Gathering Places for Christians

CHRISTIAN GATHERINGS IN THE HOME The early gathering place for Christian worship was in the home. The earliest excavation of a church by archaeologists, where a date has been ascertained, is of a room within a house that was set apart for worship, and was thus furnished as a chapel. It dates back to the third century A.D. It seems difficult for the twentieth-century Christians to realize that most, if not all, of the earliest churches met in homes. Dr. A. T. Robertson lists some of those early gathering places: The church in Jerusalem met: -in the house of Mary (Acts 12:12) - at Philippi in the house of Lydia (Acts 16:40) - at Ephesus in the house of Aquila and Priscilla (1 Cor. 16:19) - and later in Rome (Romans 16:5) - and likewise there was the church that met in the house of Philemon in Colossae apparently (Philemon 2). The homes surely received a special blessing from that service. There was responsibility also. [Manners And Customs of Bible Lands]