A Reflection on Hebrews and Titus
There are probably some practical reasons why the early church met in people's homes. Perhaps it was to help stay under the radar screen of the Roman armies, let alone the Scribes and Pharisees! They did not yet have any kind of budget. All the money raised was used to feed widows, orphans, and to pay for missionary journeys.
It was not yet the era of the medieval gothic cathedral. There was no such thing as spires, steeples, vestries, narthexes, and vestibules. The idea of an "altar" in the church, had not caught on.
No parking lot, no organ, no praise band area, no Sunday School booklets. No payroll, no hospital visitation, no paid clergy, no youth leader.
They pretty much were forced to meet in people's homes.
And I think that's a good thing. It's good that God chose this period in history to begin His Church. For here was the perfect time and place, to lock into place the radical notion that a religious experience can happen anywhere, most notably in a person's home.
To Philemon . . . and the group that meets at your house.
Paul addressed this letter to a Church, a group of believers that met in the home of the man named Philemon.
In the midst of our vast modern culture of global churches and missions; in a time when people expect the Church to be a sanctuary where they can get away; in an era when the home itself is a place of fear and dread on the part of way too many people - God calls us back to the idea of the Church as Home, and the Home as Church.
In our homes, let us worship Christ. And in our Church, let us act more like we are at home with one another. Your Christian fellow-believer is your brother and sister. Now what does it mean to be a brother, or a sister? Do you treat them as such?
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