Was a synagogue owned?

[Guest]

In another thread Homer has asked if the concept of ownership of property or buildings by a group of believers meeting together in said building is scriptural. Since the synagogue was an early meeting place for Christians, is it relevant to ask who owned the synagogue? I have not been able to find the answer to this question and I ask for help now since it may be relevant to answering his question accurately. I am not looking for a history of the development of the synagogue nor any other related topic. I just want to know if synagogues were owned and, if so, by whom?

Thanks in advance,

livingink

[Guest]

In short, the answer to this question appears to be that synagogues weren't owned because the term synagogue actually refers to the group that met in buildings known as prayer houses. Prayer house came from the Greek "proseuche" which actually means prayer but came to be associated with the place where prayer was conducted or the Jewish meeting hall. There apparently is historical evidence that funds used to construct a meeting hall were obtained from those attending whether Jew or Gentile, pagan members of the community who may have done business with those attending, or possibly from civic funds depending upon who was in charge of government money.

In Greek cities, the ekklesia or town assembly met in the ekklesiasterion. Paul uses the same word ekklesia to refer to the body of believers that has been translated "church". We know that believers met in various locations. We also know that there is no instruction in scripture to build buidings where the synagogue was to meet. We do know that Jesus and Paul attended them and apparently followed the order given for instruction in them. As a result, the evidence probably would show that synagogues owned buildings known as prayer houses and these were used by Jewish and Gentile Christians. There is no scriptural requirement to build one. I can't find a scriptural reference that specifically says not to build one. While the money could always be used for the support of the poor, a steward of God's money who is led by the Holy Spirit may see the need to build a prayer house for the accurate instruction of the ekklesia in the gospel.

I'd appreciate any corrections to my understanding of the Greek.


livingink

[Guest]

One example of the use of the term "synagogue" to denote a building would appear to be in Luke 7:4-5---"When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, '"This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.'" It is not likely that the centurion built a gathering. It is more likely that the centurion personally financed the building or authorized government funds to be used for the building.

The parallel account in Matthew 8:5-13 demonstrates that the centurion was recognized for his faith in Jesus. Then Jesus says, "I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." Since the Roman forces in Capernaum were likely mercenary soldiers recruited from the east, this centurion appears to have a place in the kingdom. So now we have a man with great faith and a place in the kingdom who built a building where the scriptures were taught. Would it be plausible to say that the construction of a building where scripture is taught is not grounds for exclusion from the kingdom? (I am not advocating the position that constructing a building for scriptural instruction is a ground for inclusion in the kingdom)

livingink

[Guest]

Hi livingink,

Can I join the dialog you're having with yourself?

It seems that oftentimes a synagogue was added onto an existing home as a room extension. In other cases, a synagogue was a dedicated building - not attached to a home. Some synagogue structures were paid for by wealthy members or patrons in the community, while others were financed by contributions from all the members (via free-will offerings, not tithes).

"The practice of meeting in private houses was probably an expedient used by Jews in many places as it was for the Pauline Christians, to judge from the remains of synagogue buildings at Dura-Europos, Stobi, Delos, and elsewhere that were adapted from private dwellings. In the cities where Paul founded congregations, however, the Jews had probably already advanced to the stage of possessing buildings used exclusively for the communitiy's functions." (The First Urban Christians, p. 80, Wayne A. Meeks)

"As a rule, synagogues were built at the expense of the congregation, though perhaps assisted by richer neighbours. Sometimes, as we know, they were erected at the cost of private individuals, which was supposed to involve special merit. In other cases, more particularly when the number of Jews was small, a large room in a private house was set apart for the purpose. This also passed in to the early Church, as we gather from Acts 2:46; 5:42. Accordingly we understand the apostolic expression, "Church in the house" (Rom. 16:3, 5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philemon 2), as implying that in all these and other instances a room in a private house had been set apart, in which the Christians regularly assembled for their worship." (Sketches of Jewish Social Life, p. 238, Alfred Edersheim)

Synagogues tended to be based around some common attribute of the members, such as neighborhood, trade guild (tent-makers, purple-dyers, etc.), language, city of origin (Alexandrian, etc.), extended family (oikos), social status, etc.

I think a key point is that the synagogue facility was in use continuously and acted as a hub for the community. It did not sit empty a majority of the time like many of our modern-day church buildings do.

"The synagogue was the center of community, religious, and social life for the Jewish people. It served as the schoolhouse (beth midrash), house of prayer (beth tefillah), meeting house (beth kenesseth), and house of judgment (beth din) for administering community discipline. - (Backgrounds of Early Christianity, p. 540, Everett Ferguson)

[Guest]

Hi Mort,

I was beginning to wonder if anyone really cared about this topic but me! As you might expect, there's more to my discussion with myself than meets the eye--I even started to hijack my own thread by talking about the centurion to see if anyone had an idea. At times, we have had long discussions on the forum about whether Christians should erect buildings or give all money to the poor or to righteous teachers. Since the synagogue seems to be a forerunner of places where worshippers of God met, I thought it would be worthwhile to look at the history of the synagogue to get a clue as to whether Christians could also erect buildings to worship God without violating scriptural example. Your information is greatly appreciated as it impacts several different threads on the forum.

Thanks!

livingink

[Guest]

The issue I oftentimes have with church buildings primarily has to do with stewardship. As I've stated elsewhere, typically 85% of a church's budget goes toward the building and salaries. A miniscule amount is given to the poor. These proportions seem to be the inverse of God's priorities, as shown throughout scripture. What adds insult to injury (IMHO) is that so many of these church buildings which consume a large percentage of the budget sit empty throughout the week.

There is a church here in town, that I sometimes lead worship for, that generates income as a wedding chapel. The wedding chapel business pays for the building and allows the owners of the business to support the pastor (who is also the full-time chaplain at the county jail and has developed a substantial ministry there).

I like the idea of having a building that can pay for itself, has things happening throughout the week and can be used for church services. I've long dreamed of having a coffee shop (not a christian coffee shop) that can also provide a venue for church gatherings.

[Guest]

Yes, I also believe stewardship of the money entrusted to you is the major test. I have been attempting to gather info to begin a home study group for the purpose of learning the workings of the early church. One of the subjects would have to deal with this stewardship idea but I also wanted to see if there were a logical transition from the Jewish prayer house/synagogue to buildings exclusively used for Christian instruction.

Are the references you cited part of your personal library or an on-line source? I'm fairly limited by time and to some extent location. As a result, putting this study together may take quite some time.

As to your coffee house idea, I have been able over the last 6-7 months to bring up subjects in my place of business that I had to study to teach Sunday school to adults for about 3 years. That door closed a few months ago but this one opened. I find that people are open to real nuts and bolts Bible study. Many are people who actually attend a "building" on Sunday morning but who have never heard of concepts such as preterism, steps to salvation, studying the Greek, etc. You seem to have a good historical background based on other posts so I would imagine that you could introduce people to these ideas--both the non-believer and unlearned disciples.

[Guest]

Hi livingink,

It sounds like we're kindred spirits. A few years ago I left a pastoral position to explore what ekklesia really meant in the New Testament. We started a house church with a group of people and it was incredibly rewarding. It was also incredibly challenging and Paul's letters suddenly had so much more relevance to me (especially 1 Corinthians!) as we struggled with learning to be a participating community, not just a passive audience.

One of the highlights was studying/discussing scripture together. I put together a course on how to study the Bible, which was something that no one in our group had ever been taught in their years of church attendance (I used Fee & Stuart's "How to Read the Bible for All It's Worth as my template).

Eventually our house church "exploration" came to an end. I learned many lessons - some positive, some negative.

I also wanted to see if there were a logical transition from the Jewish prayer house/synagogue to buildings exclusively used for Christian instruction.

Although the early church initially modeled it's gatherings on the synagogue, it seems that the concept of church buildings owes more to the pagan Roman basilicas (temples). After Constantine issued the Edict of Milan (sometimes mistakenly called the "Edict of Tolerance") in 313, Christians began building and appropriating their own basilicas. Many of the trappings of pagan temple worship, such as choirs and vestments, also found their way into Christian basilica worship.

So, I agree with you that the place to start in terms of understanding the early church's usage of buildings is the synagogue/midrasha, not the Roman basilica/temple.

Are the references you cited part of your personal library or an on-line source?

They are part of my own library. I'm a book nut (thank God for Half-Price Books and CBD!). I'd be happy to list some book recommendations, though I don't claim to be an authority by any means. One that particularly comes to mind in regards to this conversation is "Paul's Idea of Community" by Robert Banks (published by Hendrickson, ISBN 1-56563-050-5).

[Guest]

Hi Mort,

I really appreciate the info and any other references you might suggest. If it wouldn't be prying, I'd like to know the pros and cons you found in the home study. If we go that route, I'd like to know what I might expect to happen. If others are reading our comments I'm sure they'd appreciate hearing how they might start a group. From other posts, I believe there are several people on this forum who are somewhat disillusioned with "church as usual" and who have the capability to start a group wherever they live. Sometimes you need a little jumpstart or for people like me a kick in the pants to take that servant's role of bringing people together to actually begin to find out what the book really says.

livingink

[Guest]

Hi livingink,

Sorry for the delay in responding. I'll try to answer your request but it may generate a rather lengthy post. I apologize in advance...

Let me provide a little background to our house church experience. I was an Associate Pastor at a Vineyard church when I began wrestling with some difficult questions such as, “What is church?”, “How come what we call church doesn’t look anything like what’s portrayed in scripture?”, “Why does the modern-day church place so much emphasis on the Pastor when the New Testament places so little?”, “Why does the largest percentage of our offerings go to pay the lease on a building that sits empty most of the time?”, “Why is a miniscule percentage of the offerings being used to help people in need (such as members of our own congregation who were dealing with unemployment, foreclosure, etc.)?”.

Ultimately, the Senior Pastor of our church spent so much money on chairs, sound equipment, office space, office furniture, etc., (with minimal input from the elders and minimal disclosure to the congregation) that it put the church into financial trouble. This led to the church disbanding and the Senior Pastor resigning.

I had been reading books such as “Missional Church” http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080284 ... e&n=283155 and visiting websites such as http://www.nextreformation.com. I started to read about a completely different form of church that seemed to harmonize with scripture – one that met in homes, that enabled everyone to participate, that used it’s offerings to help those in need, that didn’t have it’s vision imposed from the “top down” but rather allowed it’s corporate vision to take shape based on what the Lord had put in each of the members.

I came across a fascinating booklet put out by the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention entitled “Church Planting Movements” where they documented areas of the world where the church is experiencing explosive growth (Southern Asia, Africa, South America) and the characteristics of these rapidly growing churches, which include meeting in homes and having non-clergy leadership. You can order the booklet or read it online at http://imbresources.org/index.cfm/fa/st ... dID/17.cfm.

Frank Viola’s books (http://www.ptmin.org) such as “Rethinking the Wineskin”, “Who’s Your Covering?” and “Pagan Christianity” really fired me up to pursue a non-institutional form of church (though I don’t agree with everything that Viola says, or the way he says it).

Other books that had an impact on my understanding of the church included:

“Organic Church” – Neil Cole
“Decoding the Church” – Howard Snyder
“The Problem of Wineskins” – Howard Snyder
“The Externally Focused Church” – Rick Rusaw & Eric Swanson
“The Connecting Church” – Randy Frazee
“The House Church” – Del Birkey
"The Church Comes Home" - Robert & Julia Banks
“Going to Church in the First Century” – Robert Banks
“Paul’s Idea of Community” – Robert Banks
“Rethinking the Church” – James Emery White
“Houses That Change the World” – Wolfgang Simson
“The Second Reformation” – William Beckham
“ekklesia” - Steve Atkerson
“Created for Community” – Stanley Grenz

An awesome little book on leadership entitled “The Leadership Paradox” by Denny Gunderson impacted me as well.

Additionally, I studied church history in hopes of understanding “how we got here from there.” Steve’s lecture series on church history is an excellent resource in this regard.

I found tons of great websites about house churching just by Googling “house church”.

As the Vineyard we were part of began to split apart we decided to launch out into what we termed “Exploring Ekklesia”. Here’s my old blog site from that time period:
http://dannycoleman.blogspot.com/2003_0 ... chive.html.
If you scroll down to the very bottom there’s an essay entitled “Exploring Ekklesia” which served as our “manifesto”.

A handful of scriptures were particularly meaningful in describing the kind of church we envisioned:

1 Corinthians 12:14-26
Colossians 3:15-17
Ephesians 5:15-20
Ephesians 4:15-16
1 Corinthians 14:26
Romans 1:11-12
Hebrews 10:23-25

The picture here is of a group of believers gathering together to build one-another up by sharing their gifts, abilities and resources. My desire was that no person would be “in charge” or set the agenda, but that everyone would come expecting to share what the Lord had given them and we would experience being the Body of Christ through the functioning of all the members present.

We initially met on Friday nights at 6pm. Often our meetings went until 11pm or midnight. We were usually having such a great time that we didn’t realize what time it was! We shared a potluck meal at each meeting – everybody brought something to the table. We “did Communion” at every meeting, at the beginning of our meal. After the Communion meal we would sing worship songs. My favorite times of worship were when we would stand in a circle holding hands and whoever felt led would begin singing a song and the rest of us would join in. When we did this, there was no “worship leader” – whoever was leading worship at that moment was the worship leader and then it would switch to whoever started singing next. At other times I or one of the other musicians would lead worship, but it never felt as good as the organic “leaderless” worship. There generally wasn’t a pre-planned agenda for the meeting beyond the Communion meal and worship time. People would share what was on their hearts – someone might have an insight from scripture that they wanted to share, someone would have a concern or problem that they needed prayer for, etc. Sometimes we would go around the room and each person would share what was going on in their life. The goal was to give everyone who wanted an opportunity to participate.

We met like this for about 2 years and they were wonderful times. No church experience before or after has come close to it.

We had a box for offerings, which would be set aside until a need came to our attention that the money could be used for. Some examples of how we used our collected offerings included paying an overdue electricity bill for a single mom who’s service was about to be cut off (she was not a member of our church and sent us a card saying that she had been afraid to go to a church for help because she though she would be judged, but that we had shown her that not all churches were like that), paying the $500.00 insurance deductible for a family with young children who’s car had been totaled by a hit & run driver, paying for an eye exam and new glasses for a woman on welfare who’s prescription had gotten so out of date she couldn’t read or drive safely, etc. It was really gratifying to see how a small group of believers could make such an impact on people's lives through our giving.

Pros & Cons (or “Lessons Learned”):

My goal had been to create an environment where everyone could participate and function in their gifts. Some people really blossomed into fruitfulness. Many though, were so conditioned to being passive receivers (as opposed to active participants) that it was like pulling teeth to get them to take any initiative. For example, only a couple of people ever offered to open their homes to host the meetings. A few others would do so, but only if asked and then somewhat begrudgingly. I had hoped that we could reach decisions (such as who to give money to) by consensus, but most people just wanted someone to make the decisions for them.

Having Communion, in the context of a shared meal, was awesome. Now when I visit a church and they don’t do Communion it feels like something important is missing. Or if they do Communion, it’s comprised of a mini-cup of juice and a little piece of bread and everyone sits in their chairs with their eyes closed facing the back of each other’s heads and it seems so pathetic compared to sharing Communion as a meal among friends seated round a table (as the first Communion was).

Some people couldn’t take the time commitment. That’s understandable. I don’t know, however, how you can become a community without investing time together.

It was also challenging for all of us to drop our "churchy" personas and learn to be real with one another.

Most of the members had never been taught basic Bible study methods (despite having spent years in churches listening to sermons). I started a second weekly meeting to focus on learning to study the Bible. Most folks did not have time to attend another meeting however.

We also did not live in close proximity to one-another. This made it difficult to be spontaneous or to just “hang out” with one another.

Early on, I felt very strongly that the Holy Spirit was impressing 1 Cor. 3:10-15 on me, where Paul writes about not building upon any foundation other than Christ. At the time, I took this as a warning to not let our identity come from a denomination or movement or teacher but from Christ alone. I used to enjoy it when I’d meet a believer and they would ask me what church I belonged to. I’d say, “I’m part of a church that meets in a house. We don’t have a name.” I think what I missed about how to apply 1 Cor 3:10-15 though was that our house church was made up of “refugees” from the Vineyard that had disbanded. As a result we were bringing in baggage and expectations that eventually came to the surface.

Many of the members wanted me to continue the pastoral role I had held at the former church. I was determined to downplay having any position of authority, so as not to quench anyone else from functioning in their gifts. Looking back, I went too far in trying to “decrease, that others might increase”. Things ended up bordering on directionlessness because I was gunshy about taking control (in part a reaction against our former Senior Pastor who had gone overboard in controlling things to the exclusion of anyone else having input).

Just about everyone in the group had been a Christian for 10-20 years. In my view, we should all have been functioning as elders. In reality, most did not want to take the responsibility. Or didn't think they could. We have been so conditioned to be consumers instead of contributors.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to start with a bunch of brand-new believers (or non-believers) who haven’t yet been enculturated into traditional churchianity where the emphasis is on being a good audience.

Eventually, we experienced an ugly split, which centered around differences in eschatology. One of the members had invited a guest from Israel to come share with us (most assumed it would be about life as a Christian in Israel). The guest turned out to be ultra-dispensationalist, pre-Millenniallist, Zionist, Left Behind-ist. Those who agreed with this view didn’t want alternative views (such as preterism) discussed and were offended when I attempted to explain the various viewpoints (ala Steve’s book on Revelation). It broke my heart that believers would choose to cease fellowship over doctrinal differences, especially after having spent so much time together in community.

Looking back, I’ve come to the conclusion that the church needs strong leadership (but not overbearing leadership). Most people want someone to make the decisions, but everyone should have the opportunity to participate if they care to. I still believe that the multiple elder model (as opposed to the single pastor) is the Biblical approach. My problem was getting people who should've been elders to step up and lead. It's easier to fall back and let "the pastor" do it.

The church also needs a “hub” of some type. There needs to be some commonality to hold people in orbit. I can see now where the traditional Sunday gathering (worship/sermon/etc.) can serve as that hub. The traditional Sunday gathering should exist to facilitate the house churches however, not the other way around. I mentioned in an earlier post that something like a coffee shop could also serve as this “hub”. Or people having some common hobby or activity or proximity.

At this point, I’m focusing on some other areas of life besides church (like my family, my education and working out certain aspects of my theology and doctrines). I'm weighing the cost of starting another church but am honestly struggling with whether or not I'm willing to pay the price. Currently, my wife and I interact with a couple of local (institutional) churches (primarily helping with worship) and we’re involved with jail ministry.

Our experiment with "Exploring Ekklesia" was bittersweet, but I'm glad we tried it. I imagine we'll end up doing it again because we haven't found anything else that fits us.