Despite the Sanhedrin’s ban on their preaching activity, the disciples continued preaching and teaching “every day in the temple and from house to house.” (Acts 5:42) Exactly what does “from house to house” mean?
In the original Greek, the phrase katʼ oiʹkon literally means “according to house.” Several translators state that the word ka·taʹ is to be understood in a “distributive” sense, that is, the disciples’ preaching was distributed from one house to another. A similar use of ka·taʹ occurs at Luke 8:1, where Jesus is said to have preached “from city to city and from village to village.”
The plural form, katʼ oiʹkous, is used at Acts 20:20. The apostle Paul told Christian overseers: “I did not hold back from . . . teaching you publicly and from house to house.” That Paul here was not simply talking about teaching in the elders’ homes, as some suggest, is indicated in the next verse: “But I thoroughly bore witness both to Jews and to Greeks about repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus.” (Acts 20:21) Fellow believers had already repented and put faith in Jesus. So the preaching and teaching from house to house clearly had to do with bearing witness to unbelievers.