Hiya Sweet 'P'. That is so cool, hearing these things really warms my heart. This one's for you; entitled---God's Little Church.

Rom. 16:5---'Greet the church that is in their house.'

It is a matter of more than passing interest that in the dawn of the Christian era much of the worship centered in the home or family life. A study of the New Testament, particularly the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles, indicates how widespread this custom was. There is an explanation at hand. There were no public meeting-places where the early Christians could meet with safety and convenience, hence the use of their homes for this purpose. Sometimes they met in caves in the earth, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews intimates; sometimes in an upper room as at Troas, described in the twentieth chapter of Acts; but oftenest the private residences of loyal disciples were used for the public services. It may be that the reference to 'the church in thy house' is to the public gatherings in the private homes of the followers of Jesus Christ. But the Christian families of that day had a Church in their home quite apart from the meeting of the brethren for public worship. Those of 'the way' were accustomed to gather together in the family circle in the name of Jesus.

One cannot think of a more fitting description of a Christian home than this: 'The church in thy house.' A dwelling-place so sanctified by the character of its inmates and their habits of life that it is at once thought of as a place of worship; a family group so knit together, not alone by ties of blood kinship, but by the more subtle and yet more lasting bonds of common faith, that it becomes, by the very nature of its common life: what better description can we find of an ideal home?

Tim