House-to-house confusion (page 2)

Leolaia

Early Christianity did not have public buildings where the church members assembled; instead the various congregations gathered in members' houses (cf. Acts 12:12; Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 1:11, 16:19; Philemon 1:2; Colossians 4:15). Itinerant preachers were also a basic feature of primitive Christianity (cf. 2 John, 3 John) and they wandered from house church to house church, staying a few days to teach the gospel and then move on. The Didache has explicit instructions on how to handle these apostles and teachers; they are to be treated as false teachers if they ask for money or overstay their welcome (11:1-6, 12:1-5). 2 John is also similarly concerned with rejecting false teachers ("antichrists") who may come to the churches and 3 John relates the author's own frustration of being rejected himself by the leader of one church. Acts 20:20 does not refer to generic Christians going to the houses of unbelievers spreading the gospel. It refers to Paul teaching his fellow Christians ("you") in their own houses (= house churches), just as it is related in 20:7-8, 13-17, as he travelled throughout Asia (v. 18) visiting the various churches. It is in teaching "in public places" (démosia) as stated in Acts 20:20 that non-believers would have heard Paul, such as narrated in 13:14-43, 13:45-48, 14:1-4, 17:1-4, 17:10-15, etc., especially preaching in synagogues which had been "Paul's custom" (17:2).

TD

As far as the JW's are concerned, the question is legitimacy of the spin they put on the expression "from house to house" kat' oikous Since the JW style of preaching is to start at one end of the street and consecutively knock on each door until they get to the other end of the street and since they claim that this is the Apostolic method of preaching and cite Acts 20:20 as proof of that claim, they apparently view the prepostional expression as distributive rather than correlative.

However that's not necessarily what the expression means. As Leolaia points out, itinerant preachers in the 1st centruy traveled from one house church to another. This also comes under heading of preaching "from house to house" and that's almost certainly what the captioned scripture references.

The whole thing becomes comical at times because The Watchtower will divert the issue into a question of the accuracy of the translation and call on historians and Greek scholars in support of the NWT rendering, this despite the fact that it is not the rendering, but the JW interpretation of the term itself that is in question.

BluesBrother

New English Bible

Acts 20.19 - 20

"You know that I kept back nothing that was for your good. I delivered the message to you. I taught you, in public and in your homes.with jews and pagans alike I insisted on repentance before God ........."

Note the context also, Paul had called the Ephesian elders to a meeting with him at Miletus. The context was an "Elders meeting"

A circuit Overseer once told us at an elders meeting that Paul was really discussing the shepherding work

carla

I don't think it matters what the Bible teaches to them or not about the issue. If you show them it doesn't say you must go door to door their response is, "it doesn't say you can't" so apply that to birthday's for instance, the bible no where states you cannnot celebrate the anniversary of ones birth. At that they will promptly change the subject or say, 'see, you do as you wish and so will I'. Which makes no sense at all as there is no 'I' in the org.

RunningMan

Whether the apostles went door to door is irrelevant. They didn't use radio or TV, either, but those are both appropriate ways to get your message out. So there's nothing wrong with the JW polyester army knocking on doors, regardless of the apostles. However, when the society points to the Bible and claims that it commands door to door work, then they are just plain wrong.

Sheepish

As I understand it, when you were new to a town you went to the town square. Were not the Jews taught to take in the stranger? To cloth and feed them? We know disciples would go to a public place and just lift their voices and preach. They would also go into synagogues (perhaps comparable to going into churches today in a way) surely someone would ask them to dinner or to stay the night. Other stories told in the New Testement are that when there was a dinner held many locals came to hear what the guest of honor had to say, specially if he was from out of town.

Jesus not only sent out his disciple two by two, one time he told them to take no money, or sword or change of clothes! Another time he told them to be sure to take them. He was teaching them things, like he would supply what they didn't have and needed. The point was that followers were to go into all the world...not specifically how they were to do it. The Almightly often does things differently according to circumstance. Think for a moment how he delivered the Isrealites. Sometimes he let them have the victory, sometimes they had to stand back and watch, once he had two guys hold up Moses arms for victory. My point is, there is no formula.

(sorry for the long post )

GoingGoingGone

Another point: Who says that ALL in the congregation are suppose to evangelize?

Eph. 4:11,12:
11And he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelizers, some as shepherds and teachers, 12 with a view to the readjustment of the holy ones, for ministerial work, for the building up of the body of the Christ,

Not everyone was a prophet, or a shepherd, or an apostle.... and not everyone was an evangelizer, either, in the first century. But JWs tell you that if you do not preach, you are bloodguilty. Methinks not......

GGG

House-to-house confusion