IS OFFICIAL OR FORMAL CHURCH MEMBERSHIP IN A LOCAL CHURCH ACCORDING TO SCRIPTURE – PART 2
In Part 1 we looked at the practice some churches have of there being an official local church membership that divides “members”, adherents and attendees into “MEMBERS” and “NON-MEMBERS” depending if one has been interviewed, and the name submitted to a Church Meeting, for a vote on acceptance. Then that person has rights others do not have, even though all born again Christians are members of the Body of Christ with equal right in the Lord’s sight.
We have been looking as Paul’s writings and the practice in the very first church at Jerusalem. Now we continue with more examples from Paul’s letters.
I wish to restate that my aim in doing this is not to cause trouble in any church, but I do call on you to examine this practice of there being official/formal members while discriminating against those who are not, as if they are inferior.
I knew of a church where a minister was sent “to turn the church around” and he spent most of his time in sermons on Membership and Constitutions. What about the Christian life, and progressing in Christ? Is not that what we are about?
[4]. THE CORINTHIAN AND ROMAN CHURCH –
{{1 Corinthians 1:10 “Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, THAT YOU ALL AGREE, and THERE BE NO DIVISIONS AMONG YOU, but you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.”}}
When you have a two-tiered group in a church you immediately have a division. I don’t mean a nasty division, or a bitter one, but a division nevertheless. Paul urged all in Corinth to agree and to do that everyone there had to be on the same level; on the same platform as members of the Body. Corinth had many divisions as we well know, but official church membership was not one of them because it did not exist to become a division. Instead they made another division – Paul, Apollos, Cephas.
{{Romans 16:17 “Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those WHO CAUSE DISSENSIONS AND HINDRANCES contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them.”}}
I am suggesting that dividing people into official members with rights, and all the rest with no rights is causing a division. It is also putting a hindrance before a man or woman who wishes fellowship in Christ but does not wish to part of a man-made invention. You are then wounding the conscience of that one.
The local church is NOT like Club – Yacht Club, or Special Golf Club, Country Club, where a person submits his/her name for membership that then has to be voted on, or deliberated on. It then becomes a badge of honour when a person is accepted. Thank God, I am accepted in the beloved and Christ added me to the Church when I was saved. Anything apart from that is not scriptural.
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[5]. TWO MORE CORINTHIAN VERSES:-
{{1 Corinthians 6:15 “Do you not know that YOUR BODIES ARE MEMBERS OF CHRIST? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? May it never be!”}}
This verse belongs to a passage where Paul is teaching about things that are lawful but not necessarily profitable. He says that all things are lawful for him but he will not be mastered by anything. He then gives a number of examples, concluding in verse 15 with the passage that our bodies are members of Christ and that they should not be taken from there and made members of a harlot.
By harlot, he means placing our membership of the body of Christ in another area and our association with something that would not do honour to our membership in the body of Christ. In my way of thinking we have an extremely precious membership - that is a full membership in the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to take that membership lightly and impose rules and regulations of another membership, in my way of thinking, is placing ourselves in an association which is not the one that we should hold dearly to. I think to do that is to miss the understanding of the true value of the Church, or if you like, the preciousness of the Bride. Some may think I am making a great deal out of nothing, but why impose something not in the New Testament churches on believers?
The majority goes along with it because hardly anyone examines it.
{{1 Corinthians 12:12-14 “For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. (13) For BY ONE SPIRIT WE WERE ALL BAPTISED INTO ONE BODY, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (14) FOR THE BODY IS NOT ONE MEMBER, BUT MANY.”}}
Now we come to an essential passage of the Scriptures. If we understand the importance of these verses then we would not have any trouble with the imposition of a man-made regulation upon the people of God. Let us look carefully at these verses.
Verse 12 tells us that the body is one but has many members and this reflects the Head of the body who is Christ. He is one, and so the Body is one though composed of many members. This teaches us very clearly that our membership is in the Body of Christ and again implies our membership one of the other. Think of the Church, the Body. There are not tiers of membership, nor are there special privileges granted to some who have undergone some ritual! NO! All in Christ’s body are equal. To impose a ritual of a local church membership as some do, is to create another body and place members in another body apart from the only body the Scripture knows, and that is the Body of Christ.
Verse 13 is one of the most important verses of unity in the Bible and I touched on it in the last message. It connects the Holy Spirit and baptism and the body of Christ. Just as there is one Spirit, so also there is one Body and one Christ. We are all made to drink of the one Spirit. Can you not see the vitality of this relationship that Christians have with Christ who is the Head of the Body and as a consequence, their relationship is an equal one, one with another. We are all baptised into this one Body and have been made members of that Body through the Spirit baptism.
Artificial membership is to fly in the face of our having been baptised into one Body to become members one of another. That is how I see it, and in the Lord, I can put my case. I am not twisting your arm. It is so clear in these verses that there are many members in the Body but we are all equal members in that Body. In verse 14 the fact again is emphasised, that the Body is not one member but many. Again it stresses that there is one Body but many members. As I said previously the New Testament knows of only two memberships. The first of these is membership in the Body of Christ through the baptism of the Spirit, and the second one is that we are members one of another. I might belong to one particular fellowship - in other words I associate there, but I’m equal in my membership with a person who belongs to another local fellowship because our equality is in Christ.
At this juncture I feel there is something that must be pointed out. I see nothing wrong in welcoming a Christian to a fellowship of the local believers and endorsing their unity of the body of Christ on an equal status with the other people who worship at a particular place. That can be done publicly and there is nothing wrong with that.
They can be welcomed into the group. There is nothing wrong with that. If people want to sign a roll or some record of Christians who meet together in a particular place, I see nothing wrong in that. Sometimes historically it might be good to have a record of who was where at any particular time. However it is grossly wrong and evil to demand a separate membership from what the Bible teaches that gives certain Christians specific rights over others especially at Business Meetings and other things. Rights like voting rights, or special privileges, or endorsing certain church positions like Group leadership only if you have this “special man-made membership”, or more honour, or the evil of considering them MORE COMMITTED in their Christian life because they will submit to an ordinance of man. I find all that detestable, and so does God. We must not go along with that.
A lot of what I see and observe operates in my country but I can’t speak for what happens in the United States.
[6]. TWO MORE PASSAGES FROM CORINTHIANS:-
(a). {{1 Corinthians 12:18 “But now GOD HAS PLACED THE MEMBERS, EACH ONE OF THEM, IN THE BODY, just as He desired, 1 Corinthians 12:19 and if they were all one member, where would the body be? 1 Corinthians 12:20 But now there are many members, but one body.”}}
Paul continues his teaching of the Body of Christ. He tells us very clearly that it is God who places the members each one of them, in His Body just as He desires. That is God’s membership, and praise God He has given us that membership which we share equally with all Christians and it is the only membership to which we belong in our Christian life. What Paul is teaching here, and borne out by verse 19, is that there is diversity among the members otherwise all the members in the Body of Christ would simply be clones.
There is diversity, and that diversity is recognised by the gifts given to the members of his Body. Again Paul emphasises in verse 20 this fact that there is only one Body but many members. We might associate with a particular local fellowship and then leave and go to another one in another town or another country, but we are still members of His Body and therefore we are members one of another in whatsoever Christian group we belong to. That is the universality of the Body of Christ, and our membership in that Body ensures our membership with one another as fellow Christians.
(b). {{1 Corinthians 12:24 whereas our seemly members have no need of it, but God has so composed the Body, giving more abundant honour to that member which lacked, 1 Corinthians 12:25 that there should be no division in the body, but that the members SHOULD HAVE THE SAME CARE FOR ONE ANOTHER.”}}
Paul strongly states the matter in verse 25. There should be no division in the body and those who go around trying to impose special conditions on special church membership, these are the ones who are causing division in the body. I have known this. It was a denominational push. These are the ones who are doing the work of the devil by dividing the saints of God into crew and passengers (I believe that was the expression used!) or players and spectators.
The reason the members should have the same care for one another is that they are all fellow members of the one Body and have an equality with one another. We do not have a two-tier system – well we ought not!
And think about this one too. God has given gifts to all in His body and that includes those attending a local church. Christians are expected to use their gifts for the edifying of the body. Now imagine the situation where the church imposes formal membership. Those “formal members” would be expected to use their gifts, but those who are not members have gifts rejected by that church because they who possess them, are not members!
Verse 24 is talking about the matter of gifts and Paul needed to say this clearly because in churches people with special gifts can be looked up to, while others with practical gifts are sometimes rated as less important. I admire those with practical gifts and Romans talks about “helps” as a gift and that is so admirable. Your special teachers, preachers, and those with knowledge ought never to be considered more highly than those with gifts of helps and practical skills. It is the fitter and turner who keep the train engine moving, not the driver people like to esteem.
It says, “Members should have the same care for one another”, and that can only be understood in the context of all being equal as members of the One Body, otherwise you would show care to the man-made members in a fellowship and neglect those called “adherent” or “passenger” or “spectator” Christians. Any real church would not do that so what is faulty is the understanding of what membership means!
In my long church life I can recall many of God’s precious saints who ministered in such wonderful practical ways. One would collect and drive people to and from the meetings. He did it quietly. One would spend frequent time at a house of a 90 year old widow, keeping the house repaired and functional and he was in his later seventies. There are those who are straight off the mark in washing up and sweeping the floors. There are those who attend to church matters and repairs even though they are not on some church roster.
Many of those people were not speakers or ministering in more high profile areas, and they were sort of overlooked, not counted as much, especially in churches were there is this “hero-worship” hype mentality of leadership, or attention to status and chain of command. I must say I see this a lot in American churches (my solid impression) that are not egalitarian at all. That is just the American culture I feel; it exists everywhere in American programs and behaviour and I do not understand it. We are all one in Christ Jesus and if gifts of a higher order have been given to some, those endowed ought to be the most humble in the church!
