why do you like church buildings for meetings?

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

A "house" that holds 120-3000 is a special house indeed.

Houses in Jerusalem had an upper chamber set aside or loaned (Maybe even rented) to guests for meetings, weddings, prayers, as Inns where travelers can stay etc

Houses, as you mentioned, often had rooms set aside as 'guest quarters', especially in Jerusalem due to the thrice yearly Pilgrimages that occurred. Hospitality was a big thing back then.

But it is still a house.

As for a guest chamber that could hold 120 people... when I was a young child, for Thanksgiving dinner we would gather at my uncle's house. We would usually have about 100 people, and guess what? We would all eat in the 'big room' together. He had a nice house, but not a 'mansion' by any stretch. When he bought the house he and my other uncles remodeled it (they were all carpenters and house builders) to make a large 'big room' specifically for family gatherings.

When we today see the word 'house' we have certain images that come to mind, based on our current situations. People may be tempted to imagine a house in those days was a nice 3 bedroom, 2 bath structure with a 2-horse garage and a nice yard. Yards were practically unheard of back then, it was VERY common for houses to be built as multi-storied buildings (often with a shop or business on the ground floor and the living quarters above), and most houses had a 'guest chamber' (unless you were dirt poor, of course).

The Last Supper was held in an upper room chamber, a 'guest chamber', of somebody's house who apparently was somewhat well-to-do and who had a large enough room to accomodate quite a few people. It is likely this is the same place where Pentecost occurred, although I believe a close reading of the text indicates that the Pentecostal outpouring need not have taken place in 'the upper room', necessarily.

It was a house, though.