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Jewish Synagogue Worship
Page 95

Jerusalem

Jewish synagogue worship was another major institution in Jewish public and religious life during the first century AD. A "synagogue" from the Greek was simply an "assembly." The Hebrew equivalent "Beit Knesset " meant a "house of assembly" or "a synagogue" and is often used in the names of congregations. "Knesset" on its own means "the gathering" or "assembly" and is also used of the national legislature of Israel. However, while Jewish Christian believers continued an association with the Temple, Saint Luke was silent about any Jewish synagogue worship in or around Jerusalem. One may surmise that the house gatherings of the early believers replaced Jewish synagogue worship by providing similar opportunities and structures for Christian worship and fellowship.✞

Freedmen Synagogue

Contacts with the synagogue apart from Stephen and the "Synagogue of the Freedmen" were found in Acts 6.9 where "opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called) — who were Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia — who began to argue with Stephen." Synagogues were important in Saint Paul's missionary activity only as opportunities to initiate the proclamation of the gospel and as a model for Christian house churches in the Greco-Roman world. We also noted Ephesians 2.19-20 which said, "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone." The Temple, however, had a special role of before its destruction in 70 AD in the lives of the patriarchs and prophets and even in the life of Jesus. How did Jewish synagogue worship and then the house churches take over in the early years of the Christian community in Jerusalem?✞

"Jewish Synagogue Worship"
by Ron Meacock © 2019

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