Tuesday March 24, 2015

Weekly Challenge:

Are you a member of your current church? If not, use this week to prayerfully consider your position and make a firm resolve to join your local church as a member. Seek the guidance of the leaders as to what that involves.

Read Acts 2:42-47

 In the early church, coming to Christ was effectively coming to the church. The idea of experiencing salvation without belonging to a local church is foreign to the New Testament. With the possible exception of the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-40) every believer in the New Testament joined a local church upon their baptism. If the eunuch in question didn’t join a local church, it’s only because there wasn’t one in Ethiopia to join! When individuals repented and believed in Christ, they were baptized and added to the local church (Acts 2:41, 47; 5:14; 16:5). Nobody wanted to or did receive baptism and start roaming from church to church, unless they were sent by the local church as a missionary!!!  More than simply living out a private commitment to Christ, this meant joining together formally with other believers in a local assembly and devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer (Acts 2:42). In our modern day speak, they became members of the church! 

Added to this most of the epistles of the New Testament were written to primarily to local churches. In the case of the few written to individuals—such as Philemon, Timothy and Titus—these individuals were leaders in churches. The New Testament epistles themselves demonstrate that the Lord assumed that believers would be committed to a local assembly.

There is also evidence in the New Testament that just as there was a list of widows eligible for financial support (1 Tim. 5:9), there may also have been a list of members that grew as people were saved (cf. Acts 2:41, 47; 5:14; 16:5). In fact, when a believer moved to another city, his church often wrote a letter of commendation to his new church (Acts 18:27; Rom. 16:1; Col. 4:10; cf. 2 Cor. 3:1-2).

In addition to all of this, much of the terminology in the book of Acts fits only with the concept of formal church membership. Phrases such as “the whole congregation” (Acts 6:5, NASB), “the church in Jerusalem” (Acts 8:1), “the disciples” in Jerusalem (Acts 9:26), “in every church” (Acts 14:23), “the whole church” (Acts 15:17), and “the elders of the church” in Ephesus (Acts 20:17), all suggest recognizable church membership with well-defined boundaries (also see 1 Cor. 5:4; 14:23; and Heb. 10:25).

Church membership is not commanded in the Scriptures but the evidence overwhelming suggests that it was the accepted and only practice!

Prayer:

Based on today’s reading passage and notes jot down your own prayer points.

Adoration:

Confession:

Thanks:

Supplication:

· Pray that all believers would be at peace with tier decision about membership in the local church.

· Pray that the commitment to your local church would increase and that this increase would see many come to faith in Christ.

 Discussion & Reflection

1. How does non church membership affect the functions of a church?

2. What leadership frustrations arise from people not choosing to become members?

3. What are the pros and cons of church membership?