Hi all,
When the Lord created Adam and Eve in the Garden, He established the home as the primary place to learn about, know, and walk with God. It is the place to see how Christ (husband) and the church (wife) interact, treat each other, and depend on the Father God in their lives.
This is why Paul wrote in Ephesians 5: 21-33 of this very thing, concluding in v32: “This is a great mystery; I am speaking of Christ and the church.” That’s His intent, the best-case scenario.
Revelation depends on family life
In Genesis 18: 17-19 the Lord and 2 angels had dinner with Abraham. This is known as a ‘theophany’. When Christ materialized temporarily in the Old Testament in various situations (and 2 angels in this case) to take part in natural things, like the meal they ate with Abraham.
The Lord pauses and we are given insight into His thoughts: “Shall I hide from Abraham what I’m about to do, seeing that he will become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed because of him? I know him, that he will raise his children and household in the ways of the Lord…”
This provides another revelation, that God ties the quality of the family life to revelation He gives into the earth. He based sharing the information that He was going to destroy Sodom on the quality of Abraham’s family life.
God’s plans for the family
Furthermore, the revelation of His plans allowed Abraham to intercede for the city. Remember that Lot, Abraham’s nephew, and his family, lived in Sodom. The Lord knew all this when He tied Abraham’s family life to revealing His plans for the city. So the revelation within the family concerns first and foremost, God’s plans for that family.
If you want more revelation from the Lord for your family, then focus on your home life. Be that husband and/or father in Christ you need to be. Be that wife and/or mother you need to be. The Lord will reveal His plans for that family to that family, within that family. Don’t think (mom or dad) you have to go to church to ‘get a word’ for your family. It starts in the home.
If single, be who you need to be in Christ to your family, friends, neighbors and co-workers. Revelation for the purpose of intercession will come from the Lord for those groups in your life.
Get rid of stinking thinking
If you have thought church meetings are the primary way to learn what God is doing today, that is wrong. When you flow with Him in the original divine order, life falls into place. Things happen, but there is a grace to meet each challenge.
Revelation flows outward from the individual and family to the world. Apostles and prophets according to Ephesians 3: 1-11 DO have revelation about Christ in us and things related to our salvation. Yes. But that scripture says their revelation has to do with what we have in Christ.
In the family, God’s revelation will be about His plans for each member first, then outward to His larger plans in the earth. It makes the family as the primary ‘intercessory prayer team’ in the earth.
Flash forward to 150 years before Jesus’ ministry in the gospels.
The Greeks have invaded Israel and Jewish leaders realize they are being overrun with worldly influence. God’s emphasis was on each family learning the things of God, so He only commanded they come to the temple in Jerusalem 3x a year. (Deuteronomy 16:16, Ex 23:17, I Kings 9:25)
They only had to go to temple 3x in a year because God focused on His knowledge flowing in and through each family. Amazing how backwards we have it in church auditorium culture. We now emphasize going to ‘church’ 1-3x a week, giving our children to strangers to teach them about God. How backwards from the original intent! The Lord commanded daily revelation and talk of Him in the home, supplemented only 3x a year with a big assembly in the temple.
The problem with that plan is that if families fail, the knowledge of God doesn’t flow into the earth. And in this case, the families of Israel were failing, heavily influenced by Greek emphasis on sports, fashion, art, theater, and working out at gymnasiums. How could they keep the next generation in the ways of the Lord when there are all those outside influences?
Around the time of the Maccabee’s (when the miracle of Hanukkah happened)
There was a revival trying to reclaim Jewish ways. A group known as the ‘separated ones’ decided families should meet in homes each Sabbath (Saturday), with a minimum of 10 families comprising each ‘gathering’. The ‘separated ones’ would copy the OT and travel to these home gatherings.
These separated ones also decided a person could walk on the Sabbath up to about 1/4 mile (.5km) before walking became work. It meant these Saturday gatherings were within each family’s radius of 1/4 mile (.5km).
Remember a 13 year old boy was counted as an adult male. So you could have as few as 2 or 3 families making up each weekly gathering. (Jesus’ 4 brothers were named in Mt 13:55, so that family with 1 or 2 others with several boys could form a weekly gathering.)
These weekly ‘gatherings’ would become the house churches in Acts.
The word ‘separated ones’ is the word ‘Pharisee’. The word ‘gathering’ is ‘synagogue.’ When you see Jesus in the synagogue teaching, realize those were in homes. At the most there would be the occasional abandoned home they could meet in, but much of the time synagogues or gatherings were held in homes. The building we now call a synagogue came about like the building we call church did, centuries later.
When Pentecost happened and so many people started following the apostles, it was a synagogue split. I’ve seen estimates there were 10,000 believers in Jerusalem, all of them meeting in homes. The Pharisees were furious that a bunch of uneducated men would break off of their 150 year old system, teaching about Jesus whom they had killed.
They didn’t meet in homes because of persecution.
They were already meeting in homes under the 150 year old Pharisee’s synagogue system. As the gospel spread they continued meeting in homes, for the home remains God’s creation for learning of Him and seeing His life demonstrated in day to day living. It was a natural thing to gather with other living temples of God over food and talk, study and prayer, to learn about Him and what He was doing in everyone’s lives.
Roman, Greek, and Hebrew culture included family and neighbors regularly getting together for meals, sharing what was happening in their lives – so house church fit both the Jewish and Roman practice of groups meeting in homes.
That’s why all the New Testament was written by apostles doing church in the home, writing to people doing church in the home. The ‘5-fold’, the charismatic gifts, the Lord’s Supper, Baptisms water and Holy Spirit – all in context as happening in homes. If you’ve been part of the auditorium church, you’ve taken God’s Word out of context, as has your pastor, every visiting teacher – and it doesn’t work well to take God’s Word out of context. Put it back in the home and you can toss the bookstore manuals on how to do church – it’s all laid out in the pages of the New Testament.
Next week – focus on our times, how to start a house church.
Until then, blessings,
John Fenn
