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7C. Jerusalem Households of Faith 
Three great events in the early history of Christianity took place in a Jerusalem house: the Lord's supper (Mark 14.12-26), the appearances of Jesus to the Apostles after His Resurrection (John 20.14-29), and the coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2). These events are so important that we must want to know more about that house. Let us do some detective work upon it.(2)
Where was the Upper Room?
First, do we know that all three passages refer to the same house? Mark describes it as having a guestroom (Mark 14.14), large and upstairs (v. 15), for Jesus and His Apostles. According to Acts 1.12,13, after the Ascension, the Apostles "returned ... and went up to the upper room where they were staying". And it was a very big room, because 120 people gathered with the Apostles there (v.15). Acts 2 begins with the Twelve "all together in one place". No change of place is mentioned, and John merely says, "the doors being shut where the disciples were" (John 20.19), which seems to mean "where they were staying". So the three passages may well refer to the same house.(2) A Jerusalem house where many Christians gathered for prayer is mentioned in Acts 12. Peter, when he escaped from Herod's prison, knew where he would find his friends. This was "the house of Mary the mother of John, whose other name was Mark" - the Mark who later wrote the earliest of the Gospels. Could this again be the same house?(2)
The House of Mary Mother of Mark
The incidental details suggest that this house was not part of an insulae, or "apartment" complex, but was a large house with a gateway that acted as buffer between the street and the inner courtyard and rooms.(5) So it seems that the house of Mary the mother of Mark in Jerusalem may have been the place of meeting for the first congregation of Christ's Church, the first of the "house churches".(2) Luke never portrays the entire post-Pentecost community gathered in one place. If we are to understand the number three thousand as in any sense an accurate count of these believers (Acts 2:41; c.f. Acts 4:4; 5:14; 6:7), they obviously could not have gathered under one roof. Peter's instruction to the group assembled in Mark's house suggests the reality of multiple places for meeting: they were to report his release to James and "the brethren" (Acts 12:17), who were presumably meeting elsewhere.(5)
Worship in the Temple
The early community in Jerusalem is depicted in Acts as meeting regularly in houses, in addition to their attendance at worship in the Temple (Acts 2:46; 5:42).(7) Since the first Jewish Believers saw themselves as a reform movement of Judaism (the true, not a new, Israel), it is not surprising that disciples such as Peter and John went to the temple at the "hour of prayer" (Acts 3:1), taught and preached in its precincts (Acts 2:46; 3:8; 5:20-21, 42; see also Luke 24:53) and continued to live as Jews in every way. The first serious and negative critique of the physical temple came in Stephen's speech (Acts 6:13-7:53), which was less an attack on the temple itself than on the attitude that gave permanency to it. Stephen "is asserting that the promise to Abraham finds its ultimate fulfillment not in the law as given to Moses nor in the temple but in Jesus to whom everything in the Old Testament points." Nevertheless, some Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, under the leadership of James, may not have abandoned their loyalty to the temple until its destruction in A.D. 70 (see Acts 21:26; 24:1 8). (8)
The Synagogue in Jerusalem
As already noted (1.2.1.9), the synagogue was another major institution in the public and religious life of the Jews during the first century A.D. However, while Jewish believers continued an association with the temple, Luke is silent about any contact with the synagogues in or around Jerusalem. One surmises that the house gatherings of the early believers replaced the synagogue meetings by providing similar opportunities and structures of Christian worship and fellowship. Contacts with the synagogue apart from Stephen and the "synagogue of the Freedmen" (Acts 6:9) were important in Paul's missionary activity only as opportunities to initiate the proclamation of the gospel and a model for Christian house churches in the Greco-Roman world.(8)
Questions for Discussion
1. Look up the Bible references to the house of Mary in Jerusalem in the beginning of this section. Do you agree or disagree that this was the same house used for so many events in the life of Jesus?
2. Consider the special roles of the Temple before and after its destruction in AD 70. How did the synagogues and then the house churches take over in the early years of the Christian community in Jerusalem?
Bibliography
(2.) Selections from "The First Advance - Church History 1: AD 29-500" by John Foster S. P. C. K, Copyright All rights reserved.
(5.) Selections from "Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Development" editors Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids. A Compendium of Contemporary Christian Scholarship Copyright All rights reserved.
(8.) Selections from "The Emergence of the Church - Context, Growth, Leadership and Worship" by Arthur G. Patzia. William B. Eerdmans Company, Grand Rapids Michigan Copyright. All rights reserved.
