Monday, March 06, 2006
Joining Up
Last week over at Pyromaniacs, James Spurgeon posted on Acts 9 and reflected on church memebership.
Churches need to demand more, and Christians need to risk more and be more proactive in their faith. It is this later issue that I want to look at briefly. Can one truly be a Christian apart from some body of the faithful?
Certainly scripture argues that one cannot. All those passages in the epistles about "the body" and "be of one mind." Clearly there is a scriptural expectation that we will be part of the group.
But I think the truly key issue to the question is accountability, which is what is illustrated in the Acts 9 passage. Someone had to account for Saul before he was allowed to join the church. We too easily can lead ourselves astray - we need others to keep us focused and balanced.
The church cannot grant us salvation, but we cannot not properly appropriate it and "work out our salvation" without being a part of the church.
Cross-posted on How To Be A Christian And Still Go To Church
Related Tags: church, church membership, salvation, appropriation, The Body Of Christ, Paul, Saul, Acts 9
What is the first thing Saul does when he gets to Jerusalem? Hmmm? He attempts to join the church that is already there. Affiliation with the local church is obviously of paramount importance to Saul. What happens when he attempts to join himself to them? They reject his application. They are afraid of him and, frankly, don?t find his testimony credible. They do not believe that he was truly saved.I agree with this 100%, but it is a sword that cuts both ways. When it comes to church membership there seems to be an ever downward spiral. Congregations put less and less emphasis on membership, so fewer and fewer people join, then the congregation has to decrease the emphasis even further so they can appear somehow thriving, and so it goes.
Does anybody else see here how that Saul was rejected for membership? Obviously there was some criteria that wasn?t being met, even if that criteria was nothing more than convincing the elders one was a genuine disciple. Don't miss that. There was criteria that had to be met or an individual was not allowed to join himself to the local assembly of disciples. There was a difference, a distinction, between disciples and non-disciples and non-disciples were not allowed to join.
Churches need to demand more, and Christians need to risk more and be more proactive in their faith. It is this later issue that I want to look at briefly. Can one truly be a Christian apart from some body of the faithful?
Certainly scripture argues that one cannot. All those passages in the epistles about "the body" and "be of one mind." Clearly there is a scriptural expectation that we will be part of the group.
But I think the truly key issue to the question is accountability, which is what is illustrated in the Acts 9 passage. Someone had to account for Saul before he was allowed to join the church. We too easily can lead ourselves astray - we need others to keep us focused and balanced.
The church cannot grant us salvation, but we cannot not properly appropriate it and "work out our salvation" without being a part of the church.
Cross-posted on How To Be A Christian And Still Go To Church
Related Tags: church, church membership, salvation, appropriation, The Body Of Christ, Paul, Saul, Acts 9
