Biblical church discipline (Matt 18; 1 Cor 5) teach that a formal membership is necessary. YOu cannot be disciplined out of something you are a not a part of.
Have you never been excluded from participation in informal groups? Membership in a group is not necessary for expulsion from that group. This BBS is a good example. At the whim of the controlling agents, a participant may be ejected from this BBS for any number of causes. Because I participate is no indication that I am a member for If I were a member I would have voting rights to who runs it and how it is run. I have neither.
The keeping of lists (e.g. Acts 6; 1 Tim 5; others) teach that there was a formal knowledge of who was a member of the congregation.
Neither Acts 6 nor 1 Tim 5 speak anything of lists or the keeping of such.
The fellowship and accountability taught in the NT in the body passages assume that you are a part of a local body with which to fellowship.
Seeing as how the church at Galatia was not at the time Paul wrote more than one relatively small body of believers who just happened to live in Galatia, and the same for the bodies of believers who lived in Philippi, Thessonalica, Thyatira, Sardis, Laodocia, Ephesus, etc., and even Rome. These "sister" churches were not even linked "legally speaking" to the impoverished mother church in Jerusalem. The people who gathered themselves together did so because they were like minded, similar to a motorcycle club or a Polo Club, etc. Their commonality being belief in Jesus as their Savior. Except for the church in Jerusalem, the gentile churches had not had a promised messiah, and most of them couldn't spell the word anyway. They did not understand the concept of a Messiah prior to Paul, Silas, Barnabas, etc., missionaries that went to those locations and taught them. They were not a highly organized organization, though some may have had lists of like minded persons that attended community meeting regularly. They may have tithed to the "church", but even non- regulars would tithe to the church, as they do today.
The teaching is pretty clear.
Only in the mind of one who wants the scripture to say so!
I don't have any scriptures that speak of denominations because in the first century there were none. Denominations have arisen over time because people have differed in what the Bible teaches. That is not God's ideal.
Of course the scriptures do not speak of denominations, it only speaks of churches, gatherings of believers, in communities both in Israel and in the central and eastern Mediterranean. It speaks nothing of churches in northern Africa or anywhere else for that matter.
And that is my point! Church "membership" is not necessary for any but "the bean counters"
[ January 27, 2003, 02:07 PM: Message edited by: Yelsew ]
