WORSHIP NOTES
Volume 19, No. 7 (July 2024)
Early Church House Worship (artist unknown)
Sparse Information
We have little detailed information as to exactly what the earliest gatherings of the church might have looked like. We are not told a lot in the Bible, and other historical sources are few as well.
Relationship to Judaism
We do know that there was considerable continuity, at least at first, with Judaism. The first Christians were Jews gathered in Jerusalem from many different nations, as we read in the account of the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. The apostles at first continued to participate in synagogue services and temple ceremonies and feasts (Acts 2:46; 3:1), and we even see them teaching in the temple precinct (Acts 5:20, 42). When the apostle Paul during his missionary journeys would arrive in a new city, he would first go into the Jewish synagogue and begin his teaching ministry there.
But then there was growing discontinuity with Judaism in the face of growing rejection by the Jewish leadership and the beginning of the Gentile mission through Paul especially (Acts 13:46–48). The Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) definitively showed that the church was a new work of God and not just an offshoot or a branch of Judaism.
Influence of Temple and Synagogue
During the Babylonian captivity the synagogue gatherings were initiated for the exiled Jews to gather and listen to the word of God. And it was pointed out then also that, when the Jews returned from captivity to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple, reinstituted the sacrifices, and reactivated the priesthood, the synagogue services continued in the communities of Israel.
These two forms of gathered worship (temple and synagogue) continued side by side all the way through the time of Christ and beyond, and both forms would have influence on Christian worship. The influence of the synagogue could be seen in the reading and expounding of Scripture, and the temple’s sacrificial aspect would be reflected in the remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice in the Lord’s Supper. N. T. Wright expresses this phenomenon thus:
By Paul’s day the synagogue theology was well developed: where two or three study Torah, there the Shekinah dwells among them. In other words, for those who cannot easily make the journey to Jerusalem, God has provided another way of meeting him in worship and self-offering. The Torah, read and studied and prayed in the synagogue, is the means of God’s presence. Now, for Paul, the Spirit picks up both Temple and Torah and, fulfilling both, transcends both.
The early Christians believed that their Spirit-led worship was the new-covenantal form of that synagogue and temple worship, worshipping the same creator God but filling that worship with new content relating specifically to Jesus crucified and risen. (N. T. Wright, “Worship and the Spirit.”)
House Meetings
Christian gatherings took place mostly in homes (Acts 2:46), especially on the first day of the week, Sunday (in commemoration of the resurrection), and often included common meals culminating in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:17–22).
Included Elements
Elements in these gatherings included “the apostles’ teaching [expounding the Old Testament in the light of Christ’s coming—see Acts 17:2; 18:28] and the fellowship, the breaking of bread [the Lord’s Supper] and the prayers” (Acts 2:42), as well as praise (Acts 2:46) both spoken and sung (Eph 5:18–20; Col 3:16).2
Word/Table Structure
A basic pattern of word and table typified Christian meetings not only during this period, but for many centuries afterwards.3 (The Lord’s Supper was observed in one form or another in virtually every Sunday gathering until the sixteenth century.) This pattern reflects not only the dual influence of synagogue (word) and temple (table), but also of the biblical paradigm of ↓ revelation (word) and ↑ response (table).
During the 1980s, this author visited a Brethren church in East Germany during the communist era there. In that church, there were two distinct services on Sunday morning. First was what they called the Service of the Word, and then after a break they reconvened for what they termed the Service of the Table.