Jul. 06, 2025

Your House and the Church At Rome (06 July 2025)

Introduction - This lesson carries on the idea of the Dominion Mandate introduced several weeks ago.  We’re going to examine the role your home has in this great mandate set against the backdrop of the Church in Rome, a major church in the early formation of the Body of Christ.  

The church at Rome was probably founded by Jews who had become Christians on the Day of Pentecost or shortly thereafter.  That was an amazing evangelistic act of the Holy Spirit in which 3,000 people were added as believers in the early hours of that event, probably in late May of 33 AD: 

Acts 2:41-47 So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. 42They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. 44And all the believers were together and had all things in common; 45and they would sell their property and possessions and share them with all, to the extent that anyone had need. 46Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, 47praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. NASB

This is how the church at Jerusalem started.  Notice that this unfettered beginning was accompanied by signs and wonders.  Does this description sound like God packed all the 3,000 new members of the church of Jerusalem into a stadium every day where they all bedded down, learned the Bible, and ate?  No! It’s obvious that much of their spiritual life was conducted in homes.  The meetings they had at the temple didn’t last for long.  By Acts 8:1 a great persecution arose against the church.  Christians were not popular.  There is no record of Temple usage by Christians after Acts 5 (except for Paul’s purification ruse to avoid strife with the existing Jewish population in Acts 21.)  

Jews who were visiting from their home in Rome to celebrate the Jewish feast of Pentecost got saved and eventually went back to their homes in Rome.  They quickly found that they did not fit into their synagogue life and began meeting in homes as Christians.  Rome was a melting pot of all kinds of religions.  The Roman authorities did not mind this, they just wanted peace between all the religions and they wanted everyone to worship the Emperor as God.  

This caused problems for Christians and Jews, who were both monotheistic.  Increasingly, their claim that a there is only one God drew more and more attention.  They refused to worship the Emperor as a God.  Eventually, Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Jerusalem in 49 AD, about 16 years after the church of Rome started.  This meant that the existing leadership of the newly formed church at Rome changed all of its leadership to Gentiles who were new converts.  The Jews were allowed to return 5 years later after Claudius died.  During that time the congregation of the  church at Rome changed from a predominantly Messianic Jewish group to a Gentile Christian church, the Gentiles coming from every heathen culture imaginable.  Romans themselves had 67 gods, led by Jupiter, King of the gods.  So, as the Jews came back into Rome and their old congregations, there was a clash of religious beliefs. The Jews had their ingrained backgrounds of the observance of Jewish days and foods, whereas the Gentiles had a complex system of their own public festivals, ancestor worship, temples, sacrifices, and home shrines. 

This caused obvious problems for the church, which was comprised entirely of house-churches, so Paul wrote the book (letter) of Romans in about 57AD to straighten out some of these differences.  Romans 14 and 15 were dedicated to solving these problems, for example.  During this time Emperor Nero severely persecuted Christians, followed by Emperor Domitian.  This persecution lasted until Emperor Constantine got converted to Christianity around 300 AD.  He meant well but succeeded in hurting the church in the long run by making Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.  He helped it build public buildings, made it formal and official, with vestments and ceremonies and made the emperor subject to the church!  This lead to power struggles within the church and allowed to church to persecute its own.  The outcome was that parts of the church began to be rejected and parts which were approved, hence, denominations. The church today is much like this.  It is a divided kingdom.  We’re relatively powerless because of it.   

The Tide is turning!  God is moving His church out of big, programmatic institutions into small, transformative homes!  God never wanted the church to be something other than small groups meeting in homes, which multiplied exponentially and were guided by apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.  It was not until the year 230-240 AD that the first dedicated church building shows up in archaeological evidence.  It was a large house with a baptismal, windows, no sleeping area, no latrine, and it held about 75 people.  There were conceivably more of these made, but there is not any evidence of them.  The early church, up until the time of Emperor Constantine, met in houses.  In 303 AD Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official Roman religion.  Dedicated public buildings began taking the place of house churches in a wholesale manner. Straight through to today, that is how the church has housed itself.  There have been many problems associated with this move to public buildings.  Due to the clergy-laity separation, most people don’t grow in simple skills necessary to minister the gospel, like evangelism, teaching, and healing.  God still blesses the prayers of well-meaning people, though, even in our spiritually weak traditional churches:

Mark 6:4-6 Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not dishonored except in his hometown and among his own relatives, and in his own household.” 5And He could not do any miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6And He was amazed at their unbelief.  NASB

This explains why there are almost never any sweeping miracles in the western world where ALL are healed today.  If we are in the midst of a group of people who have been granted the authority to lay hands on the sick, as we all have, but we even secretly disdain some of them, it is no mystery that healing will not happen.  So, once the church began to experience divisions, the mentions of healings and miracles dropped radically.  Notice that many of the Epistles (books from Acts onward), don’t even mention miraculous healings.  Instead, books like Galatians, (which were written to Christians), spotlight divisive conflict.  You can find this in almost any of the epistles.  By contrast, we are to accept each other and move toward love.   

Romans 15:5-9 Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6so that with one purpose and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us, for the glory of God. 8For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision in behalf of the truth of God, to confirm the promises given to the fathers, 9and for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy; NASB

The unity of the church in a city is critically important.  I am campaigning at the top of my voice to urge this change! Here’s an event coming up I urge you to capture:  This Saturday morning at 10:30 you’ll have an opportunity to “receive” a new group of fellow-laborers within the body of Christ.  We deliberately plan a “City Church Celebration” to give other churches a chance to speak to the Christian church of Monessen, whoever will come to hear.    On July 12, Captain Kara Martin from the Salvation Army will be speaking.  She’ll be bringing a number of her congregation with her.  You can be there to hug and welcome these Christians who are ministering alongside us.   

Conclusion - Your house can be a powerful place where dominion happens! In the years we have been promoting house churches, we have seen very gratifying growth.  We have seen the development of 11-12 groups with varying missions, including prayer, evangelism, teaching, deliverance, healing, and fellowship. This is really where your growth as a disciple gets accelerated. We have watched 8-10 speakers develop skill to speak to our entire congregation.  The feeling of “family” is developed there.  This is something to think about and plan for!  It is very simple, from sharing food with one other person to hosting a meeting which someone else can lead.  You’re doing what Jesus said, changing the world by “And I also say, use this earthly wealth, however acquired, to make friends so that when it is gone, they will receive you and you will have everlasting habitation.”  Lamsa Bible