Philemon 1:2 - Explained
"And to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellowsoldier, and to the church in thy house."
At the end of verse 2 it mentions the church in thy house. The Bible is stating that the church they had was not meeting at a physical building but was actually inside somebody's house. And the Bible actually highlights this a lot — there are many churches in the New Testament that met in houses.
There are many reasons why a church meeting in a house would actually be a good thing.
One of those is financial practicality. It costs money to rent commercial real estate, and when you are a new church you are not going to have the tithes and offerings coming in to necessarily pay for a building unless you already have a lot of members. Especially as you are starting a smaller church with maybe only a few families or a few people, you are not going to have the finances to rent or build a building. It simply would not be financially practical when you are still able to meet inside a house without those bills.
Another reason is variance in attendance. When a new church starts, maybe you have 20 people who are excited from day one. But the reality is that you will not have all 20 of those people a year or two down the road. Some of those people might turn out to be bad. Some might turn out not to be dedicated. There are a lot of people who say they cannot wait for a church to start and that they are going to be the most loyal and dedicated member — and when that church starts, they are very rarely there. They never show up for soul-winning. They never show up for the programmes of the church. It turns out they are not that dedicated after all.
Another advantage of a church meeting in a house — which would have been very practical back in those days — is protection against persecution. If a church is meeting in a house, it is free to say whatever it wants. It does not have to worry about a landlord kicking them out for something that takes place. Back in those days you would not have been free to just say whatever you wanted — there would have been a lot of persecution. And in a lot of countries and places, that still takes place today.
There are many advantages to a church meeting in a house, and it is the method we have used for starting various churches. We often just meet in a house — it simply makes the most sense in the early stages.
But the wrong perspective would be that churches should always meet in a house. Obviously you can reach a point where a house is just not big enough. When I think of our church in Manila, it is too big to meet in a house — it just would not be practical. And we have the finances from tithes coming in to support a physical building. So it makes sense to have one. You can outgrow a house, and that is not a bad problem to have.
The key takeaway is that when it comes to what a church actually is, it is not about having a fancy building. It is about the people. The people make up the church. Whether you are meeting inside a commercial building, meeting at somebody's house, or meeting in a park — that does not change the fact that it is still a bonafide church. Church is about the people.
Pastor Matthew Stucky
