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We should definitely raise our comfort level to 120!

But notice that it was only the eleven named in Acts 1:13 who were “abiding” in the upper room. I suppose that they could squeeze 120 people into one room for a meeting, but it is also possible that the 120 met somewhere close by that had a little more space.

But more interesting to me is the juxtaposition of two facts: the 3000+ people mentioned in Acts 2:41 and 2:47, together with the record in Acts 2:46, 1Co 16:19, and Col 4:15 which suggest that while the believers may have been gathering in one huge meeting “day by day” in the temple (before they were banned), they were also meeting “day by day” in houses to share meals together. Would anyone suggest that over 3000 people were meeting together and taking a meal together in one single house? Rather than a single house, Acts 2:46 says, “from house to house”.

The scriptures above suggest a model of small-group meetings in houses together with whole-group meetings in the temple, at the beginning. Once persecution started, the whole-group meetings would have become risky. We also have the record in Acts 8:3, which suggests that in order to “make havock of the church” Saul had to enter “every house.” This in turn suggests that those houses were the places believers were meeting, and furthermore that there were many houses.

While scripture is not definitive on this point, it is suggestive of all believers in a city meeting in small groups in houses, but considering themselves all part of one church.