Worship and life in the early church
Without buildings or the protection of the law, the early church met in homes on the Lord's day to hear the apostles and prophets, to pray and to give thanks over bread and cup, and it baptized those it had taught. The Didache's prayers, the worship Justin set before the emperor around 150–155, and the care of the sick in time of plague show a people for whom worship and love went together.
A church in the home
The first church had no buildings. In Jerusalem the believers met in the temple courts and broke bread from house to house (Acts 2:46), and Paul, greeting Prisca and Aquila in Rome, adds, "Greet also the church that meets at their house" (Romans 16:5). A church was not a building but the people gathered in a home. Luke draws them so:
The multitude of believers was one in heart and soul. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they owned.
Acts 4:32
They gathered to break bread on the first day of the week, the day the Lord rose (Acts 20:7). That table was the Lord's Supper Paul had handed on to the Corinthians:
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
1 Corinthians 11:26
Baptism and the Lord's table
The Didache, a church manual usually dated around 100, first teaches the way of life and the way of death, and then says: "Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water" Didache 7.1. If there is no running water, other water will do; if there is neither, water is poured three times on the head; and before the baptism the one baptizing and the one baptized are to fast. Baptism was the end of a road of learning and repentance and the door to the church's table: only the baptized were to eat the thanksgiving Didache 9.5. The same book tells believers to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays and to pray the Lord's Prayer three times a day Didache 8, so that worship ran on through the week.
On every Lord's day, it says, gather, break bread and give thanks; and "let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled" Didache 14.2. It gives prayers of thanksgiving over the cup and the bread, and the prayer over the bread asks that the scattered church be gathered:
Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Thy kingdom; for Thine is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ for ever.
Didache 9.4
Around 150–155, Justin, a Christian teacher in Rome, answered the suspicions about Christian meetings by describing their worship plainly to the emperor. The newly baptized were brought to the assembly of the brethren for common prayer and greeted with a kiss. The president gave thanks over bread and wine mixed with water, the people answered Amen, and "to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons". This food, he wrote, is called the Eucharist, and only those who believe the teaching, have been baptized and live as Christ commanded may receive it. On Sunday the writings of the apostles and prophets were read and expounded, and a collection helped orphans and widows, the sick, prisoners and strangers: the president "takes care of all who are in need" Justin, First Apology 65–67.
From this frame of word, prayer and the thanksgiving meal, the worship of today's traditions has grown. The Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox, the Catholic Mass and the Sunday services of the Protestant churches each remember this root; see Worship and the Lord's Day and the doctrine course's Worship and prayer. How the churches understand the bread and cup differently is in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Widows, orphans and the sick
James says what true religion is:
Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James 1:27
The church lived this out in alms and care. When plague spread in the middle of the third century, Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, wrote that the pagans abandoned the sick and fled, while Christians nursed them at their own risk, and many died with them Eusebius, Church History 7.22.
Women stood at the heart of this service. Paul commends Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea, who had been a great help to many, including himself; he greets Prisca and Aquila, who risked their lives for him, and Mary, who had worked very hard (Romans 16:1-6). Wesley takes Phoebe for a deaconess, and of such women says: "It was their office, not to teach publicly, but to visit the sick, the women in particular, and to minister to them both in their temporal and spiritual necessities" Wesley. Paul's words about his fellow prisoners Andronicus and Junia are read either as counting them among the apostles or as saying the apostles knew them well, and many scholars today take Junia for a woman's name (Romans 16:7). Churches today differ over which offices women may hold, but they agree that women shared deeply in the early church's service and witness.
Citizens of heaven
The Epistle to Diognetus, by an unknown writer of the second or third century, says that Christians are not marked off from others by where they live, their language or their customs. They follow the dress and food of whatever city they live in, yet live even in their own country as strangers: "They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven" The Epistle to Diognetus 5–6. Paul had written, "But our citizenship is in heaven" (Philippians 3:20).
The early church was small and without power. Yet every Lord's day it gathered before the word and the table, and from that table it went out to the poor and the prisoner; for these Christians, worship and love of neighbour were not two things. Our worship is like theirs when it reaches as far as the orphan, the widow and the sick. The next lesson, Canon, creed and bishop, shows how this church kept the apostles' faith against false teaching.
Practice
- Practice 1 of 7
What does Paul's greeting to "the church that meets at their house" show?
- Practice 2 of 7
What does the Didache tell someone at variance with a fellow believer to do before the Lord's day gathering?
- Practice 3 of 7
What did Justin, around 150–155, tell the emperor about Christian worship?
- Practice 4 of 7
What does the Didache teach about baptism?
- Practice 5 of 7
What did Dionysius of Alexandria report about the plague of the mid-third century?
- Practice 6 of 7
Whom does Paul commend in Romans 16 as a servant of the church in Cenchrea?
- Practice 7 of 7
How does the Epistle to Diognetus picture Christians?
Reading to the end marks it read; tap to switch it.
Related topics
Source
- The early church, The Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) — c. 100. Chapter 7 describes baptism in the triune name; chapters 9–10 give prayers for the Eucharist. Read
- Justin Martyr, First Apology — c. 150–155. Asks the emperor to judge Christians by their deeds, not their name (chs 3–4), and sets out at length the prophecies fulfilled in Jesus (chs 30–53). Chapters 65–67 describe baptism, the Eucharist and Sunday worship in the second-century church.
- Eusebius, Church History 7.22 — c. 325. Quotes the letter of Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria: in the plague of the mid-third century the pagans fled from the sick, while Christians nursed them at their own risk, and many died with them.
- The early church, The Epistle to Diognetus 5–6 — 2nd or 3rd century. Christians are in the world but not of it; what the soul is in the body, they are in the world. They live on earth, but are citizens of heaven (ch. 5).
Lessons from the Bible, the church's creeds and the sources and witnesses of its history. They tell the church's story fairly, as each tradition remembers it, and do not hide the church's sins. Scripture quotations: BSB.