1 Corinthians 16:19 — The Church in Their House

Paul is closing his letter to Corinth from his lodgings in Ephesus, and the local congregation sends its greetings along. Look at how he names it: not "the church of Ephesus" with an address and an architect, but "the church that is in their house." In one greeting line, the whole shape of earliest Christianity: a city's believers, a couple's home, lamplight and open doors.

What a house church was

A Roman-era congregation fit inside a prosperous household's courtyard and dining room — realistically a few dozen people. They met around a table, not an altar; the host's home gave the church its meeting place, its pantry and often its protection. Aquila and Priscilla had already hosted Paul's tentmaking workshop in Corinth; in Ephesus their home became the city's first known Christian address — and when they later returned to Rome, a church met in their house there too (Romans 16:5). Wherever this couple unpacked, a congregation assembled.

"The churches of Asia" — already plural

The verse's first sentence deserves its own pause: barely two years into the Tyrannus ministry, Paul can send greetings from "the churches of Asia," plural. The daily lectures were already seeding congregations across the province — the future addressees of Revelation among them. One house church in Ephesus was becoming many, and this greeting line is the earliest census we have.

Standing in the verse

The Terrace Houses of Ephesus preserve exactly the domestic world this verse describes — courtyards, dining rooms, the household scale of it all. Walk them and count how many neighbors would fit around the largest table; that number is roughly the church of Ephesus in the year 55, and this verse is its voice.