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Home churches?
Spurgeon, "Additions to the Church" No. 1167
These first believers were in such a condition
that their homes were holy places. I beg you
to notice this, that they were breaking bread
from house to house, and did eat their food
with gladness and singleness of heart.
They did not think that religion was meant
only for Sundays, and for what men now-a-days
call the 'House of God'.
Their own houses were houses of God, and their
own meals were mixed and mingled with the
Lord's Supper. They elevated their meals into diets
for worship. They so consecrated everything with
prayer and praise that all around them was holiness
unto the Lord.
I wish our houses were thus dedicated to the Lord,
so that we worshipped God all the day long, and
made our dwellings temples for the living God.
Does God need a 'special house'?
He who made the heavens and the earth,
does he dwell in temples made with hands?
What crass ignorance is this!
No house beneath the sky is more holy than the
place where a Christian lives, and eats, and drinks,
and sleeps, and praises the Lord in all that he does.
There is no worship more heavenly than that which
is presented by holy families, devoted to his fear.
To sacrifice home worship to public worship
is a most evil course of action.
Morning and evening devotion in a cottage is infinitely
more pleasing in the sight of God than all the cathedral
pomp which delights the carnal eye and ear.
Every truly Christian household is a church, and
as such it is competent for the discharge of any
function of divine worship, whatever it may be.
Are we not all priests? Why do we need to call in
others to make devotion a performance? Let every
man be a priest in his own house.
Are you not all kings if you love the Lord? Then make
your houses palaces of joy and temples of holiness.
One reason why the early church had such a blessing
was because her members had such homes. When
we are like them we shall have "added to the church
daily of the saved."
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