Bet Midrash

“What Church do you go to?”, someone asks you. “Oh, I go to the Church down on the corner of First Street and Vine.” 

This is a common part of our conversation as Christians. But there is something drastically wrong with that way of talking. What is at “First Street and Vine”? All that is there is a building. Is a building a church? For over 1700 years, buildings have been called “Churches”.

A building is NOT a church. The very act of referring to a building as a church, undermines what a church really is. The word “church” comes from the Greek work “ekklesia”. It was a familiar word in Paul’s day. It referred to a regular “assembly” of people who met together. Paul’s use of the word was to describe an actual gathering of people. The focus here is people that believe in Jesus meeting together and fellowshipping. People is the central focal point, not the building they meet in.

Recent archaeological evidence firmly proves that there were no Christian Church Buildings prior to 323 AD. The book of Acts clearly shows that the early Christians fellowshipped and met together in their homes. They occasionally all met together in public places. But it is evident that the main place of their “meeting together” (in other words - church) was in their living rooms.

Archaeologists have also discovered why they can find no evidence of Church buildings prior to 323AD. Thousands of legal documents written on papyrus from AD 100 to 400 have been found in North Africa. These are deeds, tax records, surveys and etc. Many of the documents give the name of the family that lived in each house, the occupation of those employed and their religion.  Many times in these documents, they find the statement, “Christians meet together in this house.” At times the archaeologists could determine the actual location of just such a house. When they dug, they always found a house. No indication of it’s use, except the tax record or deed.

For over 300 years after the death of Christ, Christians gathered in informal settings, in their living rooms. They ate together. They shared with each other what they had learned from their walk with Jesus. 

This casual, close knit fellowship of Christians was destroyed by The Emperor Constantine. How did he destroy it? By persecution? No, the organic life and vibrancy of Christians prospered under persecution. No, Constantine destroyed the simple life of the church by supposedly becoming a Christian himself. He made Christianity the religion of the empire. In 323 AD He started building large ornate buildings for Christians to meet in. He patterned the buildings after the Pagan temples that were named after the various Gods that were worshiped, i.e. “Zeus” or “Apollo” . Like the pagan temples, the Christian buildings were also named, But with more biblical names such as “Peter” or “Paul” or “Mary”.

Suddenly Christians had large cold impersonal buildings to meet in. It was a lot different from their living rooms. Virtually overnight, the whole meaning of “church” changed. No longer was it a warm, intimate time of sharing life in Jesus. It was now a cold, impersonal gathering of hundreds of people in some strange pagan type temple. Eventually, the word “church” even began to be used to describe this large building that the people met in. Oh, how far we have come! 

© 2025 B Arnold Stein

Acts 20:7 – 12   (NIV)

7 On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and, because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. 8 There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting. 9 Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell to the ground from the third story and was picked up dead. 10 Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “He’s alive!” 11 Then he went upstairs again and broke bread and ate. After talking until daylight, he left. 12 The people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted.

            This passage is one of the more interesting stories from the New Testament. It appears that Paul droned on and on all night. His preaching got so boring that Eutychus fell out the window and died. It seems it was a Sunday morning Church service, as verse 7 says it was the first day of the week. They must have also taken communion as verse 7 indicates that they broke bread. So we can easily relate to that. It was a Sunday morning church service that seemed to last forever and the preacher was so incredibly boring that someone fell out the window. Or is that really what happened after all?

            First of all we must bear in mind that according to the Jewish Calendar, the day begins at sundown the previous day. The first day of the week, begins on what we call Saturday night. The New English Bible translates verse 7: “On the Saturday night”.  Verse 8 also clearly indicates that it was at night when they were meeting: 8 There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting. It is a bit easier to understand how Paul could have preached until midnight, if the service began at sundown. It would be hard to imagine the service lasting from Sunday morning until the next morning.

            Second of all when the early church took communion it was not in the stuffy liturgical, religious setting that we sometimes take it in. Most scholars agree that communion was taken in context of a potluck fellowship meal. In fact, the Beck translation renders the middle of verse 7: “When we met for a meal”. Communion indicated the close and intimate fellowship of the brothers as well as their fellowship with the Lord.

            Thirdly, Paul was not “preaching” to them. The American Standard Version renders verse 7: “Paul discoursed with them.” E.V. Rieu’s translation renders it: “Paul was holding a discussion with them.” The actual Greek word used is “dialegomai”. Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words: defines this Greek word as follows: “ The King James translates it “preached,” in Acts 20:7 & 9; This the Revised Version corrects to “discoursed,” literally, “dialogued,” that is, not by way of a sermon, but by a discourse of a more conversational character.” 

            The true picture of what was happening in this passage is now emerging. The brothers and sisters were having a pot luck fellowship meal on Saturday night, prior to Paul’s departure the next day. Paul was leading a participatory, back and forth discussion about the Lord Jesus. The discussion was so enjoyable that everyone stayed and continued it until the next morning. Eutychus did not fall asleep and fall out the window because the meeting was boring, but due to the lateness of the hour. Meetings in the early church were much more fellowship oriented and casual than our current day church services. Everyone was expected to participate. The teaching was more conversational, with everyone involved.

            This passage indicates a problem we have in approaching the scriptures. We understand what we read thru colored glasses. Everything we perceive is tainted by our current cultural mindset. Here we thought we were reading a passage accurately describing Sunday morning church, just as we practice it today. But in actuality, it was describing something much different.

© 2025 B Arnold Stein