Shout It From the Housetops

12 July 2025   Matthew 10:24-33

“What you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops.” Matthew 10:27

The sermons of St. Augustine are loaded with biblical references, and are profoundly theological. For that reason, they would go soaring over the heads of most American parishes today. Augustine did not preach his sermons to monks and priests, but to the ordinary people of his small diocese of Hippo Regius in North Africa (today the city of Annaba, Algeria). Nowhere in the Roman Empire of the 5^th century was the literacy rate more than 10%, and in some Christian communities it was even lower.

St. Augustine is one of the most important thinkers in the history of the world. His works are considered foundational for the emergence of western civilization. So how did a bunch of illiterate 5^th century African Christians manage to comprehend the seriously biblical and theological sermons of their bishop? How did the bishop of a small diocese on the fringe of the Roman Empire in the 5^th century become one of the most important thinkers in the history of the world?

The short of it is that St. Augustine’s parishioners shouted what they learned from the housetops (cf. Matthew 10:27).

In all of classical and post-classical antiquity literacy was low and the price of books was extortionately high – it is estimated that a single copy of the Bible in Augustine’s time would have cost the equivalent of twenty years’ pay for a moderately comfortable family anywhere in the Roman Empire.Buying a Bible was like buying a house. Writers therefore made a living by having their works read out loud to groups. In places like Hippo Regius, literate parishioners read daily large swaths of scripture to other parishioners aloud. This was simply an expectation of all the parishioners who were able to read. And because most of the parishioners were illiterate, and because paper was expensive (the equivalent of about $20 a sheet), nobody took notes. They remembered instead – ancient people had much more capacity for memory than we do because they had to use it so much.

They heard the Bible every day. They remembered it. They talked about it. That’s why the sermons of St. Augustine were not too much for them. That’s why the works of St. Augustine were preserved. His writings by themselves make up about 40% of all the works in Latin preserved from antiquity.

They shouted what they learned from the housetops.

Cultures are built up and preserved by what people talk about a lot. Cultures also collapse by what people talk about a lot. It makes a very great difference what people shout from the housetops.

We were never meant to keep the words and insights of the Bible to ourselves. In fact, Jesus said that keeping those insights to ourselves amounts to denying Him, and denying Him is a ticket to hell: “Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others I will deny before my heavenly Father” (Matthew 10:33). Privatizing the Bible means we don’t care what gets preserved, or who gets preserved. It is like the Parable of the Talents – people are given a treasure, and some invest it to make it grow, but one simply buries it in the ground, and it doesn’t disappear, but it doesn’t grow either. To that one the Lord says, “Cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:30).

We aren’t going to be judged by what we have in our hearts. We are going to be judged by what we shout from the housetops.