Welcome back to another episode of Five Minutes in Church History.

On this episode, we are going to Megito in Israel.

In 2005, at the McGito Prison and Detention Center, they were planning an expansion.

And a number of the inmates noticed that there were some kind of ruins that seemed like a site.

And of course the Israeli antiquities authority was brought in, and an archaeologist was brought

in to lead the excavation, and they uncovered what is a fascinating find of huge significance, the

Megito Mosaic.

It is on the floor of the prayer hall of Kiefer-Othne, and it was built in 230.

We're going to get to it eventually.

But to understand the significance of this site and of this moment in church history,

let's step back and take a look at the history of churches in the early church.

In the pages of the New Testament, we see house churches.

In Colossians, we read about the church in the house of Nympha.

We not only have house churches, we have apartment churches.

Remember Paul in Acts chapter 20, and he's preaching so long, and this poor guy sitting

in the window sill of, as the text tells us, the third story falls out. And when they get down and find him,

he's dead. And Paul raises him back from the dead. And what we can understand and what archaeologists

and historians tell us is that's very typical of a Roman apartment building. So we have house

churches and we have apartment churches.

A fascinating house church is from Dora Europa. And I think we're going to come back and visit

Dora Europa as its own episode. There was a synagogue at Dora Europa. The walls are covered with paintings from stories of biblical times.

There's temples there.

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