Is Church Membership in the Bible?
Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear
J.D. Greear
4.9 • 624 Ratings
🗓️ 18 March 2019
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A glimpse inside this episode:
Spoiler alert: Yes!
The word is not there, but the concept is. ("Trinity" isn’t either, but of course the concept is.) Concept: covenant community where you belong.
We see that evidenced in multiple places:
* 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians: Paul talks about removing a sinning brother from their fellowship (1 Cor) and then commends them for their actions (2 Cor).
* Acts 6: They have an election
* In 1 Timothy 5:3-16, we see a clear teaching on how to handle widows in the church. There’s even language of creating a roster so the leaders know how to care for them well.
Consumer: don’t want to belong.
* Nothing wrong with consumer… if you’re talking about fast food.
* Apply it to marriage or my kids, that’s a problem!
Church is definitely a committed, not consumer relationship. You can see that probably easiest in the primary metaphor for the church in the Bible: a body.
* Imagine your body with non-committed body members?
* How do you use your gifts and experience the gifts of others?
* How do you fulfill the “each other” commands?
Practically: what if I am afraid to join?
* Find a church with good biblical preaching; teaches community; practices accountability; focuses on getting you into ministry. I’m willing to put up with most anything else if those things are there.
* Don’t wait for a perfect church: if you do, when you find and join it, it won’t be perfect anymore.
* Bonhoeffer's three stages of growth: disgust at the sins of others; disgust at your own sin; ready to re-enter church as an instrument in the hands of the Redeemer who has been redeemed yourself than as a self-righteous Pharisee committed to judging everyone.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Lifeway Leadership Podcast Network. |
| 0:05.0 | You're listening to Ask Me Anything with Pastor J.D. Greer. |
| 0:09.2 | Honest questions, quick answers. |
| 0:11.3 | I'm your host, Todd Unzicker, and this is where J.D. Greer says, ask me anything. Ask Me Anything. |
| 0:32.1 | I am Todd Unziker, your host, |
| 0:36.2 | and this is Ask Me Anything with J.D. Greer. |
| 0:38.8 | And this week, J.D., is church membership in the Bible? |
| 0:43.6 | I get this question, in fact, I got this question just last Sunday about somebody who was explaining to me while they've been here for 12 years attending our church and never joined. |
| 0:51.9 | And part of their question was, hey, the word is not in the |
| 0:55.3 | Bible, which is true. You can't find the word membership there, or even some Greek, you know, |
| 0:59.9 | variation of it. You've got, it seems that this church is this movement, this fast moving, |
| 1:07.5 | multiplying movement. And there are people who say, well, membership is just kind of |
| 1:11.5 | this archaic sort of westernized thing that has vestiges left over from high church movements |
| 1:17.4 | where used to belong to the, you know, it's all kinds of things and it's not biblical. There's even |
| 1:21.4 | some really, I think, popular church movements like Calvary Chapel, which, man, I love the guys at Calvary Chapel, but they teach |
| 1:28.9 | that as part of their core identity is that you're not members. You should be active. You should be |
| 1:34.5 | engaged. And that's really the question of discipleship is how engaged you are, not whether you're |
| 1:38.0 | not. Your name is on a list. So I have a lot of sympathy with it, but short answer, yes. I'll |
| 1:41.9 | give you the spoiler alert. Absolutely. I think the concept of church membership in the Bible, just because the word's not there. I mean, |
| 1:47.2 | people have pointed out for years that the word Trinity is not in the Bible, but that doesn't mean |
| 1:50.5 | that concept is not there. And so the concept of membership is seen in this talk of the church |
| 1:57.4 | or the presentation of a church as a covenant community. It's a community that have |
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