The church, it's beginnings

It is such a big issue dealing with the church, it is hard knowing where to start. If you start in the wrong place you have to explain everything else to back up what you are saying. Get it right and the picture should build itself up one bit at a time!!

I think first of all we will start with two views, one is like looking at the Christian's week through a telescope from a distance, and then we will zoom right in to the Sunday meeting as if through a microscope.

Firstly though, you know that the word "Church" doesn't mean a building! It comes from a term that means those who are called out. It was the same word used of local councils. a meeting of the people called out from among the people.

When the church started there were no life long members, no Christians from birth, no old ladies who'd been there since before the building was built making sure no one can do anything! There were the Apostles and what they had been taught. These Apostles had been given the specific instruction to teach people what they had seen and heard, to make disciples and to establish the church.

There was no New Testament other than what the apostle's taught. So that's where we'll start, first they preached, and people believed and then they taught those who believed. They taught them, at first, on mass in the temple. In the temple around inside of the outer wall were lots of arches. In the court of the gentiles anyone was allowed to stand in one of these arches and teach. So that's what the apostles did. After all they were not a new religion, they were the fulfilment of the Jewish religion, where better to teach. Even today many Jewish converts call them selves completed Jews or Messianic Jews. So, the church gathered in the temple to hear the apostles teaching. This we are told happened daily. They didn't have TV then so they were not used to locking themselves away of an evening. There was time in the day for things like this.

But we also know not only did they devote themselves to the apostles teaching but they also devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. We know that the breaking of bread was something that took place on a Sunday and it took place in the believer's homes.

So we have two separate meetings going on, one is the meetings in the temple to hear the word preached and the other is the gathering in the homes on Sundays to break bread.

We also know that the word used for this "the Lord's supper" was a word that means a meal, the main meal of the day, in fact. We know from other places that this was a full meal referred to as the love feast as well as the Lord's supper. Again denoting that this was a large meal, as much a celebration as anything. We know from the Corinthian book that people were getting drunk as well. The alcohol was not frowned on, just the getting drunk!

Now, clearly it would be impractical to make a feast at the temple everyday, but we know that they didn't do that. This was the Lord's day celebration that took place in believers homes.

So, to start with, the "scripture teaching" and the "sacred meal" were not part of the same meeting.