I often hear the argument that it’s ok for church to be about ministry by one person, because the Apostles taught before large gatherings at Solomon’s Portico outside the temple in Jerusalem.

The gatherings in Jerusalem at Solomon’s Portico after the day of Pentecost, however, only lasted for a short while. We also see no counterpart to them anywhere else in the unfolding history of the early church as revealed in Scripture.

Solomon’s Portico was unique and temporary because it served an important initial purpose in the life of the nascent church. That’s where the Apostles first laid the foundations of the church through their teachings. In Acts 2, it says that in conjunction with Solomon’s Portico, the people would then meet house to house to continue in the Apostles teachings.

We continue in the Apostles teachings today when we likewise gather house to house, but we don’t need to go to a large meeting at Solomon’s Portico because we now have those teachings available in the New Testament.

So Solomon’s Portico was descriptive rather than prescriptive. Otherwise, we would see it repeated in other towns and cities where the believers met from house to house in the New Testament, but we don’t.

I’m not against believers in a town or city coming together for a large gathering if that serves a specific, unique purpose. But I absolutely reject the contention that Solomon’s Portico serves as a justification for “church” as we’ve come to know it – where the few routinely do church for the many, who are herded into large buildings to sit as spectators below them.

We now have the Apostles teachings and are to continue in them as we meet house to house. But we don’t have Solomon’s Portico because we don’t have the original need for it anymore.

Nonetheless, we still need one another as we gather for participatory ministry to each other for the mutual building up of all. And that is the core purpose of the church and our gatherings even to this day.