On Membership

Church Membership is biblical

Why did we take two weeks to preach about the topic of church membership since there is no specific text from Scripture that commands this? Because church membership is a biblical concept. How so? Because Christians are members of one body, both in the local church and the universal church.

I would like to focus on this as we look at some of the end of Paul’s epistles to the churches (and Philemon) where he offers his greetings to a multitude of people. This might be familiar to some of us, but we pass over it time and time again.

In Paul’s writings there are references to various churches and the people in them (1 Corinthians 16:19-20). I don’t think that anyone would question whether Paul was into church planting. The effect of Paul’s teaching in Ephesus for two years was “so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:10). Why does this matter? Because Jew and Gentile churches are referred to from that point onward (James 1:1, 1 Peter 1:1, Revelation 1:11).

Faithful churches consist of faithful members. Think about the very church we are a part of here. How did this church begin? Answer, like every other church! A group of people that were committed to the teaching of the Word of God and beliefs about it that did not contradict Christian belief. In other words, they were not Christians who were teaching the doctrines of demons. This church started because the members of it saw the necessity of having prayer meetings. Thank the Lord they did!

Other churches form because of the lack of biblically sound churches. Whatever the purpose of planting a church, the reason is the same. Having the conviction that the Word of God is supreme above everything else and where there is not a faithful bible preaching church, such a church must be planted!

Let me give you an example. Consider the churches in our general area. You have a Mennonite church (the one we broke off of), a United Church of Christ, and a Lutheran church just on Kings Hwy. And there are 2 Evangelical Congregational churches, one in Vera Cruz and one in Hosensack.

Here is some information about them that I found. The Mennonite church and the UCC church have female pastors, the Lutheran church does not preach from the Bible. They are a Catholic lite church. The Evangelical Congregation denomination is rooted in Wesleyan theology (that of John Wesley) which the BFC left in 1952 (The Bible Fellowship Church, pg. 267).

What I am trying to say is that this church stands out among those in this area. Out of all the churches in the area, for whatever reason, this church stood out to you among the rest when you were searching for a church to call home. I certainly hope your initial reason for coming to this church was to hear the Word of God preached. In our day, sadly, this is a distinctive feature of this church and the denomination as a whole.

The same was true of Paul’s day, “For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:22-23). But what is also true of this church is the close knit community that we share, and Paul experienced this as well.

None of this takes away the fact that we are a part of the body of Christ. Look at Romans 16. We are going to generalize a few passages here. Notice all the names. Why are these names here? Because these are people from a variety of churches who served in their local churches and helped Paul. Consider Phoebe in verse 1. She is from Cenchrea, a city that is an 8 day walk from the church in Rome. How did she help Paul? Some commentators believe that she was the deliverer of this very letter that Paul writes. Phoebe is a servant of the church at Cenchrea both in giftedness and with her financial resources, seeing that she is a benefactor (Mounce) in verse 2.

Look at verse 3. Prisca and Aquila who were tent-makers with Paul (Acts 18:3). Paul mentions that there is a church in their house. According to Acts 18, they remained in Ephesus for a little while. Their home church could have been in Ephesus or in Rome. Clearly, they were not in the same church as Phoebe.

Another church is found in Colossians 4:15 of whom Nympha hosts. Paul greets her and the church specifically.

What am I trying to say? All of these churches, as spread out as they were, were influenced by the Christ-centered preaching of the Apostle Paul. What made these churches united although farther apart? A love for the Word of God! Membership was not a ‘thing’ because the believers in each church were committed to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. They carried out church life similarly one to another. In other words, church membership was not needed (as we know it today) because it was at the very institution of the NT church. It is in our day that church membership is more of a “thing.”

So why, ‘specifically,’ church membership in our day? Two that I want to bring up. 1. Because there are many more beliefs within the Christian community than there were in Paul’s day. For example, there were not the multitude of denominations in Paul’s day. There were no factions of beliefs stemming from the root. There was excitement over salvation in Jesus Christ alone.

2. Another reason church membership exists in our day is because communities are not as tight as they once were. We must be cognizant of the geographical context of some of these churches. In some cases they were the only church to go to worship the one true God. In our denomination, locally speaking, you do not have to drive far to find a sister church.

Yet, we must never forget that church membership is not a “new” thing. It is not some clever system that man has put together to keep people in the church. It has always existed. It has not always had the title. But church membership was constant in the early church of the NT. There are many facets of church membership that are performed or spoken of throughout Scripture such as service of one to another (Acts 4:32-37, Galatians 6:10, Hebrews 6:10), church discipline (1 Corinthians 5:1-7, 13, Galatians 6:1, 2 Thessalonians 3:6), making disciples (Acts 9:34-35, Acts 11:19-21), and preaching the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:23, 2 Corinthians 4:5).

Further, in Ephesians 4:11-13 pastors and teachers are given the responsibility to “equip the saints…until we all attain the unity of faith.” I ask you this. Can this occur week in and week out to people that are not committed to the local church? People that are under the loving care and direction of elders of God’s own choosing need shepherds to fulfill these tasks. Yes, there is no explicit notion of church membership, but I don’t think you can read this text in Ephesians without seeing church membership interwoven within.

There are more texts that we could look at, yes, church membership is that prominent in Scripture. But, I want to leave you with the exhortation to not just attend a Sunday morning service and then be on your way until the next week, but to follow in what David says in Psalm 133:1, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!”

Let’s pray.

Benediction

Jeremiah 17:7-8

“Blessed are you who trusts in Yahweh and whose trust is Yahweh. Amen.” (my rendition)