IS A HOUSE CHURCH LEGITIMATE? by: Rev. Dr. Timothy Hoflund, D.D.

There is a question in the mind of some people about the legitimacy of a House Church.  At the same time, there are those who claim the House Church is the only legitimate form of New Testament Church Gathering!  Of course there are also those that claim that the House Church is no longer a valid form of Church Gathering and Activities.

The short answer is that as the Church was first established, a family's house was often used to conduct what we would call "church services".  The Apostles recognized these as "churches" or perhaps better stated as "the church in the house of - - - -". 

So then, without a doubt, the record shows that the Apostles recognized the house church!  Yet, the New Testament record DOES NOT indicate that the House Church was the only legitimate gathering of saints or of ministry activity!  Also, the New Testament record does not indicate that this was ever stopped or banned!

Therefore, a House Church is most certainly legitimate!  So why the issue?  Why the question?

It all started with Rome!  In the course of time, the Protestants happily carried on the issue with House Churches.

The Romans relied upon their pagan, pantheistic practices of relating a religion to it's temple and by this was able to peaceably allow many religions to coexist ... and to control the many religions in order to extract funds for the Roman government! The Romans allowed every religion of conquered people to exist as long as they paid tribute to Rome and restricted themselves to practice their religion at the temple!

When Christians came on the scene, one of the great frustrations that the Roman government had was that Christianity was not a religion in the typical sense!  Instead of a group of people that centered around a building, this was a living Body that was housed in the group(s) of people, not the group(s) being housed in a particular place! 

Up until Christianity, it was easy for Rome to co-opt a religion and incorporate it into the Roman way of life ... and extract taxes from the religion for the use of Rome!  If a religion did not cooperate with Rome, the Romans merely destroyed the temples of that religion and relatively soon afterwards, the religion dissolved and it's adherents dissipated!

In fact, the Romans often initially destroyed the temples of the conquered people in order to help in subduing them ... only to gain the loyalty of the conquered masses by showing approval of their religion in re-building their religious temples!  Of course, when Rome built the temple, Rome appointed the Priests and Leaders of each conquered religion and kept control of each religion by restricting them to the temple!  Judaism was no different!  In fact, the Jewish Temple which existed during the walk of Christ had been built in Jerusalem by King Herod!  This was done in order to pacify the Jews and craftily preclude mass rebellion! 

The Jews wanted the freedom to practice their religion.  Rome rebuilt their temple and said "here, you can practice your religion here!"  But to keep control of the "message" of the Jews' religion, Rome appointed the High Priests and the Ruling Class of Jews within the Temple! 

Caesar appointed the High Priest.  Judaism existed at the pleasure of Rome and was kept subjugated to the Jewish Temple! Again, this is how Rome controlled the people by controlling their religions.  Rome controlled their religions by restricting the free practice of each religion to its respective real estate!  Synagogues were allowed, but only as approved by the Temple in Jerusalem ... which was controlled by Rome!  Any "unauthorized" meetings of the Jews were seen as the meetings of rebels and were ferreted out and extinguished!

When Rome became Christianized, Rome continued on with its practice of building temples in conquered lands, but with the following changes:  Rome outlawed any non-Christian religion ... but incorporated pagan practices into the local Church activities under a different name; Rome outlawed any non-Roman form of Christianity ... and destroyed any non-Roman Christian place of worship; Rome built new temples and welcomed (often by force) the previously non-Roman Christians to be incorporated into the activities centered around the Roman Temples.  It was the same song just a different dance!

During this very long period of Romanized Christianity, "House Churches" were outlawed by the Roman Church for the same reason that "unauthorized meetings" of the Jews were outlawed in Israel ... to preclude rebellion!  House Churches were beyond the ability of Rome to control them.  House Churches often were the meeting places of the religious malcontents ... those who did not accept Rome's form of Christian practices. 

In other words, House Churches were made illegal because they were not open to the scrutiny of the Pope's representatives as Cathedral meetings were.  If it was being conducted in a house then surely they are meeting in secret, and if they are meeting in secret surely they have something to hide, and what is there to hide except "protesting" or "paganism"?  Either way, Rome declared it to be wrong and set about to destroy it!

Sadly, Rome was forgetting of course that in the initial days of the Church, houses were valid meeting places because of many reasons, most of which had no clandestine purposes at all, except perhaps mere survival! 

Rome's greatest fears come to pass with the advent of The Reformation!  Protestantism took hold in Europe and eventually even the King of England broke ties with the Roman Church!  Why?  Why did the Reformation take place? Because what surely began as a wonderful development in Rome, the acceptance of Christ Jesus as Lord by a Roman Caesar ... had a very major flaw!  It was identified by Jesus as the deeds of the Nicolaitans, the heresy that there is a hierarchy within the Church which creates false divisions within the Body of Christ based on Ministers being exclusive of all others which are called the "laity".

In other words, Rome developed a system of control which interfered with the ability of any single Christian to be in direct fellowship with God as proclaimed by Jesus in the Gospels!  People who refused this control did so at the peril of their very lives!

Protestantism swept Europe like a flood!  Changes took place throughout the Body of Christ.  Changes for the better in most instances.  However one fatal flaw remained alive and well in the Protestant movements and churches ... the heresy of the Nicolaitans!  Look at any major denomination today and you will see a false hierarchy in place!  Rulership from the "top down" is the norm.  Instead of one Pope as with the Roman Church, there are many!  Whether a President of a Denomination or Convention, the Bishop of a Church Group, whatever it is called, there is still a false hierarchy and churches are still very much concerned with controlling the individual freedoms of the saints of God!

In fact, there was an example right there!  A Saint of God!  This is a point of control for both Roman and Protestant!  Romans say that to be a saint, one must be dead for a lot of years, must have lived a totally exemplary life which is documented by historic record, and must be approved by some voting process by the College of Cardinals in Rome!  No Roman Christian in their right mind would dare to call themselves a saint ... even thought the New Testament clearly identifies every Christian as being a Saint of God!

In Protestant and Non-denominational circles, to call yourself a Saint is viewed with contempt and accusation of being filled with a false sense of piety because of pride!  Either way, anyone who dares to call themselves what God Himself calls His people runs the range of risk of being mildly rebuked or challenged to being severely chastised and even ostracized! 

Even the manner in which churches schedule their weekly events are based on controlling the people!  If you want to be a good Christian in the very great majority of churches, you will find that you must attend at the specified times and at the specified places to conduct worship and study!  Churches have long ago forgotten that The Church, The Earthly Body of Christ was established to take the Gospel to the sinners based on the routines and activities of the sinners!  Much, too much of the Church has forgotten the dictum of the Head of this earthly Body which is this, "Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."  Matthew 20:28

So today, a House Church is often viewed by traditional churches as a threat to the status quo!  Often times a House church" is perceived to be undermining the authority of the "real" church!  Actually these fears are based upon a false premise ... the heresy of the Nicolaitans!  Any time that a group of people are in control based on wrong reasoning, they are being threatened by what is right, but the threat is not that they will be somehow overthrown or that a rebellion will arise!  The real danger is that the people in wrong control will be exposed as being in control fraudulently!

Now it is at this point that I must state something very clearly.  THERE IS A "HOUSE CHURCH MOVEMENT" WHICH HAS THE AIM OF OVERTURNING THE STRUCTURE OF TYPICAL CHURCHES!  True Hope Churches & Ministries is not a part of this movement, we do not support the ideas of this movement nor do we subscribe to the ideals of this movement!

The House Churches of True Hope exist for one reason and one reason only ... ultimately to glorify God the Father by exalting God the Son by the power of God the Spirit!  We do not involve ourselves with this "movement" or that.  We will make note of any group that is based on or functions in error ... but only in the spirit of Galatians 6:1-2!

All of the preceding is unfortunately needed to be addressed.  However, the issue is not "which is a right" or a "legitimate" form of church gathering!  Actually the real issue is this ... what is the Church, a building or a Body?  When we realize and recognize that part of the uniqueness of Christianity is that we are a BODY in which God lives and through which God performs His actions towards humanity, the contrived issues of WHERE we meet will dissolve away and WHAT WE GATHER FOR will become the main and overriding factor of our existence and meetings regardless of place!

We are the earthly Body of Christ!  Let us get on with the work which Christ has implanted and empowered us to do on this earth, shall we?

Blessings of God and His Love be upon you this day!