As a part of my interest in house church, a book was recommended to me: Houses That Change the World, written by Wolfgang Simson. There was a lot of stuff in this book that really resonated with me. It's not really a "how-to" book, though. It doesn't seem to flow very well from chapter to chapter. But it definitely lays out the values and principles of house church, and how it has the capacity to reach entire nations, whereas a traditional church structure does not.

One of the greatest chapters in the book deals with history of house church since New Testament times.

The New Testament makes it clear that in the early church, churches primarily met in people's homes. Nothing is said about owning or building anything. Nothing is said about evangelism, missions, worship "services," or trying to influence mainstream culture.

Much is said, however, about the the ministries of the apostles - a ministry which, along with prophets, is completely dismissed by traditional churches - and the way in which the apostles led the churches through planting churches and discipling believers. As Simson says, "the New Testament church has mostly been an organic, relational, spiritual family, multiplying itself."

Over time, there were serious confrontations to the truth of the gospel and the function of the church. One of the first was mentioned by Christ in Revelation 2:6 - "But there is something you do that is right: You hate what the Nicolaitans do, as much as I." This is referring to the group that "emphasized the difference between the 'listening lay people and the ministering brothers.'" The term Nicolaitan literally means "to conquer the common people." It was the first attempt to create clergy at the top, with lay people underneath.

It wasn't long, however, until the concept of clergy won out.

Simson says that:

Early on, the church started to give in to the pressure for security. Around AD 150, for example, 'scholastic theology' was introduced as a system to interpret Scripture and defend it against heresies such as Gnosticism... in order to defend the truth and the church against this, the church strongly focused on dogma and creed, and tightly observed who was able and allowed to do ministry, and who not... control is the natural development of a lack of trust; it comes from fear, the opposite of faith, and leads people to build a system in order to make sure that nothing can go wrong... as a result, the church focuses more on 'safe' rituals, 'right' formulae and 'approved' liturgies, and tries to become watertight as well as foolproof.

As a byproduct of this, the church quickly fell into the hands of enthusiastic theological watchdogs, policemen of the faith and a new version of 'bishops', king-like figures who were no longer the most humble servants and plain down-to-earth elders... again, a human Saul replaced God as the real king of the people of God.

Ironically, it was this development that led the church further into apostasy.

Emperor Constantine became a Christian in 312 AD, and made Christianity the state religion.

In the years after 312 the church became heavily professionalized... the church needed to be 'fit for the king' and his company, and that meant cathedrals, not shabby houses. Thus, the great divide between clergy and laity not only emerged, but was sanctioned, institutionalized, sealed and protected by the state... the church lost its identity as a prophetic counter-culture, supernaturally different from the patterns of this world, and became a celebrated insider.

Then the bomb dropped. In 380 AD, bishops Theodosius and Gratian, operating with the full authority of the Roman government, required all Roman citizens to be members of the single, state-recognized, orthodox church, and banned all other churches, including those meeting in homes. Less than 350 years after Christ's death, the exact form that Christ himself used to disciple the twelve was banned from the church.

Things just got worse from there.

416 - Infant baptism was first introduced in 220 AD, but became mandatory in 416.

431 - The Council of Ephesus proclaimed the worship of Mary.

440 - Leo the Great pronounced himself Bishop of Rome.

445 - Cesar Valentian declared himself the spiritual leader of the Western Empire.

607 - Boniface III adopted the title "Pope," which comes from the title pontifex maximus, meaning "big bridgebuilder," a term used by Roman emperors to declare themselves high priests and gods.

709 - Kissing the Pope's foot introduced.

786 - Worship of images and relics developed.

850 - First use of holy water.

995 - Canonizations of dead saints.

1079 - Celibacy of the priesthood instituted.

1090 - Prayer beads adopted from several pagan religious systems.

1184 - The Inquisition begins, and made official by Pope Innocent IV (the irony) in 1252. Millions are killed.

1190 - The sale of indulgences - relief from punishment of sins in exchange for the payment of money - instituted.

1215 - Transubstantiation of the water and wine declared: these elements supernaturally change into the body and blood of Jesus at the incantation of the priest.

1229 - Bible declared to be too holy for ordinary people to read, and was forbidden to laymen.

1414 - Communion cup was forbidden to lay people.

1439 - Doctrine of Purgatory decreed.

1439 - Dogma of the sacraments affirmed.

1545 - The traditional teachings of the Roman Catholic Church granted equal authority with the Bible at the Council of Trent.

And so things turned full circle. What began with the separation of clergy and laity, partly to protect Christianity from heresy, ended up with a heretical church declaring that its unbiblical teachings were of equal authority with the Bible.

Two things were required for this to happen - first, the church had to wield immense political power. Second, the state-sponsored church had to use that power to shut down groups of Christians meeting in their own homes for discipleship.

Luther started to reverse the trend when he discovered the "heartbeat of the gospel, salvation by faith and grace, and the centrality of Scripture." Luther, and others like him, "reformed the content but not the form of Christianity." Since Luther, more reforms have brought us closer to what Christ himself taught. Yet the predominant structure of church has remained largely unchanged since house churches were banned by the Roman government.

If it was possible for the very essence of the gospel - salvation by faith, justification by grace - to be buried under the sand of history, what about the rest? If we can gravely err in the very key and core issues, could we also have erred in other, lesser issues? The fact that the Bible was again given into the hands of common people started what I call the history of rediscovery: it was the turning point where the church started to climb again out of darkness, escape its own structural prison and rediscover, step by step, long-forgotten truth and long-forgotten practices, including the house church as an organic form of church.

Labels: books, church, house church