Sermon Central
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A Category You Won’t Find In The Bible: The Churchless Christian
By Thabiti Anyabwile on Aug 8, 2023
"It is important for Christians to be members of a local church because the New Testament apostles can’t conceive of anything called a Christian that’s not connected to Christ’s body."
The Inconceivable
It is important for Christians to be members of a local church because the New Testament apostles can’t conceive of anything called a Christian that’s not connected to Christ’s body. Sometimes people spiritualize that reality and only talk about the universal church, but everywhere the idea of the universal church appears in the New Testament, there’s a connection to a visible, local church.
The New Testament has no vision for the Christian life apart from our playing our part in the local church.
The truths about the church are applied there. The New Testament has no vision for the Christian life apart from our playing our part in the local church.
Our Desperate Need for One Another
The New Testament makes our involvement in a local church necessary. In the biblical pictures of the body of Christ, we see Paul making the argument that each member is necessary and irreplaceable. We see in 1 Corinthians 12 that the eye can’t say, I have no need of the feet. And the feet can’t claim, Because I’m not an eye, I’m not a part of the body. No. Each part is necessary.
In Ephesians and Colossians, Paul talks about our being joints and ligaments, supplementing each other so that the whole body may grow up. That’s really important. God’s plan A for our discipleship and growth is the local church. And he doesn’t have a plan B.
This is why all the local church substitutes are sugary, and they don’t have the nutrients we need to grow the way we would hope to grow.
It is vital for Christian witness, vital for Christian growth and discipleship, and vital for the health of our local congregations that every Christian find a healthy church that they’re able to be a part of, and serve there gladly.
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