Sermon Tone Analysis

Who are you?

The case for membership is certainly an unusual one.

Many reject the concept because we do not have clear passages in the Scripture that clearly define church membership.

And they are correct.

There is no Scripture passage that says “thou shalt practice church membership”

To make matters worse, there are many bad ways to practice church membership.

Most churches has such a loose definition and practice of church membership that you wouldn’t even know it was an option unless you asked, and you can join simply by filling out a card.

On the flip side, most negative experiences of church membership in overbearing contexts are felt in the moments of poorly executed church discipline.

As a result, you end up with people having very little idea of what church membership means and why it matters, and many who are resistant to the idea.

When I was in high school and college and first beginning to think about things like church membership, I remember really bristling at the idea and questioning its validity.

To me, it was a man-made system with no biblical warrant and should be abandoned in favor of a more organic church life.

It was only later through a handful of experiences and my own careful study of the concepts of church membership that I became convinced that this is a healthy and worthwhile practice for churches, and that it ought to be the expectation that churches practice meaningful church membership and that the people who attend the church would join church membership.

Many who argue for church membership argue for it from the top down.

I’d like to argue from the bottom up.

What do I mean by that?

From the top down is to start with a conception of what membership should look like based on history and culture practices, and then seek to find justification for the practice with biblical texts.

From the bottom up is to start with biblical texts and principles and then seek to find the best way to live out those principles.

The argument is essentially going to be that membership is the best way to fulfill those principles.

By approaching it this way the goal is to end up with a church polity structure that is centered on biblical principles, not cultural expectations.

So I’d like to start with some basic principles that we see in Scripture that lead us toward to practice of church membership, and then I want to follow that up by giving some definition to how membership can function.

Five principles that lead us to practice meaningful church membership

Regular Assembling

We talked about this concept back when we were defining what a local church is.

Scripture is clear that we are under obligation to gather with other believers on a regular basis for worship, instruction, edification, and exhortation.

This text t hat we so often see is Heb 10:

Indeed, as we said a few weeks ago, the Bible knows nothing about Christians who are not part of a church in some fashion expect in the most extreme of circumstances like imprisonment or exile.

The entire New Testament assumes that God’s people will gather, as the language of being “among” a “flock” implies (Acts 6:3; James 5:14; 1 Pet 5:1-2).

With whom will you gather?

Does it have to be the same people each time?

Can you bounce around from church to church, never really putting down roots?

Is that what we see in Eph 4?

The principles of Ephesians four that speak of being equipped for ministry, being built up in love, finding stability in your faith would seem to suggest that you ought to be committed to a local church body where they give themselves to others who will also give of themselves to you.

The need to regularly assemble with a local church implies the need to belong to that church.

That alone doesn’t necessitate membership, but it begins to point us in that direction.

The second principle is the responsibilty that the church as a whole has to defend and uphold the church’s doctrine

Guarding and Upholding Sound Doctrine

The leadership of a church is responsible to teach sound doctrine.

We see this in Titus 2:1

And we see this in Acts 20 where Paul instructs the elders to give heed to themselves and all the flock.

But Paul also expects the church as a whole to guard and uphold sound doctrine as well.

We see this in three ways: First, look at how he holds the Galatian church accountable for failing to keep the Gospel:

This was a letter written to multiple churches.

Skipping down to verse 6:

Paul directly confronted the churches as a whole for their departure from sound doctrine.

Second, we see this in how Paul held the Corinthian church accountable to keep the apostolic traditions:

and then we see it again in verse 17

Paul had given specific instructions to the church about the Lord’s table and they were failing to live that out.

He held them all accountable for that.

Finally, we see that the entire church is responsible to guard and uphold sound doctrine through the way that Paul addressed entire churches and not just leadership when he wrote.

There are some letters that were written specifically to leaders like Timothy and Titus, but most were written to entire churches:

If the congregation is responsible to uphold sound doctrine, as a matter of practicality, the concept of membership logically flows from this.

How is the church to obey this command?

If a group of 20 people showed up next week, listened to the sermon, claimed I was teaching false doctrine and demanded that I be fired or that we change our doctrinal statement, would we listen?

You might say, no that’s silly.

They only just showed up.

What if they were attending for six months?

a year?

Church membership allows us identify who belongs to our church so that we may guard and uphold our doctrine.

The process of joining membership allows the leadership to hear the testimony of a potential member and hear them commit to our doctrine.

It’s part of the guarding process to vet potential members, and then its the job of the membership to uphold the doctrine and not undermine from within.

The need to guard and uphold sound doctrine therefore seems to demand some kind of membership process.

Third

Church Discipline

The instructions for church discipline make it clear that there are “insiders” and “outsiders,” and provide the process for how to discipline erring members.

(Matt 18:15-17; Rom 16:17; 1 Cor 5; 2 Cor 2:5-11; Titus 3:10-11).

There are several tests we could examine.

For the sake of time let’s look at one.

In 1 Cor 5, Paul is addressing a significant sin by one of the members of the church.

The church has the responsibility to purge out the evil.

If someone is living in open unrepentant sin, the responsibility of the church is to put that individual out of the church.

Now, we know that the church is not a building.

This is not just about barring someone from attending services.

This is removing someone from the life of the church.

Paul says to cleanse out the old leaven!

Then look at what he says in verse 9-13:

The concept of insiders and outsides makes it clear that there is some kind of formal connection to the church.

This leads us to consider how one becomes part of a church, and the concepts of church membership begin to be developed.

Fourth.

The Principles of oversight and submission.

Oversight and Submission

Elders are called to shepherd the flock of God “among” them, and the church is called to submit to their leadership.

(Heb 13:7, 17; 1 Pet 5:2, 5).

We looked at some of these texts as we were considering elders a few weeks ago.

Let’s refresh our minds.

The Elders are charged with the responsibility to shepherd the flock and exercise oversight.

Who makes up the flock?

Who are they to oversee?

Is every elder responsible for every person in every church?

Membership helps define the responsibility that Elders have.

Likewise, the congregation is to be subject to the elders.

As the Elder provide oversight, the church is to submit to them.

Who are they to submit to?

The preacher on YouTube?

The guy across town?

Let’s look at one more text:

The church is called to remember their leaders.

There are people in their lives that they are called to imitate.

Skip down to verse 17

The leaders are to watch over the souls of the congregation, and the people are to obey and submit to the leadership.

Again, what defines someone as being part of the church?