The method of worship in the early Christian Church found its origin mostly in the services of the Jewish synagogue. To form a synagogue only ten men needed to come together and make a religious assembly. Even small towns had a synagogue or a place of prayer in a private home. Services in the synagogues included prayer, teaching, preaching and Jewish rituals. It is said in Jesus' day in Jerusalem there were some 400 synagogues providing for the various sects and languages spoken by foreign Jews.
After the founding of the Christian church, Christ's early disciples followed the example of Jesus and worshipped in the synagogue and temple as long as they were tolerated.
However, Christianity was soon outlawed and it members persecuted. Up until the close of the second century, Christians held their meetings in private houses or deserted places. The oldest known Christian house-church still in existence is at Doura Europus on the upper Euphrates and dates to about 240 A.D. Justin Martyr (100?-165?) is quoted as saying, "The Christians assemble wherever it is convenient, because their God is not, like the gods of the heathen, enclosed in space, but is invisibly present everywhere."
It wasn't until the middle of the third century that Christians enjoyed 40 years of unabated growth. During this period church growth mushroomed so much that the Christian historian Eusebius said, "...more spacious places of devotion became everywhere necessary." Rome is supposed to have had as many as 40 churches. Following a short period of persecution, church building flourished again under the new emperor, Constantine the Great. As the church grew and prospered, Eusebius the historian, tells of a large ornate church built in Tyre between 313-322 A.D. that had a fountain in the center of the atrium for the washing of the hands and feet before one could enter the church. Truly the miraculous growth of the Christian church would have astonished the early believers who huddled in private homes and hidden locations to worship.
For Further Study
History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff, Volume 1, p.455-60, "The Synagogue."
History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff, Volume 2, p.199
The Cambridge History of the Bible, G.W.H. Lampe Editor, Volume 2, p. 283. "The oldest Christian house-church."
Blessings in your study of God's Word!

Marvin Hunt

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Blessings!
Marvin Hunt

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