Newsletter Vol.1, #35—August 21, 2005

Matthew 6: ¹⁶And when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, of a sad face. For they disfigure their faces so that they may appear to men to fast. Truly I say to you, They have their reward.

house churches continued from last weekà “whereby thou shalt be saved, thou and all they house.” I Corinthians l:16 says, using the word oikos: “And / baptized also the household of Stephanas.” That “household” was not a building. Compare that with I Corinthians 16:15, where the word okia is used to mean the same thing about the same people: “Ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have set themselves to minister unto the saints.” Both I Corinthians 1:16 and 16:15 are talking about the household of Stephanas, but oikos is in one passage, and oikia in the other. For another example, as oikos means “household” in I Corinthians 16:15, oikia means household in Philippians 4:22. It should be clear from these passages, and others, that oikos and oikia are interchangeable. In the four primary passages we are discussing here, though we find the word oikos, oikia would work just as well.

We should mention one other phrase where we find the word household in the English translation. The Greek word for house is not mentioned in the original in some places; rather we find an idiomatic phrase there. Vine, page 567, says: “(1) In Rom. 16:10,11, the phrase ‘those of the household’ translates a curtailed phrase in the original, lit. ‘the (persons) of (ek, consisting of) the (members of the household of).’ (2) In I Cor. 1:1 1, they which are of the household (A.V., house) of Chloe’ is, lit. ‘the... of Chloe,’ the Eng. Translation being necessary to express the idiom.” The idiom still means “household” of whoever is mentioned.

I maintain that the word “house” used in the passages we are considering, such as Colossians 4:15, means a household, family, people; it’s not the building in which they might live. We will see more of why this is so in what follows. The house church advocates simply assume and assert the meaning they want on the passages.

The basic meaning of the word church, ekkiesia, is “called out people.” The word church may apply to an actual assembly of disciples in one place, as in I Corinthians 11:18,14:23. It may refer to a local group of disciples having mutual responsibilities to one another, a certain organizational structure, and its own peculiar work, as in Acts 20:17-35. This local congregation exists as a special group, with certain responsibilities, whether in assembly or not, as in I Timothy 5:16. Church may refer to all Christians everywhere, as in Matthew 16:18, Ephesians 1:22. In Acts 8:3, it says that Saul: “laid waste the church, entering into every house, and dragging men and women, committed them to prison.” This views the disciples dispersed over the city, a distributive sense.

The house church advocates assume that the word church, in the four passages we are discussing, means an actual assembly by certain disciples, in a private home. They will also, at times, assign a meaning that is identical with a local church in the New Testament, but without autonomy.

However, I believe the word “church” in these four passages refers to its basic meaning of “called out.” It refers only to the members of a household who are Christians. Nymphas, and the church in his house, means only the head of the household and the members of that household who were Christians. Thayer, in his Lexicon, page 196, makes the following comment on meaning of ekkiesia in the passages we are discussing:

“The church in one’s house, i.e. the company of Christians belonging to a person’s family; others less aptly understand the phrase of the Christians accustomed to meet for worship in the house of some one. . .”

On page 327 of his Lexicon, under the preposition kata, Thayer says that the ekklesia kat’ oikon tinos, “church in one’s house,” means: “belonging to one’s household.” He identifies the preposition in the grammatical construction as especially indicating that.

Thayer doesn’t think much of the Boston interpretation of “the church in one’s house.” Let’s look at the passages and the evidence in detail.

Philippians 4:22 says: ‘Al/ the saints salute you, especially they that are of Caesar’s household. “ Here, all the saints send greetings, especially those in Caesar’s household. It’s not the dwelling place, but people; only people send greetings.

This is just like Paul’s sending greetings in I Corinthians 16:19-20. However, let’s look at part of verse 20 first: ‘Al/ the brethren salute you ... Aquila and Prisca salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house,” Make the comparison to Philippians 4:22. ‘A// the brethren salute you” is the same as ‘A// the saints salute you.” Likewise ‘Aquila and Prisca salute you... with the church... in their house” is the same as “especially the (saints salute you) that are of Caesar’s household.” We find that exact formula as well in “Salute the brethren that are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the church that is in their house,” Colossians 4:1 5.

In this sense, it is like Romans 16:1 1, “Salute them of the household of Narcissus, that are in the Lord.” He might as well have said “Narcissus, and the church that is in his house.” these are all like phrases, saying the same thing, each a little differently. The “house” is the “household,” the family, The “church” is “saints,” “Those in the Lord,” “called out people,” in short, Christians. There’s more.

I Corinthians 16:19 says: ‘Aquila and Prisca salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house.” to get a full picture of this passage, we must connect it with Romans 16:5. To do that, we must get the sequence of events.

Paul wrote I Corinthians at the close of his stay in Ephesus, (16:8). He told them he was going to wait at Ephesus until Pentecost, the last of May. According to I Corinthians 16:56, he planned to leave Ephesus, pass through Macedonia, and spend the winter at Corinth. He would then go on to Jerusalem from there, verses 3-6, Acts 19:21-22. When he arrived at Corinth, the money collected for Jerusalem would be sent on its way, verses 3-4. His long time friends, Aquila and Prisca, were at Ephesus when he wrote to Corinth, and they sent greetings.

Paul did leave Ephesus and went to Macedonia. He went on to Corinth from there, where he spent no more than three months, if that much. (The total time in Greece, including the stay in Corinth, was three months, Acts 20:2-3). During the short time at Corinth, he wrote the Roman letter. We see this in Romans 16:25-31. This means that just a few months time separated the Roman letter from I Corinthians. In Romans 16:3-5, Paul sends greetings to “Prisca and Aquila. . . and the church that is in their house.”

It’s obvious that Aquila and Prisca left Ephesus sometime after Paul wrote I Corinthians. It was probably around the time Paul left because of the public uproar that occurred, Acts 19:23-20:6. Whereas Paul went to Macedonia, they went to Rome. By the time Paul could write to Rome from Corinth, they were in Rome with “the church in their house.” The same two people, and the same church in their house that he sent greetings from while at Ephesus, he now sends greetings to in Rome. (Why should we assume that the “church in their house” is not the same in both instances?). Did they take their Ephesian “house church” with them to Rome, which then became a “house church” of the Roman metropolitan church? Well, I maintain that whatever they had at Ephesus that was a “church in their house,” they took with them to Rome. It was even a “church in their house” on the ship, during the journey to Rome.

There was an interval of just a few months between I Corinthians and Romans. Within that short time, if the “house church” advocates are right on their position, Aquila and Prisca traveled to Rome. They found a house to live in and started a house church for the metropolitan church of Rome. They immediately got word to Paul at Corinth about where they were and what they had done. They did this in time for Paul to send greetings to them and “the church in their house” when he wrote the letter. However, the time involved for that to be done hardly makes it possible. Rather, Paul sent greetings to them and their household members who were Christians, as he sent greetings from the same at Ephesus.

Philemon 2 means the same thing as the other passages: greeting was sent to the head of the family, and the members of that family who were Christians.

Let’s contrast what we have presented here with a couple of other passages, Romans 16:14-15:

“Salute Asyncritus, Plegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brethren that are with them. Salute Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and the saints that are with them.’

As far as the text is concerned, none of those named here are heads of households; there is no house in any sense mentioned. The way it’s said is quite different from the “church in their house” passages, or like passages. This only speaks of certain ones and the brethren “with them,” or saints that are “with them.” Contrast that with the phrase “church in their house.” It is obvious that whoever the “brethren” and “saints” were in these passages, they were not members of the households of the individuals mentioned by name.

When we look at all the evidence, we would better conclude that, in Romans 16:14-15, we have evidence of more than one autonomous congregation in the city of Rome at that time. That’s why the wording in those passages is distinct from the phrase “church in their house.”

The Roman letter was not written to the “the Church at Rome.” It was written to “all that are in Rome,” Romans 1:7. We can look at the contents of the book itself, and other books as well, to determine how brethren worshipped and worked together in Rome.

The four basic passages we have looked at in this chapter, I Corinthians 16:19, Romans 16:5, Colossians 4:15, and Philemon 2, have been misused by the “house church” advocates. There’s no such thing as they present in these scriptures. Their organizational structure is not supported by these passages, nor any other passage in the new Testament. [end]