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The early day saints worshiped in their homes due to a variety of reasons such as ongoing persecution, lack of worship space, habit, unclear instructions, limited availability of scripture, low literacy rates, etc., but they still gathered together to break bread and worship Christ.
In Acts 5:42, we read that: “from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.”
Part of my personal worship (and academic life) for the last few years has included the study of early Christianity because I find that a close connection with these early saints gives me a deeper appreciation for how I have experienced Christianity.
The Oxyrhynchus hymn is an early Christian hymn translated as: “. . .let the luminous stars not shine, let the winds and all the noisy rivers die down. And as we hymn the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Let all the powers add, ‘Amen. Amen.’ Empire, praise always, and glory to God, the sole giver of good things. ‘Amen. Amen.’ ”
Tomorrow, for some of us, we do not have an opportunity to attend worship services. But we do have the opportunity to worship Jesus Christ in our homes, to learn from the scriptures that we have wide access to, to enhance our scripture study with great resources, and to become better disciples of Christ.
We are so blessed to live in an age where the scriptures are so accessible as well as so many resources that we can use to understand the scriptures better. I’ve included my personal favorites below:
https://scriptures.byu.edu/ (English: BYU Scripture Citation Index)
https://bookofmormoncentral.org/ (English: really great resource for Book of Mormon)
https://www.pearlofgreatpricecentral.org/ (English: really great resource for the Pearl of Great Price)
http://webstersdictionary1828.com/ (English: if you have access to the OED *which BYU students have through their library accounts) then use that, but the 1828 dictionary is great for the KJV and Book of Mormon because a lot of the words have experienced semantic shift since those translations)
https://www.blueletterbible.org/ (English: helps English speakers interact with the Hebrew and Greek better; you could also use https://biblehub.com/ but I prefer Blue Letter Bible.)
https://www.biblegateway.com/ (English: Awesome amount of translations; if I want to use some English versions, I tend to go NIV and NRSV)
Hanna Seariac is a MA student in Greek and Latin at Brigham Young University. She is writing a book on the history of the priesthood and another one that responds systematically to anti-LDS literature. She works as a research assistant on a biblical commentary and as a producer on a news show. She values Jesus Christ, family, friends, hiking, baking, and really good ice cream.
