These households could be sizable domestic communities including immediate family, extended family members, servants/slaves, and employees. Much business and commerce centered around households of the wealthy.
Such roles were rooted in these women’s autho rity at the household level. … in ancient Mediterranean society, among both Jews and non-Jews, women often played quite powerful social and political leadership roles. In house churches, the public sphere (the traditional domain of men) and the more private, domestic sphere (the traditional domain of women) overlapped, and women-especially wealthy women who hosted churches in their own homes-had equal opportunities to minister. Nympha hosted a church in her home in Laodicea and is greeted in Colossians 4:15. Apphia was a prominent member of a house church in Colossae and is one of three people greeted individually in Philemon 1:1-2. Prisca, with Aquila, hosted and led a house church in Ephesus (1 Cor. Wayne Meeks observes that “In four places in the Pauline letters specific congregations are designated by the phrase h ē kat’ oikon (+ possessive pronoun) ekklēsia, which we may tentatively translate ‘the assembly at N’s household.’” Women were involved in each of these four house churches. This custom of meeting in homes is well attested in the New Testament. House Churches in the First Centuryįor the first two hundred years of the Christian movement, most meetings were held in homes. In this article, I provide a brief overview of church life in the first century and I highlight the participation of women. It is helpful to have some insight into the values and customs of the first Christians, and some appreciation of how they organised their meetings and ministries, if we are to have a better understanding of the setting, context, and meaning of the New Testament letters.
0 kommentar(er)
