The Book of Acts is the book of the continuing Christ.

What Christ began in the gospel records, he continues in the book of Acts.

In the first part of Acts, chapters 1 through 7, we joined the adventures of what the Holy Spirit was doing through the apostles in the early church.

This work was primarily focused in Jerusalem. The second section of Acts, however,

advances beyond Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria. In this section of our study, we see the

power of the gospel on full display, changing the lives of those who hear it.

Let's join Scott now as the adventure continues.

Are you a member of a local New Testament church?

You know, this particular time in history, it seems that church membership means less

and less to people. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's an ignorance of what Scripture teaches.

Maybe it's a reticence to commit to anything. Maybe people want to be spectators and not

participants. There are many places where folks attend, but they never belong.

They come and slip into a meeting and listen, maybe even enjoy and receive something,

but they never really are plugged in.

And yet, I want to suggest to you that when you study the first mention of the church all through

the book of Acts what you find is people belonging to a local assembly now the details of church

membership that's not what I'm talking about how the records are kept and and how how they're

transferred and all that's not what I'm talking about. That's up to the

individual assembly. Every local church is autonomous and has to work out those functional details.

I'm talking to you about a principle, and the principle is this, that the church is the visible

representation of Christ in a community, that a church, a local group of baptized believers

voluntarily joining themselves together to observe the ordinances, to fellowship, to worship,

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