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House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity
Currents in Theology and Mission, April, 2008 by Edgar Krentz
House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity. By Roger W. Gehring (Peabody, $29.95). G. concentrates on the role of the house churches in the spread of the gospel. After surveying scholarship on the house church, he discusses the role houses played in the pre-Easter period, then traces it from the early church in Jerusalem through the Pauline mission, the post-Pauline letters to the Colossians and Ephesians, the Pastoral Epistles and 2 and 3 John.
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Finally, in the most significant chapter in the book, he discusses "The Ecclcesiological and Missional Function and Significance of House Churches" (pp. 288-312). G. gives high marks to Acts for historical accuracy about house churches. They provided a network useful for proclamation. They were the locus from which the mission left and served as missionary support bases. They were more than gathering places for the community, as they provided a cadre of people to serve as colleagues to Paul and others in missionary activity. Thus G. documents the significance of the house church. He does not discuss the fact that many houses were also the workshops of the people living there, and workshops often were places of discussion and education. G. wrote this as a doctoral dissertation at Tubingen University in 1998 and published it in 2000. The English version is welcome indeed, since this book adds a dimension to our understanding of how the early church witnessed and grew. It deserves wide reading.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Lutheran School of Theology and Mission
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
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