Re-envisioning Ekklēsia Space: Evidence of the Flexible Use of Household Space for Religious Instruction and Practice in the Pastoral Epistles

Abstract While the Pastoral Epistles do not explicitly mention church groups meeting in houses, they are infused with household ethics and preoccupations. The purpose of the essay is to challenge dominant notions of religious instruction and practice being restricted to communal gatherings of the ekklēsia. Drawing especially on scholarship on education in the Roman world, it is argued that a much more flexible use of household space framed the life of early church communities involving a merging of aspects of home and school.