How can we determine what church is intended to look like? There are many different forms of church in the present day. Is there a New Testament pattern for church that Christians must emulate? To find the answer to this question, I examined references to church in the New Testament, with a particular emphasis on the actual form of the church in the book of Acts. So what does the church in the New Testament look like?
It is obvious that church does not mean building, but rather the people who make us God’s household. The church gathers together. We are exhorted, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Heb. 10:24-25). So what does that gathering together look like in the New Testament? What is the pattern we are to follow in order to encourage one another as we wait eagerly for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ?
The church is the fulfilment of what God intended for the nation of Israel. The Gentiles with faith have been grafted into the olive tree which is Israel (Rom 11:17-21). For this reason, we need to first understand the “church”, or assembly of God’s people, in the Old Testament. The word ekklesia, used on the church in the New Testament, is used by the LXX, the 2nd-century BC Greek translation of the Old Testament, as a word for the gathering together of Israel. In the Old Testament, the people of God gathered together for various religious-related reasons.
At Mount Sinai (sometimes called Mt Horeb) the people of Israel gathered together to receive the words of God (Exod 19). This was the place where the covenant with the nation of Israel was made. It was an extension of the covenant that God made with Abraham (Gen 12; 15; 17; Exod 2:24). The covenant relationship with God was the overarching reason that Israel gathered together in worship.
One of the primary reasons for gathering together was to hear the words of God or the Law. Listening to the word of God had a purpose also. Hearing the word of God enables the people to revere God (Deut 4:10). The returned exiles gathered together to hear Ezra read the words of the Law (Ne 8:2). Another reason for gathering the people together was to witness the redemptive acts of the LORD. He wins battles (1 Sam 17:47). God’s people came together to pray for God to deliver them from their enemies (Joel 2:15-17). And later to proclaim his saving acts (Ps 40:9).
They gathered for sacred events like bringing the ark back from Kiriath Jearim so they could inquire of God (1 Chron 13:1-5). The people gathered for the dedication of the temple (1 Kings 8). The temple represents God’s presence in the midst of his people. It was a place to offer sacrifice, to offer praise and to experience God’s real presence. At the temple people would pray and God would hear. Israel assembled to praise the LORD (1 Chron 29:20). This is a repeated refrain in the Psalms. “I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you” (Ps. 22:22; also 22:25; 26:12; 35:18). “Praise God in the great congregation; praise the LORD in the assembly of Israel” (Ps 68:26; also 149:1).
A final reason for gathering together was for the purpose of corporate discipline and repentance. Ezra gathered the people so they could covenant together to stop intermarrying with the people from other nations (Ezra 10). Nehemiah gathered the people together to rebuke them for charging interest to the poor (Neh 5:7).
The church gathers together for these same reasons. The church is in covenant relationship with God through Christ (Luke 2:20). For this reason the church gathers: to hear the word of God; to pray for God’s deliverance and to praise him for what he has done; to repent of sin and discipline those who have sinned; and to rejoice in the presence of God in the midst of the church. And the New Testament gives indication that the church gathered for these reasons.
The church gathers together in order to be built up. This occurs as the gifts given by the Holy Spirit are exercised within the gathering. The discussion in 1 Cor 12-14 tells us that prophecy is intelligible and thus edifies, while tongues are unintelligible unless interpreted and thus do not build up the church. These two gifts were obviously of concern in the church in Corinth, but there are many gifts and they can also be used to build up the church. Each person brings something to the meeting and all of these things must be done for the edification of the body (1 Cor 14:26). James mentions elders praying for the sick (Jas 5:14) and also confession of sins and reconciliation (5:16). This probably took place during a church gathering.
“So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?” (1 Cor. 14:23). This verse tells me two things. First of all, there were times when the church met as a whole and presumably times when only some of the church met together, perhaps in a less formal setting or two or three came together for prayer. In addition, at least sometimes unbelievers came into Christian gatherings.
The church sometimes gathers to rebuke a person who has sinned. The aim is to bring that person to repentance (Matt 18:15-17). That is precisely what Paul told the Corinthians to do about the man who was sleeping with his step-mother (1 Cor 5:1-4). They were told to “hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord” (1 Cor 5:5).
Churches met in houses and this fact is reflected in many passages in the New Testament (1 Cor 16:19; Col 4:15; Philemon 1:2). As with the Philippian church, the church at Laodicea met in the house of a woman (Col 4:15). Quite likely, the church in each city actually met in multiple locations. The way in which the epistles are addressed suggests a unified church in several locations. The epistles are not addressed to the churches of a city but just the church of each city, even though they could not all meet together.
The gathering of the churches in houses involved the expression of hospitality by the owners of those houses (e.g., Rom 16:23). The people of God are exhorted to be hospitable (Rom 12:13; Heb 13:2; 1 Pet 4:9), particularly those who are in church leadership (1 Tim 3:2; 5:9-10; Titus 1:8). Believers in Christ are not “strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household” (Eph. 2:19 NIV). Yet in the Corinthian church there was a lack of hospitality to those who were poor. The church was divided and when they met to eat together, the rich ate and drank and left the poor with nothing (1 Cor 11:17-22). James also warns about the mistreatment of poor believers in Christian meetings (Jas 2:2-4).
The book of Acts gives an indication of the nature of the early church. As the circumstances changed over time, the form of the church changed. Some things remained constant and yet there was a great deal of flexibility.
The church is built on the confession that Jesus is the Messiah (Matt 16:16-18). Jesus commissioned the disciples to take the gospel to all the world (Matt 28:18-20). Just before he ascended into heaven he told them that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). But the church was unable to take that confession to the world before Pentecost.
Members of the church are baptised in water and in the Holy Spirit (Acts 2). From the first day, the church was devoted to the teaching of the apostles (Act 2:42). This teaching centred on the death and resurrection of Jesus (Pentecost sermon is an example). They also had fellowship, broke bread together (breaking of bread may be a communion meal or just a meal) and prayed. Devotion to these four aspects of church is evident throughout Acts. The meetings were about Christian fellowship rather than evangelism. That took place in the marketplace.
The earliest believers were in Jerusalem. There the church met in homes and in the temple (Acts 2:42-47). This means that from the start there was both formal and informal gathering of the church. The earliest Christians were all Jews and so going to the temple every day was just what you might expect of Jews living in Jerusalem. They went there at the time of prayer (3pm) because that is what Jews did. The church simply saw the coming of Jesus as the fulfilment of Jewish expectation. So they kept on acting like Jews. And yet there were meetings in homes. People did not eat meals in the temple en mass. Even straight after Pentecost there were more than 3000 people in the Jerusalem church. They must have divided themselves into small groups according to location. But listening to the apostles probably occurred together since the apostles could not have gone to every house meeting.
After the apostles had been put in prison and released, the church held a prayer meeting (Acts 4). There is no indication where this took place or how many people were involved. But prayer was part of the everyday meetings of the church.
The people gave what they did not need to the apostles to distribute to the poor. So there were no longer any poor people in the church (Acts 4). This must have involved the central location of the temple. Perhaps individual house churches took care of their own poor. Some administration of funds must have been going on. By this point there were more than 5000 people in the church.
The Christians were still meeting together as a whole. “All the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade” (Acts 5:12). Solomon’s Colonnade was a large (800 feet long) outdoor space next to the temple. This is a very large meeting place and there were a lot of people. The apostles were doing miracles and healing people and casting out demons. This drew crowds to the apostles but they did not disturb the Christians meeting in the temple area. The Church continued to grow larger. It was still a Jewish church and still centred on the temple and the Jewish way of worship. But there is no indication of anyone offering animal sacrifices. The apostles were proclaiming Jesus in the temple (crowd setting) and house to house (small meetings by invitation?) (5:42).
The church grew so large (Acts 6) that the administration issues become unwieldy for the apostles and they did not have time to preach and administer the offerings for the widows properly. So they appointed seven deacons to do this task. This is still a large scale church centred on the physical presence of the apostles and the Jerusalem temple. It would take something drastic to move the church out of this pattern.
And that drastic thing happened when Stephen was stoned (Acts 7). This was the first act of persecution for the church, rather than just the occasional problem for the apostles. The church was persecuted in a major way and people then fled away from Jerusalem to various parts of Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:1). In fact this was what was needed to get the church away from their little enclave in Jerusalem. It was bound to change the way the church met together. Saul tried to destroy the church, going house to house to drag men and women away to prison (8:3). Presumably the scattered Christians met in houses. Saul went to synagogues searching for followers of the way (Acts 9:1), which suggests that Christians also met in synagogues. There was no temple to meet in as they had been doing, so larger meetings were less likely. They also relied less on the physical presence of the apostles. At this point, the church had to rely on others who knew the apostles’ teaching. This is not stated; it is an inference from the circumstances.
After Saul was converted, the church experienced a time of peace without persecution. During this time the church was strengthened (built up) (Acts 9:31). The Holy Spirit was at work. “Built up” is a word used about the purpose of spiritual gifts in 1 Cor 14. So I assume that in the house churches that met throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria, the Christian believers were empowered by the Holy Spirit and used their spiritual gifts to build one another up in the faith. There was clearly something good going on because the church grew in number.
In the first seven chapters of Acts, the church was predominantly Jewish. The persecution that scattered the church pushed Christians into Samaria and many Samaritans were converted. In chapter 10, Peter was led to proclaim the gospel to Gentiles. By chapter 11, there were more Gentile converts, especially in Antioch. Consequently, the Jerusalem church sent Barnabas to Antioch (11:21). The Jerusalem church was still very important; they were a central authority on the faith.
Barnabas sought out Saul and they both spent a year teaching the church in Antioch (11:26). The apostles’ teaching was still important to the church but it did not come directly from the apostles. The church had become too big and scattered for that. They appointed others to teach the word of God. Teaching was very important since they stayed for a whole year, in contrast to the evangelist Philip who simply converted the eunuch (Ch 8) and moved elsewhere.
When Peter was put in prison the church met to pray for him. This occurred in the house of Mary the mother of John Mark (Acts 12:5, 12). This was in Jerusalem and yet the church was not meeting to pray in the temple as they had been in chapter 2. They had changed their mode of operations. Possibly this was because of the persecution. It may have been unsafe to meet in large groups or in the temple. However, it may also have been impractical for such a large church to meet together every week. The house meetings were going on right from the start. Perhaps this group were friends with Peter and were his support group. There was no “right” structure for church. It changed and evolved over time and circumstances.
The activities that were mentioned in Acts 2:42 – apostles’ teaching, fellowship, prayer and breaking bread – are practised throughout Acts. Here prayer is the activity for the church. It was the go-to response to what happened to Peter. It was not a huge prayer meeting since it was conducted in a house. It is possible that there was prayer going on in multiple houses, but only one house is mentioned. When Peter was freed from prison he went to Mary’s house and I assume that this was because this was his inner circle of friends, the people who supported him. Even apostles have home churches.
The Church at Antioch had prophets and teachers in leadership there. They were in the habit of fasting and praying together as leaders (Acts 13:1-3). The Holy Spirit was leading the church. Paul and Barnabas were appointed to go on a missionary journey. As they travelled they made disciples, formed them into churches and then kept going. Later they came back and appointed elders in the churches (Acts 14:21-23). There were various kinds of leaders in the early church. The churches could not rely on having the apostles present so they needed prophets, teachers and elders to guide them. There is no reason to assume that these leaders deviated from the apostles’ teaching.
When Paul and Barnabas returned from their missionary journey they gathered the church in Antioch together (Acts 14:27). This suggests that the church met in various different locations and only came together for occasions such as this. Antioch was a large city and probably had a number of house churches. Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch a long time. This was their home church at that point.
One issue is whether the elders were present in each house church or in the church of a city. It is interesting to note that there were elders in the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:2), despite the fact that the apostles were there. Why would the Jerusalem church need elders if there were apostles there? The apostles did not lead individual house churches because their role was over the entire church and also they had responsibility for proclaiming the gospel. So elders would have taught and led churches on a smaller scale.
The dispute over circumcision for Gentile believers (Acts 15) demonstrates several things about the early church. For a start there were false teachers in the church already. They were teaching the church (15:1). I assume that they went around the house churches delivering this message about circumcision. Apart from the OT scriptures there was probably no body of Christian literature. The church still needed the direct words of the apostles to correct this. Paul and Barnabas knew that the teaching was not right, but perhaps they were not perceived to have enough authority to oppose it.
Instead of “agreeing to disagree” about this issue, the dispute needed to be settled by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem church still held a place of authority, probably because of the presence of the apostles there. The church could not accept such divergent ideas. It was important to settle the matter for all the churches that had already been planted and would be planted in the future. There was not unity in doctrine but the intent was that there should be unity in doctrine. It was a matter of delineating the boundaries of the gospel.
The church in Jerusalem welcomed Paul and Barnabas and their report about what God was doing in Antioch (Acts 15:4). They had grown in their knowledge of God and had accepted the idea of Gentiles in the church. The church’s understanding about the gospel had matured over time. This happened because it was obvious to all that the Holy Spirit had been at work in the Gentiles. This was not the result of arguing over a text in the Bible but the result of seeing the Spirit work. Although Jesus had told the church to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth, before Acts 10 they had stuck with Jews and Samaritans. The Church in Antioch was a huge step forward only made possible by the Holy Spirit.
The work of the Holy Spirit is one of the most obvious things in Acts. The whole church was in agreement about the Gentile issue. The whole church was in agreement about sending people back with Paul and Barnabas to Antioch once the decision was made about circumcision (Acts 15:22). The unity of the church was a clear result of the work of the Holy Spirit. This is what made the false teachers so clearly false. As a consequence of this decision the churches were strengthened (Acts 16:5).
The Church at Philippi was founded when Paul and Luke met Lydia at the place of prayer. She was converted (Acts 16:13-15) and the church began meeting in her house (16:40). The first converts in Philippi were women. The first church met in the house of a woman. I believe that there was (is) a Jewish custom that it takes ten men to form a synagogue. And yet the church began with women. This is interesting. There was a significant place for women in the early church.
When there was persecution, Paul did not stay in a place very long. In Thessalonica, there was a riot and Paul and Silas had to leave (Acts 17:1-10). On the other hand, in Corinth there were many people who believed and were baptised. Paul stayed there a year and a half, teaching the church (Acts 18:7-11). So the churches adapted according to the prevailing climate. The ideal was for the church to be taught for a long time, yet sometimes this was difficult to do because of opposition to the proclamation of the gospel. In Berea they examined the Scriptures to see if the preaching was true (17:11-12). Again, this eagerness to verify what was taught was an ideal. However, even in Berea there was opposition and Paul had to leave. Yet he left Silas and Timothy there.
A learned man named Apollos was teaching about Jesus in the synagogue in Ephesus. He was accurate and yet needed further instruction. So Priscilla and Aquila invited him to their home to teach him more about Jesus (Acts 18:24-26). These two Jews had met Paul a little earlier (18:2). In his letter to the Romans, Paul calls them “my co-workers in Christ Jesus” (Rom 16:3). When they are mentioned, sometimes Aquila (a man) is mentioned first and sometimes his wife Priscilla is mentioned first. The place of women in the early church was not that of “child care and baking” but real partnership in gospel proclamation and church leadership. Aquila did not instruct Apollos alone or work with Paul alone. He did so with his wife and she did the same things he did.
At Troas there was an all night church meeting since Paul was leaving the next day. Eutychus fell asleep because Paul spoke for such a long time. In fact, Paul spoke until dawn. The fact that Eutychus fell out the window and died and was raised was encouraging to the church (Acts 20:7-12). It is written down as if this were quite ordinary. The main point here is that the church was so eager to listen to the word of God that they were prepared to meet all night. They met in an upper room, clearly in someone’s house.
The meeting was on the first day of the week, Sunday (Acts 20:7). This is one of the indications that the church met on Sunday, rather than the Jewish Sabbath. Another is found in 1 Corinthians. “On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made” (1 Cor. 16:2).
The narrative about the church in Acts demonstrates several key things about the church.
1) The church grew.
2) The church adapted according to its circumstances.
3) The church begun as totally Jewish and then Gentiles were added.
4) The Jerusalem church was important since the apostles were stationed there.
5) The church met in homes even in the beginning when they met in large numbers at the temple.
6) The role of women in the church was radically different from what you might expect based on Jewish precedents. (This actually parallels the different way in which the church treated Gentiles.)
7) Teaching was very important to the growth and maturation of the church. False teachers were refuted.
8) The church had leaders: apostles, elders, prophets and teachers (pastors are not mentioned but perhaps elders functioned in this role. One might say that Philip the evangelist was a leader.)
9) There is one mention of the church meeting on Sunday. They met often and on other days of the week.
10) The Holy Spirit was very much at work in the church.
11) The church prayed.
12) The four activities of Acts 2:42 – apostles’ teaching, prayer, fellowship and breaking bread – go on throughout Acts. These are important to the shape of the church.
13) The church had unity.
14) The church often experienced persecution and sometimes had times of peace.
I found no clear evidence of a particular form of church meeting. That is to say, I cannot find an indication of whether the early church was liturgical or non-liturgical. There is nothing to tell us what kind of music was used or if it was used. Many things about church meetings that we might want to know are not spelled out in the New Testament. It is more important to observe that the Holy Spirit was leading the church than to look for the specifics of a formal structure to church meetings.