The scriptures teach that Jews and Gentiles [NT] met in the Synagogues together. After the Sabbath, they then met in their homes for Messianic fellowship and prayer, since there were non-Messianic Jews in the Synagogues still. Those Jews were also meeting in their homes at the end of the Sabbath. In Ephesus, Paul did ‘leave’ the Jewish Synagogue, turning his back on the Jews of that city, but not all of 1st Century Jewry; in Ephesus, Paul taught the ‘scriptures’, meaning the Jewish canon of the day, which is today’s “OT” [protestant canon]. No one left the Sabbath until the very late 1st or early 2nd century, and not all gentiles did when that began. “Home church” was not a thing, as some today understand it. The way ‘home church’ is done today is actually a violation of Torah precepts.
The earliest followers of Yeshua were called “Nazarenes”, named after Yeshua’s hometown, since believers in Messiah follow the “Man From Nazareth”. Yeshua is a Rabbi, and as such, teaches His “Way” to follow the Torah. Torah itself is called “The Way”, and only Yeshua teaches it properly and fully, and without the encumbrance of man’s flesh. Thus, He is the “Guardian of The Way”. “Natzar” is the root word for both “branch/offshoot”, and for “Guardian”, and supports the concept of “salvation”.
When Jews became believers in The Nazarene and started following “The Way”, they needed to fellowship with others who also believed in Yeshua, but this did not mean that they did not or could not assemble in the Jewish Synagogue. In fact, scripture and history both document that they did attend the Synagogue on the Sabbath, and the both sides of the aisle, Believing Jews and unbelieving Jews, were fine with this common worship.
In Acts 13, the gospel reaches the first Jews after Cornelius in Caesarea [an isolated case in order to teach Peter about Gentiles coming into the faith]. Sha’ul [Paul] goes to Antioch and visits the Synagogue there on the Sabbath in order to declare the gospel. Some of the Gentiles in the Synagogue wanted to hear more. A similar incident is seen in Acts 17:1-4 in Thessalonika, where some of the Jews were persuaded to join Paul and Silas, as well as ‘God-fearing Greeks’ along with their women. These gentiles, as well as those in Antioch, were part of a well-known historical reality that many gentiles were already believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and had already left behind their paganism and begun to worship God on the Sabbath Day and at all the Jewish feasts.
Part of that Sabbath Day worship was to close out the Sabbath in someone’s home. Back then, men would have been in the Temple [if in Jerusalem] or in the Synagogue for prayers on Friday night, the Biblical beginning of the Sabbath Day; they would have gone back on Saturday morning with their families, where women and children would stand behind a dividing ‘wall’ that today is called a “Mekhitzah”. This reflected the different ‘courts’ in the Temple, Israel/Men’s, Women’s, and Gentile courts. In the Synagogue a converted Gentile man could go beyond the Mekhitzah for women and children and worship with the rest of the Jewish men. The women observed and heard the same service while standing behind the Mekhitzah, which sometimes had a lattice/screen to help buffer the sound of infants and children. Paul mentions the Temple’s version of this ‘wall’ in Ephesians 2:14, saying that Messiah took that wall down so Gentiles could join Israel, speaking spiritually of the court of Heaven.
Acts 2:46-47 describes that very custom. “And they went to the Temple every day with one accord; and at home they broke bread and received food with joy and with a pure heart, praising Elohim and finding favor with all the people. And Adoneinu daily increased those who obtained life in the assembly.”
After the daily Sabbath worship was over in the Temple or Synagogue, where the Torah was read each week [Acts 15:21], people spent the rest of their day at home, but before nightfall went to the home of a Messianic host whose house was closer to their own home in order to meet for a “Havdallah” ceremony, “Dividing” the Sabbath from the ordinary week. This would be Saturday night, and Jews today still observe this ancient rite, which is actually seen in the New Testament.
“And at the beginning of the week, when we assembled to break bread, Paul declared to them, and because he was going to leave the next day, he prolonged his speech until midnight. Now there was a great glow of light from the lapidot in the upper chamber where we were gathered together.” ~ Acts 20:7-8
This is eighteen chapters later, but the custom of going into someone’s home ‘to break bread’ is still going among Messianic believers. This is the ‘beginning of the week’, which is not a ‘sunday’ as most people read it. Readers do not sometimes understand that when an English Bible reads, “on the first day of the week” that ‘day’ is italicized because it was added into the English text. They say it was done for ‘clarity’, but in truth, it was done to perpetuate the doctrine that “sunday’ is the “Lord’s Day”. But, Biblical days among Jews started, and still do, at night, and so the week began late on Saturday night. Our Aramaic texts to Hebrew put the phrase this week: וּבְיוֹם הָאֶחָד בְּשַׁבָּת , which is an idiomatic way of saying “Saturday Night”, more literally, “And on the first day in relation to the Sabbath”. That is ‘Saturday Night’ in the Jewish mind. Paul was a Jew, and still honored all the Jewish customs [See: Acts 21:24, 24:14, 25:8, 28:17, I Cor 9:20, I Cor 11:1-2, Phil 3:5-6, 2 Thess 2:15, 3:6]. The custom in play was that of Havdallah, where ‘lapidot’ are candles that were used to light the home on that night, each one having multiple wicks, one candle of which was distinguished for use to mark the end of the Sabbath and begin the ordinary week.
This custom of rejoining the Body of Messiah at the end of Sabbath is seen in other places in the NT Scriptures, and involved upholding and teaching Jewish customs to gentile believers.
In 1 Corinthians 11:1-2, Paul urges, “You, then, should imitate me, even as I also imitate Messiah. Now I praise you, my brethren, that you remember me in all things, and keep the customs as I delivered them to you.”—here, “customs” (Greek paradoseis) is specifically Jewish customs, and Paul goes on and addresses one about women having long hair, men shorter hair, and then goes into the custom of hospitality. Similarly, in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, amid warnings about end times, Paul instructs, “Henceforth, my brethren, stand firmly established and be strong in The Commandments [Mitzvot], which you have been taught, either in The Word [HaDavar] or in our letters,” emphasizing oral and written instructions drawn from Jewish scriptural heritage. In the greek, the word is again paradoseis, which is a specific Greek word chosen to represent Jewish customs, and in this case, Aramaic communities rendered the word ‘commandments’. This is compelling, but overlooked by most. In 2 Thessalonians 3:6-7, he adds, “Now we command you, my brethren, in the Name of Our Master Yeshua The Messiah, to shun every brother who leads an evil life and not in accord with The Commandments [paradoseis in Greek] which he received from us [Jews]. For you know well how you ought to imitate us; for our behaviour was not disorderly among you,” linking these to disciplined living inspired by Torah principles like diligence (e.g., Proverbs 6:6-11). Paul is writing to Gentiles and encouraging them to imitate Jews, where he himself imitated the King of the Jews, Yeshua the Messiah. Other verses support this: Acts 2:42 notes the early believers “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching,” which included Torah exposition (as apostles were Torah-observant Jews); Romans 3:31 affirms, “Do we, then, nullify the Torah through faith? What profanity! Rather, we firmly establish the Torah”; and in 1 Corinthians 7:17-19, Paul advises retaining circumcision for Jews (a key Jewish custom) while emphasizing obedience to God’s commands [“keeping the Commandments of God is everything”, v 19].
The culture of the day, in Ancient Judea and in Greece and Galatia, dictated that smaller homes were places of worship at the end of the Sabbath. These fellowships are indeed mentioned in scripture, but they were not the actual assembly of the Congregation. The assemblies were in the Synagogues, just like James said in Acts 15:21, where gentiles were to learn how to live a Torah observant life, gradually. This fostered equality among Jews and Gentiles, as many times Jews were the hosts, and were furthering the inculcation of Biblical tradition into the lives of the new believers [Gal 3:28-29, Eph 2:14-19]. These gatherings were intimate meals [Acts 2:42, 1 Cor 11:20], not large congregations partaking of a tiny, partial wafer and one sip of juice. These were repasts of fellowship that were to satisfy bodily and spiritual hunger.
There is a mistaken understanding that when Paul left the synagogue in Ephesus, that he never went back to a Jewish synagogue anywhere. This is simply not the case.
Yes, after three months of teaching Jews and Gentiles in the Ephesus synagogue on Saturday each week, some of the Jews became obstinate against the Good News, even in public, so he left the synagogue, taking Disciples/Talmidim with him, meaning Jews and Gentiles. Not all the Jews disagreed, but a majority did. He rented the ‘hall of Tyranus’ and continued to teach there for two years, teaching both Jews and Arameans. He had already said, ‘From now on I will go to the gentiles’, [Acts 18] which obviously did not mean he wrote off all unbelieving Jews, since he then went into Ephesus and gave the majority there three months to believe him before he left that synagogue. And, we see that he still kept Jewish customs after Ephesus, defending himself accordingly in courts and before kings afterward. It was after Ephesus that he took the Nazarite Vow in Jerusalem to prove his faithfulness to Torah, having a gentile travelling with him. [Acts 20:16].
Everywhere Paul went, he taught scripture. The only ‘scripture’ available to teach was the “Old Testament”, more properly called “Torah, Prophets, and Writings”, where our Jewish people get the mnemonic, “Tanakh”, which is what they call their “bible”. Acts 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, and others, show that Paul observed the Sabbath with Jews and Gentiles upwards of 80 times in the book of Acts [counting all he would have observed in time spent in each city]. He imitated Messiah [1 Cor 11:1-2], and Yeshua kept the Sabbath [Luke 4:16, and many other verses]. The ‘first of the week’ meetings that we see in Acts 20:7 and 1 Cor 16:2 are actually Judaic “Havdalah” meetings that now include Gentiles, and the Judaic idea of tending the body is seen in the latter [take up a collection at the beginning of the week, Saturday night]. This is what was going on in the homes of Jews and then Gentiles listed in the NT who were hosts of these fellowships:
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Priscilla & Aquila — Romans 16:3–5; 1 Corinthians 16:19
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Jason — Acts 17:5–9
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Mary (mother of John Mark) — Acts 12:12
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Crispus — Acts 18:8
All the above are Jews.
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Nympha — Colossians 4:15
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Philemon (with Apphia & Archippus) — Philemon 1–2
- Gaius — Romans 16:23
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Lydia — Acts 16:14–15; 16:40
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Stephanas — 1 Corinthians 1:16; 16:15
As early and as lauded as these ‘groups’ were, they were following the custom of Havdalah gatherings. This remained the tradition among Jewish believers for three hundred years. Many of them were called “Nazarenes”, some “Ebionites”, or “Judaizers” pejoratively. It was not until the second century that leading Gentiles began to discourage “Sabbatizing”, a term Ignatius of Antioch created about the Jewish leaders who were still encouraging Gentiles to remain true to the Sabbath, while some gentile leaders were turning away from it. It is entirely possible that the people Paul names by name to stay away from were in that group.
We do not have the names of the “false brethren” Paul condemned in the book of Galatians, but they were not from this group. But, Paul actually named Hymenaeus and Philetus in 1 Tim 1:19-20, and 2 Tim 2:16-18. These men are accused of: speculative teaching [philosophy], overthrowing the faith of the apostles, empty talk, ‘realized eschatology’ such that Yeshua is not coming back because the final resurrection had already happened [still taught today by some]. Second-century writers actually blame these men [indirectly] for the departure from Jewish customs.
Paul also names Alexander the coppersmith, who strongly opposed Paul’s message of the Gospel. Paul asserted that his message included “order, tradition, faithful transmission directly from Yeshua, embodied practice. Alexander is an early Greek Christian who directly opposed the Judaic nature of the faith.
John also named one: Diotrephes [3 John]. He rejected the authority of the Apostles, who were all Sabbath-keeping Jews. He is accused of operating independently of ‘tradition’. John and the Apostles were all Jews who followed Messiah in the framework of 1st Century Judaism. These trajectories plausibly anticipate the later Gentile Christian rejection of Jewish customs seen explicitly in the second century in Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and others. But, the victors write the history. Paul’s repeated exhortations to “hold fast to the traditions” suggest that pressures toward abandoning inherited practices were already present within Gentile-led communities during his lifetime. It is not a reach to conclude that Ignatius and his ilk were in those groups that Paul had already condemned, publicly.
The early followers of Yeshua—initially Jews, then including Gentiles—maintained deep continuity with first-century Judaism. They gathered in synagogues on the Sabbath to hear the Torah and proclaim the gospel, as Acts repeatedly shows Paul and others doing, while also fellowshipping intimately in homes for meals, teaching, and breaking bread. These home gatherings, often at the close of the Sabbath (aligning with Jewish customs like Havdalah), allowed believers to worship together without the tensions sometimes present in mixed synagogues. Paul exemplified this faithfulness, upholding Torah observance, Jewish customs, and synagogue ministry even after localized rejections (as in Ephesus), and urging Gentile believers to imitate him as he imitated Messiah.
This pattern reflects “the Way” as a fulfillment of Torah through Yeshua, not its abolition—upholding the law (Romans 3:31) while extending salvation to all. Over time, as Gentile Christianity grew and separated from Judaism (influenced by factors like synagogue expulsions, theological shifts, and figures opposing “Judaizing”), Sabbath observance and Torah customs waned in the majority ‘church’ by the second century. Yet the New Testament preserves a vibrant witness to the Jewish foundation of the faith, reminding believers today of the rich heritage in which the gospel first took root. Understanding this continuity honors the apostles’ example and enriches our grasp of Scripture’s unified message. “Home Churches” are a feeble attempt to get back to the lifestyle of the 1st Century Messianic Community, falling short because of a lack of understanding of the culture of the day. A more fitting return is to go to the Messianic Synagogue, and then also fellowship for intimate times of prayer and sharing after the Sabbath ends, to begin the week in the power and comfort of His Spirit.