When The Church Was A Family: Recapturing Jesus’ Vision

When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus’ Vision by Joseph H. Hellerman (2009) is a book written by a scholar who seeks to present (in a popular way) that the early church functioned like a family and that Christians today ought to capture this same vision.

In my 2008 book, Reimagining Church, I devote an entire chapter on the church as family. In it, I point out biblically that the dominating image for the church in the New Testament is the family (opposed to the body, the bride, the house, etc.).

I’m not sure if Hellerman read my book before he wrote his (since it came out a year later), but his book confirms many of my arguments in that book.

The sad fact is that the majority of Christians are stuck into an institutional form of church. Therefore, many of them will attack anything that resembles what the first-century church looked like, because it’s so alien to them. And depending on the position they hold, some will feel threatened by such books.

Hellerman’s book is no exception. It has been mercilessly trashed.

And I don’t even think it was all that radical. (It’s “low energy” compared to some other books written on church restoration.)

Anyways, books that present the first-century expression of the church are often viciously misrepresented and trashed. Even if they are “tame” in their proposals.

Buttom line, the primitive ekklesia of God viewed itself as a family.

Hellerman shows how the community’s relationship with Jesus took precedence over the individual and offers insight into the meaning of the metaphor “brothers and sisters.”

Although I don’t believe that this is simply a mindy metaphor, but rather a living reality, because all genuine followers of Jesus have been born from above and have a different life form in our spirits.

That life – the very life of God – is what makes us family. It’s what makes us children of God and siblings to one another (who share the same life).

You may not agree with all of the author’s conclusions, but he does a good job presenting his case. And it doesn’t at all warrant the attacks on it from misinformed readers.

This is from the publisher:

“Spiritual formation occurs primarily in the context of community. But as the modern cultural norm of what social scientists call “radical American individualism” extends itself, many Christians grow lax in their relational accountability to the church. Faith threatens to become an “I” not “us,” a “my God” not “our God” concern.

When the Church Was a Family calls believers back to the wisdom of the first century, examining the early Christian church from a sociohistorical perspective and applying the findings to the evangelical church in America today.

With confidence, author Joseph Hellerman writes intentionally to traditional church leaders and emerging church visionaries alike, believing what is detailed here about Jesus’ original vision for authentic Christian community will deeply satisfy the relational longings of both audiences.”