Prove [1- to test, examine, prove, scrutinise (to see whether a thing is genuine or not), as metals. 2- to recognise as genuine after examination, to approve, deem worthy] all things; hold fast that which is good. 1Thes 5:21
Excerpts from http://www.house-church.org/genart_three.htm
For nineteen hundred years the Christian Church has been largely based on teachings and practices from sources other than the Word of God, and this has left us with a legacy of various things that desperately need to be corrected as far as church practice is concerned. Part of that legacy is that we have drastically departed from the way Bible teaching and corporate instruction was done in the early church, and by far the most serious departure in this regard is the virtually universal practice of revolving the gathering of the church on the Lord's Day around preaching and teaching, usually as done by one person.
In the New Testament, however, we see something rather different. What we find there is churches meeting in people's houses and with a twofold purpose. Firstly, they had completely open, participatory and spontaneous sharing together and worship which, by definition, wasn’t led from the front in any way. Secondly, they ate the Lord's Supper together as their main meal of the day. Given such a set up, and it is indeed how the apostles universally set churches up to be like, then certain things would subsequently, and quite logically, find no place.
For instance, in such a set up there is not the slightest need for religious or sacred buildings, and so it will come as no surprise that we therefore find the churches in the New Testament meeting exclusively in people’s homes. And something else you won’t find in the New Testament either is a Sunday service, led from the front, with those attending sitting audience style in rows and participating only in singing and, maybe, a bit of open prayer and the like. Neither will you find in the New Testament anything that even faintly resembles a sermon. And of course the reason is that such a practice would have gone completely against what the very essence of a church gathering on Sundays was seen to be. The apostles set churches up in such a way that when they came together on the Lord’s Day the rule was strictly, "...each one has... for you may all prophesy one by one…" (1 Corinthians 14v26, 31) They set churches up in such a way that would positively encourage all those gathered to participate, and therefore brought about a situation where the Lord would be free to move by His Spirit through each part of His body. Any idea of the Lord's Day gathering of the church revolving around the ministry of any one individual flies completely in the face of scripture and contradicts it outright.
This is not to say, however, that there isn't a place for the type of teaching amongst God's people whereby one person predominates in giving it. The Lord does indeed provide people in churches who are gifted in this very thing, and the New Testament makes it clear that teaching is a calling and gift of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, in the church of which I am a part we meet for Bible Study midweek, and we work very hard at furthering our understanding of God‘s Word. But in the New Testament the coming together of a church on Sundays was not the time when such gifts were exercised in that particular way, and the push was always for mutual participation, for lots of people to share something, including a short teaching, rather than for one person to dominate or lead in any way.
And this helps us to at last take the emphasis away from leadership and our wretched inclination to just revolve around those who are gifted in teaching and public speaking ability and to consequently make big men of them. It helps to keep us safe from the evil of the whole clergy/laity divide, that is, the completely unbiblical two-tier system of leaders and led which creates hierarchy. Hierarchy is something no church should ever have, and the only hierarchy found in the pages of the New Testament, pertaining to church life, is simply Jesus and everyone else. Even elders - for that is what a biblically based church will either have, or be moving towards; a plurality of co-equal, male elders who have been raised up from among those they serve - are strictly in the everyone else category.
Moreover, the biblical way of doing things that we are seeing here creates a set up in which people feel free to question whatever is being taught in order to test it themselves and therefore understand it more fully. It also makes those who teach realise that the onus is on them to do so in such a way as to persuade people that what they are saying is actually biblical rather than to just expect them to unquestioningly accept it. It helps minimise the danger whereby those who are taught are just expected to accept what their leaders teach as ‘accepted church policy’, or something like that. It brings about a situation in which people are much more likely to actively and questioningly understand things for themselves rather than just passively accepting leadership dictates and just agreeing with whatever is said or taught. It creates, in short, what many leaders in many churches fear most, people with open Bibles and free-thinking minds who don't accept things merely on the authority of a leader's say-so, but who question and challenge until they are persuaded whether or not something is or isn't biblical. It further releases the corporate insight and wisdom of all in the church, and engenders an atmosphere of humility and willingness for everyone to learn from anyone. It recognises the vitally important fact that the Lord is in all His people, and can therefore speak through any of those in the church and not just some chosen, and verbally gifted, elite.