The Hump of the Camel

Tom Wadsworth’s 2021 paper, The Shift, for the ETS (available here) gives a good account of how the New Testament’s primarily “horizontal” concept of “meeting for mutual edification in the Spirit” became a vertical “meeting to serve God in worship” by the fourth century. Essentially, the Christian assembly became temple worship redividus despite the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, and the culprit was sacerdotalism.

Tom Wadsworth, whom I referenced recently, is particularly strong on the idea that teaching and exhortation in church is not simply the job of a credentialed Pastor, but of multiple people in a fellowship. I expressed some caveats to this in my linked piece, but it is a particularly strong idea when linked to the role of the Holy Spirit in co-ordinating Christian assemblies so that they are, indeed, edifying to all because all participate.