he formed appear to have been strengthened through acts of loving service. ‘We loved you so much . . .’ Paul reminds the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 2.8). Paul’s leather-working trade required tools that could easily be carried with him. This made him ‘available for any little job that came along. He could repair the leather sandals, belts, gourds and cloaks of those who walked the roads with him’ (Murphy-O’Connor, 2002, p. 194). It is easy to imagine Paul repairing leather goods around the house in return for hospitality (Osiek and MacDonald with Tulloch, 2006, p. 11). Did this help to make him a welcome dinner guest?
Paul recounted how he and his colleagues ‘worked night and day’ so as not to be a burden on anyone. He described their work as ‘toil and hardship’ – an experience that would be familiar to many church founders (1 Thess. 2.9; 2 Thess. 3.8). Unlike contemporary orators, Paul did not use rhetorical and other devices to win a fee-paying following (Walton, 2011, pp. 220–33), but laboured sacrificially to demonstrate a life of service and model the gospel (Acts 20.35). He was willing to share what he earned (Philemon 18).
Paul’s miraculous healings and exorcisms expressed love and service more dramatically (for example Acts 14.3, 8). Did he heal the sick through the Spirit as he visited people in their homes? This is suggested by the episode on Malta, where as part of his interaction with the household Paul healed the chief official’s father. After this, many others were brought to Paul for healing (Acts 28.7–9; cf 19.11–2).
Forming community seems to have been another part of Paul’s evangelism. Often it must have started in the homes of people he stayed with. While he lived and worked with Aquila and Priscilla, for instance, one can picture a nucleus of enquirers forming. As individuals returned week by week perhaps, a sense of community would have developed till eventually the ‘workshop became a house church’ of between 10 and 15 members (Murphy-O’Connor, 2002, p. 195).
Presumably a similar process occurred in the homes Paul visited. It was customary for the wealthy to invite to dinner not only friends of equal standing, but also their dependent clients who had lower social status (Bradshaw, 2009, p. 21) As Paul shared the gospel in such gatherings, it is likely that people who were interested returned on subsequent evenings and over time a sense of community formed. Paul reminds the Thessalonians that he and his fellow workers shared their lives with them (1 Thess. 2.8). In settings where believers and not-yet believers met together (1 Cor. 14.23–5), this sharing of lives must have been part of the process of coming to faith.
Certainly, personal testimony was an ingredient in Paul’s evangelism (Acts 22.1–21), and in his letters he repeatedly wrote about the misguided direction of his earlier life and his journey into holiness. As he shared from personal experience, it would have been natural for some of his hearers to share their experiences, laying foundations for the participative worship that developed (1 Cor. 14.26) and for the strong fellowship that existed among the new Christians.
People often needed time to explore Paul’s claims. At Pisidian Antioch, those who heard Paul and Barnabas address the synagogue invited them to speak further the next Sabbath (Acts 13.42). Later the Beroeans received the message enthusiastically, but also examined the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul said was true (Acts 17.11). Because people checked out what Paul was claiming, the conversion of entire households at once – in the case of Lydia for instance (Acts 16.15) – was by no means the norm. Several New Testament texts, such as 1 Cor. 7.12–16 and 1 Peter 3.1, suggest that conversion could be more individualized (Osiek and MacDonald with Tulloch, 2006, p. 158). Like today, journeys to faith varied.
Once individuals had made the journey, church took shape in people’s homes, which were centres of family, work,13 everyday leisure (in so far as people had any), and family and friendship networks. ‘The Christian churches were probably the only communion in antiquity that had no special place of worship but rather came together in the places of daily life, the private homes’ (Becker, 1993, p. 251). Some converts went on to start further congregations, as in the case of Priscilla and Aquila, who were patrons of house churches in three different cities (Osiek and MacDonald with Tulloch, 2006, p. 32).
It would be a mistake to see listening, loving and serving, building community, exploring, church taking shape and then starting another church as a neat linear sequence. Sometimes it may have been, but often the processes must have overlapped, occurred in a different order or in some cases not happened at all. Not everyone, for example, took time in weighing up matters before becoming a believer (for example Acts 13.12). As now, people came to faith in different ways.
For reflection
Paul’s apparent practices of listening (including to ‘persons of peace’), loving and serving, building community, helping people to explore the possibility of faith and forming new gatherings in the heart of life are all echoed in Chapter 11, which discusses the birthing of contextual church among people with little or no Christian background. Did Paul stumble upon a series of practices that make sense whenever churches are founded in pioneer contexts?
Culture-specific churches?
Were Paul’s new churches built around homogeneous people groups – that is, ‘a section of society in which all the members have some characteristic in common’? (McGavran, 1980, p. 95) Schnabel believes not. Paul was committed to a church in which all social divisions were overcome. He did not establish separate local congregations for Jews and Gentiles, slaves and freemen, the rich and the poor. He wanted all to be one in Christ Jesus – Galatians 3.28 (Schnabel, 2008, pp. 404–13).
Jerusalem and Antioch
However, a close reading of the New Testament suggests that homogeneous congregations were very much part of the picture. Gehring argues that Acts 2.46 portrays the Jerusalem church both coming together as the whole church in the temple and meeting as small house churches in private homes (Gehring, 2004, p. 83). These house churches were scattered round the city and would have drawn in people from different networks. Families sharing the same courtyard may have broken bread together, for example (Finger, 2007, p. 238).
Jewish synagogues often met in people’s homes. The Talmudic assertion that there were 390 synagogues in first-century Jerusalem may have been an exaggeration, but there were certainly a considerable number meeting in various parts of the city and catering for worshippers from different social backgrounds.
Acts 6.9 may be referring to no less than five synagogues: one for the freedmen, one for the people from Cyrenaica, one for Alexandrians, one for those from Cilicia and one for those from Asia. (Fiensy, 1995, p. 233)
If the first Jewish churches were influenced by the synagogues, which were the closest model to hand, and followed a similar pattern of attracting people from a specific social group, they would indeed have been homogeneous units. Yet importantly, these units also came together ‘every day’ in the temple courts. Here the different social groupings would have intermingled and the unity of believers been expressed.
The
