Notes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), p. 79.

3. George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 212.

4. Edward John Carnell, The Case for Orthodox Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1959), pp. 113126. See also Bernard Ramm, The Christian View of Science and Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954).

5. Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind (London: SPCK, 1963), p. 3.

6. Ibid., p. 107.

7. John R. W. Stott, Your Mind Matters (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1972), pp. 1228.

8. Robert Banks, Paul's Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Historical Setting (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), pp. 7475.

9. Colin Brown, ed., The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), Vol. 3, pp. 126127.

10. Nancy B. Barcus, Developing a Christian Mind (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1977), p. 9.

11. Howard A. Snyder, The Problem of Wineskins: Church Structure in a Technological Age (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1975), pp. 9192.

12. Clark Pinnock, "Opening the Church to the Charismatic Dimension," Christianity Today, March 7, 1980, p. 16.

13. Donald Bridge and David Phypers, Spiritual Gifts and the Church (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1973), p. 139.

14. C. Norman Kraus, ed., Evangelicalism and Anabaptism (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1979).

15. Howard A. Snyder, The Community of the King (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1977), p. 9.

16. Bruce, The Acts, p. 81. Bruce says that "day by day, then, in the weeks that followed the first Christian Pentecost, the believers met regularly in the temple precincts for public worship and public witness." The extent of public worship which transpired at Solomon's colonnade remains uncertain (Acts 3:11; 5:12). Although they used the temple area for public witness, it is clear that they took their fellowship meals In homes and "broke bread" according to the Lord's teaching. Worship transpired in house gatherings.

We do not have information on how far their participation went in temple rituals, it was natural to retain old forms while trying to construe their new faith by categories provided by the old. The Acts is explicit that Paul and the earliest believers proclaimed boldly the gospel in the temple courts as well as from house to house (Acts 5:42). Furthermore, the synagogues were used as strategic centers for successful evangelism of whole areas as well as for apologetic discussions or debates (Acts 9:20; 13:5, 14; 14:1; 19:810).

17. Stott, Your Mind Matters, p. 20.

18. John W. Miller, "Church Reform and the Missionary Congregation in the 1970s," a study document prepared under the auspices of the Council on Faith. Life, and Strategy of the Mennonite Church, p. 15.

Page 166

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. Sharpening the Focus of the Church. Chicago: Moody, 1974.

Greenleaf, Robert K. Servant Leadership. New York: Paulist, 1977.

Griffin, Em. Getting Together: A Guide for Good Groups. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1982.

Griffiths, Michael. Grace-Gifts. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.

Grunlan, Stephen A., and Reimer, Milton, eds. Christian Perspectives on Sociology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982.

Guthrie, Donald. New Testament Introduction: The Pauline Epistles. Chicago: InterVarsity, 1966.

Habegger, David. "The House ChurchA Model for New Churches." Mimeographed (typewritten) paper.

Hesselgrave, David J. Dynamic Religious Movements. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978.

Hestenes, Roberta. "Scripture and the Ministry of Women Within the Christian Community." Unpublished article, Fuller Theological Seminary, 1978.

Howe, E. Margaret. Women and Church Leadership. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982.

Jewett, Paul K. The Ordination of Women. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.

. Man as Male and Female: A Study of Sexual Relationships from a Theological Point of View. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.

Page 169

Judge, E. A. The Social Pattern of Christian Groups in the First Century. London: Tyndale Press, 1960.

Kaiser, Walter C., Jr. Toward an Old Testament Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978.

. "Paul, Women, and the Church." Worldwide Challenge, September 1976, pp. 912.

Kasemann[Käsemann], Ernst. Commentary on Romans. Translated and edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.

Kraus, C. Norman, ed. Evangelicalism and Anabaptism. Scottdale: Herald Press, 1979.

Küng, Hans. The Church. Translated by Ray and Rosaleen Ockenden. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967.

. Truthfulness: The Future of the Church. Part B translated by Edwin Quinn. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968.

Larson, Bruce. Setting Men Free. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967.

Lupold, H. C. Exposition of Genesis. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1942.

Leupold, Ulrich S., ed. Liturgy and Hymns. In Vol. 53 of Luther's Works. Edited by Helmut T. Lehman. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1965.

Longenecker, Richard N. Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975.

. New Testament Social Ethics for Today. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984.

. Paul, Apostle of Liberty. New York: Harper and Row, 1964.

Lovelace, Richard F. Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1980.

Malherbe, Abraham J. Social Aspects of Early Christianity. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University, 1977.

Marshall, I. Howard. Last Supper and Lord's Supper. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980.

Martin, Ralph P. The Worship of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982.

. The Family and the Fellowship. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979.

. Worship in the Early Church. Westwood: Revell, 1964.

McGavran, Donald. Understanding Church Growth. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970.

Mickelsen, Berkeley, and Mickelsen, Alvera. "Does Male Dominance Tarnish Our Translations?" Christianity Today, October 3, 1978, pp. 2327.

Micks, Marianne H. The Future Present: The Phenomenon of Christian Worship. New York: Seabury, 1970.

Page 170

Miller, John W. Church Reform and the Missionary Congregation in the 1970's. A study document prepared under the auspices of the Council on Faith, Life, and Strategy of the Mennonite Church, August 1972.

Miller, Marlin E. "The Recasting of Authority." Sojourners, February 1979, pp. 2427.

Minear, Paul S. Images of theChurch[théChurch] in the New Testament. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960.

Mounce, Robert H. The Book of Revelation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977.

Nash, Ronald H. Christianity and the Hellenistic World. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984.

O'Connor, Elizabeth. Eighth Day of Creation. Waco: Word, 1971.

. Journey Inward, Journey Onward. New York: Harper and Row, 1963.

Olsen, Charles M. The Base Church. Atlanta: Forum House, 1973.

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Osborne, Grant R. "Hermeneutics and Women in the Church." Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 20 (December 1977):337352.

Packer, J. I. "Charismatic Renewal: Pointing to a Person and a Power." Christianity Today, March 7, 1970.

Payne, Philip B. "Libertarian Women in Ephesus." Trinity Journal NS 2 (Fall 1981):169197.

Pinnock, Clark. "Opening the Church to the Charismatic Dimension." Christianity Today, March 7, 1970, p. 16.

Raines, Robert. New Life in the Church. New York: Harper and Row, 1961.

Reed, William R. New Patterns of Church Growth in Brazil. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.

Richards, Lawrence O. A New Face for the Church. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970.

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Richards, Lawrence O., and Hoeldtke, Clyde. A Theology of Church Leadership. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980.

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Scanzoni, John. Sexual Bargaining: Power Politics in the American Marriage. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1982.

Schaller, Lyle E. Assimilating New Members. Nashville: Abingdon, 1978.

Page 171

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Page 173

SCRIPTURE INDEX

Genesis

3:16

101

4:1-14

116

4:26

116

12:8

116

Exodus

17:17

164

25:14-15

117

35:8

119

Deuteronomy

6:1-9

57

2 Samuel

7:5-17

117

1 Kings

36

117

8:54

164

Nehemiah

8:6

164

Psalms

16:8

126

37:1

126

63:4

165

134:2

165

141:2

165

Jeremiah

31:31-34

33

Lamentations

3:41

164

Ezekiel

37:26-28

118

48:35

118

Haggai

2:4-5

117

Malachi

1:10-11

117

Matthew

10:5-42

62

16:18

32

18:20

20, 34, 81, 115, 123, 127

18

67

20:26-28

20, 88

23:1-12

88

24:14-30

114

Mark

1:14

30

4:30-32

22

6:7-11

62

9:35

88

14:13-16

42

Luke

9:2-5

62

10:1-16

62

12:48

114

14:7f

61

22:26

142

24:30f

123

John

1:14

119

3:3

33

4:23-24

118, 128

13:1-15

142

13:15-16

87

15:15

39

19:12

39

Acts

1:8

34

1:15

42

2

32, 155

2:1-2

42

2:16-21

31

2:17-18

95

2:42

53, 89, 121, 125, 127, 148, 164

2:44

43, 152

2:45

153, 155

Document

Page 174

2:46

41, 53

2:46-47

128, 153, 155

2:47

121, 154

3:1f

153

3:11

165

4:20

155

4:31

128

5:11

128

5:12

165

5:13

154

5:42

41, 155, 165

6:6

125

6:13-14

119

7

118, 128

7:51

119

8:1, 4

153, 155

9:2

120

9:20

165

10:1-2

60

11:26

120

12:12, 17

42

13:5, 14

165

14:1

165

15

89, 147

16:13-15

42, 60, 61

16:31-34

60

17:4, 12

94

17:6

22

8

45

18:1-4

43

18:2

45, 47

18:4f

95

18:7, 11

43

18:9-10

43

18:18

60

18:24-26

96

19:8-10

52, 165

19:23

120

20:5, 8, 10

53

20:7

54, 121, 123, 127

20:29-31

22

20:36

125

21:5

125, 126

24:14

120

Romans

1:7, 15

46, 47

1:16

164

3:2

31

4:1

33

6:17

140

8:1-4

158

8:12-15

38

10:9-10

164

12:1-2

113

12:2

151

12:3

137

12:4-6

111

12:5

137

12:7

142

12:8

94

12:10

138

12:13

61

15:5-7

138

15:14

138

16

46, 48

16:1-2

94

16:4-5

47

16:6-7, 12

94, 95

16:10-15

48

16:16

125, 138

16:23

43

1 Corinthians

1:7

127

1:11

44

1:14f

44

1:15-18

43

1:18

22

1:21

44

2:10-16

158

2:16

151

3:16-17

119

4:2

114

5:7-8

124

5:9

93

6

147

6:12

101

6:19-20

125

7:4

101

8:8

101

10:16-17

123, 124, 127, 142

10:23

101

12

100

11:1-16

95

11:2

164

11:3

97, 98

11:4-5

100

11:10

96

11:11-12

96

11:23-25

127

11:24

34

11:33

93

1214

100, 110

12:3

127

12:1-7

105

12:5

142

12:15

93

12:12-13

110

12:14-24

110

12:24-27

110

12:25

110, 127

12:28-31

110

12:31

111

13

127

14:1, 20

111

14:4, 31

95

14:6, 12

127

14:13

142

14:15

125

14:16

127

14:20

111, 151

14:21

93

14:23

58

14:26

127

14:33b-35

100

14:34

98, 100

14:34-36

100

15:3-5

164

15:11

141

16:1-2

126, 159

16:5

43

16:15

43

16:16

44, 49

16:18

93

16:19

45, 159

2 Corinthians

3:17

125

5:17

33

89

147

8:1

159

8:5

126

9

67

1013

90

10:4

151

Document

Page 175

13:14

127

14:13

152

Galatians

1:2

58, 159

1:12

31

1:15-16

112

1:22

159

2:9

125

2:11-13

41

3:6-14

33

3:8

32

3:26

38, 92

3:28

92-93, 100, 103

4:4

30

5:13

90, 138

6:2

138

6:16

33

6:22-25

158

Ephesians

1:1-16

142

1:5

38

1:15-23

90

2:14

93

2:14

93

2:18-21

33, 57

2:20

108

3:5

108

3:14-15

57

3:26-29

92

4:2

138

4:7-10

106

4:11

108, 121

4:11-16

108

4:12

107

4:13-15

109

4:15-16

21

4:16

109, 146

5:1-2

57, 126

5:18-19

125

5:21f

97, 101, 138

5:26-27

22, 109

6:23

57

Philippians

2:3-5

90

2:6-11

164

2:10-11

89

3:3

125

3:4-10

112

3:12-17

140

3:15

151

4:2-3

94

4:14-19

126

Colossians

1:2

51

1:7

51

1:15-18

90

2:1

51

2:19

111

3:2

151

4:1

93

4:7-9

51

4:12

52

4:15-16

51-52

1 Thessalonians

5:11

138

5:12-13

90

5:16-22

126

5:19

113

5:27

54

1 Timothy

2:8

126-127

2:11

98

2:11-15

99-100

3:1f

94, 128

3:4-5

89, 94

3:15

128

3:16

127, 164

4

128

4:6

164

4:11-14

90

4:13

127

4:14-16

113

5:1-2

94

5:10

61

5:17

94

6:20-21

128

2 Timothy

1:6

113, 125

1:13

122

1:14

128

2:16-17

128

3:16

128, 164

4:2

121

4:3

164

Titus

1:5f

52

1:8

61

2:1-10

24

Philemon

1:2

50

1:16,19

50-51, 57

1:22

61

Hebrews

3:1

164

2:3-4

113

8:5

117

8:8-13

33

10:23-25

127

11:13-16

120

13:2

61

13:17

89

James

2:8, 12

144

1 Peter

1:1

52

4:9

61

4:9-11

105, 142

5:14

125, 138

1 John

1:1-4

128, 141

1:1-7

157

1:2-3

141

34

128

3:24

128

2 and 3 John

61

3 John

59

Jude

3

164

Revelation

1:3

127

3:14-22

52

Page 176

GENERAL INDEX

A

Apollos, 44, 49, 58, 95

Authenticity, 28

Authority

of Scripture, 26

biblical, 29

recasting of, 90

and leadership, 96

of husbands and wives, 101

Anabaptists

an association of small groups, 69

Luther's opposition to, 66

as a radical reform movement, 153

as a charismatic movement, 153

and evangelicals, 153

B

Banks, Robert, 36-37, 46, 48

Barclay, William, 47, 132

Barth, Karl, 102

Barth, Marcus, 97

Base church, 75

Berger, Peter, 35

Bilezikian, Gilbert, 97-98, 100

Blaimires, Harry, 150

Body

as metaphor, 21, 31, 107

organismic, 28

self-image of, 82

imaging of, 107, 110

most visible at Supper, 123

of Christ, 113

Bruce, F. F., 30-31, 47-49, 51, 92, 96, 98, 100

C

Carnell, E. J., 33

Charismatic

theology, 26

affirmation of faith, 26

leaders, 35

hierarchical structures, 90

excesses, 100

movement, 106

every believer a, 107

dimensions of the Holy Spirit, 152

the church as, 153

Christian education

in the home, 57

apprehension of, 82

Church

NT shape of, 28

an assembling, 28

as renewed people, 32

and Abrahamic covenant, 33

rebirth of, 33

in geographical area, 46, 58

ecclesiolae in ecclesia, 68, 70

images of, 107

as institution, 107

as caravaning community, 119

earliest nomenclature of, 120

emphasizing organization, 128

as mystical, 144

Church growth, 78

Church membership

integrity of, 139

Page 177

prerequisites of, 139

and commitment, 141, 154

for accountability, 144

and the company of the committed, 144

as a dynamic process, 144

and the principle of recommitment, 145

and spiritual gifts, 145

conflicts of, 146

as evidence of renewed church, 154

Church of the Saviour, 76, 139

Commitment

and membership, 76, 78, 139

quality of, 83

to combat centrifugal tendency, 79

consistent with gifts, 111

and the company of the committed, 111, 140f., 144, 154

and love, 137

and the body, 138

the biblical paradigm, 141f.

and missionaries, 143

as a spiritual process, 144f.

covenant of, 145, 147

remains conditioned upon, 156

Community

in ancient world, 37

binding agent in, 39

among the house churches in Rome, 49

as intentional, 78

and intimacy, 144

Consensus, 83, 146

Cosby, Gordon, 139, 143

Creeds, 122

Culture

weeds of, 27

congregational, 27

mores of, 36

house churches culturally relevant, 58

a missionary counterculture, 77

D

Discipleship, 77

Doctrine

and orthopraxy, 23

propositions of, 26

and renewal, 148f.

orthodoxy and orthopraxy, 153

Dulles, Avery, 107

Dura-Europos, archaeological evidence of house church, 55f.

Durnbaugh, Donald F., 65, 68, 71

Durkheim, Emile, 34

E

Edict of Claudius, 45

Elders

plurality of, 91

family qualities of, 91

male and female, 94

role of, 128

Eller, Vernard, 23, 119-120, 131

Equality

of minority groups, 58

of husband and wife, 96-97, 101

Evangelical

an increasing emphasis within, 25

their analytical and conceptual, 26

and relational-charismatic dimensions, 26

traced to Luther, 68

pride, 71

Evangelism

parental, 60

and the NT church, 154-155

and church membership,

Exodus motif of NT theology, 118, 120

F

Fellowship, 141-42

Filson, Floyd V., 40, 44, 54, 59

Friendship

within households, 38-39

evangelism, 72

Fulfillment, 31

Fundamentalism, 149

G

Giftedness

corporate, 13, 109

doctrine of, 104, 106

introduction to, 105

personification in, 108

crippling complexes, 110

discovering and discerning, 111

and self-analysis, 111

gifts and natural talents, 112

generic gifts, 112

seriousness of, 113

Page 178

H

Harnack, Adolph, 49

Headship

of Christ, 28, 144

and the chain-of-command, 96-98

meaning of kephale, 96-98

as authority, 97, 101

Hebrews to a house church, 49

Hierarchicalism, 104

Holy Spirit

and renewal, 23

Word and Spirit, 24

experience of, 26

community of, 32

and house churches, 71

new wind of, 104

as Christ's gift, 106

the Spirit of re-creation, 112

among OT believers, 117

and the Jews' heresy, 119

and worship, 125

the fellowship of, 152

the freedom of, 152

Hospitality

priority of, 48, 54

a leveling force, 58

practical and theological implications of, 61-62

and the gospel transmission, 62

as a generic gift, 105

House churches

and the NT documents, 29

in the New Testament, 40f.

as a sociological model, 40, 62

at Jerusalem, 41-42

at Philippi, 42

at Corinth, 43-44

at Ephesus, 44-45

at Rome, 46f.

at Colossae, 50

at Laodicea, 51-52

at Troas, 52-53

as a primary group, 64

in China, 72f.

in India, 73

in North Korea, 73

in North Africa, 73

in Vietnam, 73

in Cambodia, 74

in Indonesia, 74

reemerged in Europe, 76

conquered the Roman Empire, 77

vs. sanctuary model, 77

as social vehicle of missionary minority, 77

for propagation of Christianity, 78

as single-cell vs. multicell, 79

definitions of, 81-82

weaknesses and strengths, 82

in alien environments, 83

as ideal environment for worship, 115

and the Christian constituency of an area, 120

and Upper Room simplicity, 131

containing potential for renewal, 155

a difficult form to maintain, 155-156

Household

as primary structure of ancient world, 38

baptisms, 39

size of, 55

as a church family, 55-57

conversions, 59-60

as missionary strategy, 60

J

Judge, E. A., 34-35

K

Kaiser, Walter C., Jr., 95-96, 98, 100-101

Kasemann[Käsemann], Ernst, 47, 107

Koinonia

as an operating principle, 37

as face-to-face interaction, 81

in body and blood of Christ, 123

in commitment, 141-142

as evidence of renewal, 152

vs. koinonitis, 153

Kung[Küng], Hans, 107-108

L

Laity

and the priesthood above, 66

and leadership, 72

as ministers, 109

movement from laity to priesthood, 131

Leadership

in servanthood, 44, 87f.

Page 179

fostered in house churches, 58-59

and eccentricity, 59

styles of, 90

patterns in house churches, 91

Liberalism, 24-25, 35

Longenecker, Richard N., 31, 99, 100

Lord's Supper

from Passover meal, 33

in Upper Room, 34

as the original small group, 65

and the liturgy of the Supper, 122, 127

the older vs. the more comprehensive tradition of, 123

as celebration, 123

and the church fathers, 123

with one loaf and common cup, 124

from every member to priestly function, 131

as sacrament, 131

in first-century home vs. twentieth-century cathedral, 132

Lovelace, Richard F., 21, 26-27, 70

Luke

and his Acts diary, 53

on hospitality, 61

and the reminiscing fellowship, 128

Luther

in opposition to the Anabaptists, 66-67

his longing for house churches, 66-67

in his Preface to the German Mass, 66-67

as a congregationalist, 68

M

Malherbe, Abraham J., 61

Marshall, I. Howard, 123-124, 129

Martin, Ralph P., 33-34, 53, 127, 129

McGavran, Donald, 60

Membership

integrity of, 139

prerequisites of, 139

and commitment, 141, 154

for accountability, 144

and the company of the committed, 144

as a dynamic process, 144

and the principle of recommitment, 145

and spiritual gifts, 145

conflicts of, 146

as evidence of a renewed church, 154

Mennonites

as intentional communities, 69

founders viewed the church as organismic, 70

Study Document of Council on Faith, Life, and Strategy, 77-78, 155

Minear, Paul S., 50, 107

Ministry

as ''the ministry," 108

laity and ministers, 109

Mission

Paul's strategy of, 60

and mission groups, 81

Mind

and the early Christians, 149

anti-intellectualism, 149

the Christian mind, 150-151

Paul and the intellect, 151

Morris, Leon, 98

O

Olsen, Charles M., 75

P

Paul

the religion of, 31

and culture, 36

his idea of church as community, 37-38

his missionary work, 41

and slavery, 50

on "one another," 137-38

on the intellect, 151

Pentecostals, 75, 180

Preaching

in house churches, 53-54

vs. dialogue, 121

in classical, NT, and post-apostolic times, 121

to pagans outdoors, 121

the domestication of, 122

Priesthood of believers, 29

Priscilla and Aquila

with Paul, 43

a celebrated couple, 44f.

copastors and missionaries, 47

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author of Hebrews, 49

her elder role, 95

Protestant Predicament, 75

Post-Apostolic Fathers, 129, 132

R

Reformation

theology of, 23

and revival, 23

motto of, 24

radicals of, 66

Renewal

terminology of, 22f.

patterns of, 22-23

corporate, 27

intentions of the renewalist, 29

as a dynamic force, 29

as a movement, 34, 36

basic disciplines of, 148f.

Revelation

Paul's special, 31

and worship, 118

Richards, Lawrence O., 79, 147

Riddle, R. W., 62

Roles

of Jesus, 87

of women, 92

sexual, 102

defined, 102-103

conflicts of, 102

S

Sacred places

as an obstacle, 60

pre-Constantinian, 55

the sanctuary model, 65

as an aid to worship, 115

and a debilitating tendency, 116

temple cautiously allowed, 117

as a vanishing shadow, 117

and true worship, 118

God not dwelling in, 119

John's concern about, 128

Robert E. Webber on, 129

and liturgical architecture, 132

early Christians and the temple, 153, 165

Sayers, Dorothy, 102-103

Scanzoni, John, 102

Schaller, Lyle E., 78-79

Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 25

Servanthood

Jesus and the towel, 87

combats authoritarianism, 88

and the two models of leadership, 88

and the language of leadership, 89

principles of, 89-90

sociological context of, 91

T

Tournier, Paul, 140

Troeltsch, Ernst, 65

Trueblood, Elton, 64, 140-141

W

Webber, Robert E., 129

Weber, Hans-Ruedi, 83

Weber, Max, 34, 106

Women

and ministry, 29

radical equalization of, 91

and the liberating manifesto, 92-93

Jesus' attitude toward, 92

full participation of, 93

as partners in leadership, 91, 94-95

prophesied in church, 95

had authority in church, 95f.

were encouraged to learn the Scriptures, 98

were gifted for edifying the body, 100

were partners in mutual submission, 101

their roles were not dichotomized with men's 102-103

Worship

its two-part liturgy, 53

in the NT house churches, 115, 118f.

in the Old Testament, 116f.

the first worshiping community, 116

dualistic in scope, 120

descriptive qualities of, 124-125

at Corinth, 125

and physical expressions, 125-126

a NT liturgy model, 127

tensions of diversity and liturgy, 127f.

and extrabiblical liturgies, 129

and the post-Apostolic Fathers, 129

and liturgical movements, 131

and liturgical systems, 132

as evidence of renewal, 153

Y

Yoder, John Howard, 67

Page 181

THE AUTHOR

Del Birkey was born into a rural Midwest Mennonite family. Del began his Bible training for church ministry at Columbia Bible College in Columbia, S.C., and while a student began pastoral teaching and counseling at the age of nineteen.

He later traveled as a youth evangelist, incorporating chalk drawings and "gospel magic" as visual teaching aids both in church crusades and camp ministries. He also directed a youth center and served as a camp program director.

Interim pastoral situations deepened his interest for further studies, so Del enrolled at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Ill., from which he received his M. Div. (cum laude).

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