SermonIndex Audio Sermons
SermonIndex - Promoting Revival to this Generation
Give To SermonIndex
Discussion Forum : General Topics : Universal church or Local church only?

Print Thread (PDF)

Goto page ( Previous Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 Next Page )
PosterThread
Heydave
Member



Joined: 2008/4/12
Posts: 1306
Hampshire, UK

 Re:

"But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels,
to the general assembly and CHURCH of the firstborn who are registered in heaven......." Hebrews 12:22-23

Registered in heaven, NOT on the local church membership role!

Sounds like the universal church to me!


_________________
Dave

 2017/3/1 14:52Profile
proudpapa
Member



Joined: 2012/5/13
Posts: 2936


 Re:

RE : /// I believe people who are not part of local Church are those who do NOT LOVE JESUS at all. How can someone love the Head Jesus but not his Body the Church? Can a man say to a women that he loves her head but not her body? If there is true love for head, there will also be a true love for body and a need to join with the body.///

Many are displaced from any local assembly right now because many have been hurt and have been manipulated and spirtually abused by various local assemblies also many are of the feeling that many of the local assemblies seem to more resemble a harlot than a bride.

When we lived in Colorado we where unable to find an adequate fellowship.

clarity

 2017/3/1 21:49Profile









 Re:

.
I just posted about a dear sister who was martyred in Saudi Arabia a few years ago. She came to Christ and her only source of fellowship was through online internet forums. Saudi Arabia is it restricted nation which is very hostile to followers of Christ. Local churches often meet underground if they can be found. Oftentimes believers in Jesus may be in isolation in hostile situations. And local fellowship is not readily available to them.

To make a statement that this dear sister did not love Jesus when she gave her life in martyrdom would be very grievous to the Spirit.

Bro Blaine

 2017/3/1 22:24
joliboy11
Member



Joined: 2011/9/16
Posts: 208
Philippines

 Re:

"Each church is individual Body of Christ."

I don't think that this concept is found in the Bible brother, there is only one body of Christ in the earth.

"If each Church is individually not a body then why is Jesus writing letters to each Church separately? He could have written one letter to the universal Church and asked the apostle to read it for all the individual members. Why take time and effort to write to each of them?"

I agree brother, because every local church is distinct. Every situation on the church is different. But does not invalidate that all Christians comprises the body of Christ, the bride of Christ.

What about Philip baptizing the Ethiopian Enuch and just left immediately, he was teleported?

And I think Paul was a traveling apostle, though he spent more time on a church than the others.
-----------

According to your view, What is then the minimum requirement for a church to be a church?

---

Jesus put a balance here:
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Matthew 18:6

That is why others are "hanging" and don't go to a "church" near them.

 2017/3/1 23:59Profile
Sree
Member



Joined: 2011/8/20
Posts: 1953


 Re:

Quote:

I agree brother, because every local church is distinct. Every situation on the church is different. But does not invalidate that all Christians comprises the body of Christ, the bride of Christ.



If Jesus is writing a separate letter just because the situations are different makes no sense. He could have still written a single letter addressing all the different situation, right? For example I can write a single letter to a family addressing all the members of it, even though their situations are different.

I can prove this from scripture itself. Let us see how Jesus was dwelling among Churches.

Rev 12-13:- Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash.

What are these 7 distinct lampstands?

Verse 20-
As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

So each Church was represented by an individual lampstand here. A lampstand has 7 branches, so if all the Churches are part of one body, then each Church should represent different branch of a single lampstand, instead they are all individual lampstands! How can Jesus make it so clear to us that each Church is individual body by itself? In OT it was Israel represented by a single lampstand but now each Church it self represented by a single lampstand.

Quote:

And I think Paul was a traveling apostle, though he spent more time on a church than the others.



Based on the passage I have quoted, Apostles are also given to equip Church. That is exactly what Paul was doing. He was travelling place to place to plant Churches. If you ask Paul where his converts are, he will take you to each Church in the areas where he traveled. He was also not doing it alone, he always had coworkers.

New Testament pattern of doing God's work is not doing it alone. Our Lord Jesus sent Apostles in twos (Luke 10:1). So they always worked with other believers for God's kingdom.

Philp sharing the Gospel to Enuch is similar to how we are expected to share the Gospel in our workplace, first by our life then by our words. I cannot expect my coworkers in Christ from my Church to come with me there to share the Gospel. As I travel if I happen to find someone with need, I can always share the Gospel. But I cannot keep doing it alone as my service to Kingdom of God. Philip Soon planted a Church in Samaria. That was his main ministry.


_________________
Sreeram

 2017/3/2 7:37Profile
Sree
Member



Joined: 2011/8/20
Posts: 1953


 Re:

Quote:

According to your view, What is then the minimum requirement for a church to be a church?



2 or more gathering together in Jesus name is good enough. 2 families are more than sufficient to form a Church. If there is a unity of Spirit. If they submit to one another. If they all together connected by one Head, Jesus Christ. Then it is a Church. The Church that I am part of, we have only 4 committed families. That is good enough. We are open to others joining us. we invite other families as well. Many of them choose to be visitors! But if they are unwilling to be part of this body of believers, we cannot help. It is God who builds his Church, he will add those for whom He has the burden.
It was Noah's responsibility to construct the Ark, it was God who decided who should be in. The Ark is a perfect symbol of Church in NT time. Outside the Ark there is only death!

Quote:

That is why others are "hanging" and don't go to a "church" near them.




If they really have a burden to see the Church of Jesus to be built in their locality, assuming all the Churches near them have backslidden. Then God will definitely unite them with other believers who have similar burden. The point is they do not have this burden.

Most of those who are boasting to be part of NO CHURCH, have a deep arrogance inside them. If they are honest they will accept this. Their spiritual pride makes it impossible for them to work with other believers. It would have been humbling for Apostle Paul to work with younger believers like Timothy and Silas. But he still did it, because that was God's will for Paul. Not to be a loner like these super spiritual Christians of these days!


_________________
Sreeram

 2017/3/2 7:51Profile









 Re:

Sree writes.........

"I believe people who are not part of local Church are those who do NOT LOVE JESUS at all."

That is an accusation that is sad and can only have one source brother, you need to repent of that. Your concept of church is not infallible and you have much learning yet to go. Pride is a terrible thing and the more mature we become in the Lord, the less we make statements that you have made. I pray that the Lord will mature you in your knowledge and understanding of what it means to be a Christian. I pray that the Lord will increase your understanding of the Scripture below.................bro Frank

Mat 18:20  For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. 

 2017/3/2 8:55
beekpr
Member



Joined: 2011/7/12
Posts: 83


 Re:

While being part of the local church is the ideal, when the church is in a bad state of apostasy God sometimes orchestrates unique ways to care for His children. Years ago I with a few others were denied church privileges in an assembly we were part of because we would not help to cover up some corruption in leadership. After taking a stand in this way God revealed Himself to me in a glorious way which I had never deemed possible before. After that, even though I am part of a fellowship, I realized that nothing can separate me from being a part of the true body of Christ except me being too overcome by the fear of man to stand up for truth. Right now there is a moving of God which I am aware of in an almost "dead" denomination. God leads people to salvation in the most intriguing ways and they frequently remain in the same church until they are forced out, but in the meantime lead others to the Lord within the religious culture. A few days ago I was privileged to sit around a table, "breaking pizza" with three young folk of this people group sharing the closest spiritual fellowship with them I have ever known among believers. I was old enough to be their father or grandfather but it made no difference. Their spiritual encouragement comes from private Bible studies done in their own language with those who are born again.
Whether my spiritual gifts are recognized within my local fellowship or not makes little difference - God brings people into the lives of of my wife and me through which I can exercise them anyway. Even the gift of prophesy has been exercised when the church failed to recognize the gift - as God directed certain people to pray against specific things which endangered the fellowship. The gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church but the strategies of the battle are up to our Commander and His methods are wonderfully varied. I desire to be close enough to Him to be able to receive the exact instructions for the occasion. Let us not attempt to put God into a box!

 2017/3/2 9:06Profile









 Re:

Beekpr writes.............

" Let us not attempt to put God into a box!"

Amen brother. If you read what was written during the process of the reformation, you recognize much of what is written today. People who left the Catholic church were strictly warned that they were not Christians outside of fellowship with Catholicism, they were told they were leaving the Church therefore outside of the Body of Christ. Religious folks and cultish organizations alaways tell you if you are not part of what they believe then you are going to hell.

Of course the one qualification of entering the Kingdom of heaven, being a living stone, being part of the Body of Christ is to be born again. This is what a man or woman must do, he must be born again. Fellowship comes in many shapes and sizes and gatherings are different depending where you are in the world and what condition you find yourself in, but what remains the same is the brotherhood of the saints no matter where you live or how you gather. I could travel to the ends of the earth and there find two brothers and a sister and they would be my family and what a wonderful and beautiful thing it is to be part of that family and to recognize a brother or a sister who comes from a radically different culture from you and who worships or gathers in a radically different fashion that you are used to. It is not how they gather that makes them saints, it is the Spirit of the Lord God in them that joins us together as one and it is beautiful.

If you have traveled land and seas, which I have, and met saints from multiple different backgrounds, which I have, you too would be thrilled to recognize your brother or your sister and you would embrace them with all of the love and more so than even your own natural family members. Satan hates the family of God because we are one in Him and He in us and so shall it ever be for all eternity...........bro Frank

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Rom 8:31-39)

 2017/3/2 9:50
Sree
Member



Joined: 2011/8/20
Posts: 1953


 Re:

Quote:

That is an accusation that is sad and can only have one source brother, you need to repent of that.



First Apolos, you have not quoted me fully. See in what context I said about Church and love for Jesus. If you think I am wrong then give me a logical answer to this question. If you cannot give then it is you who needs to repent (with all respect)!

How can someone love Jesus and not his body? How can a man say to a women that he loves her head but not her body? How can there not be a desire in someone who loves Jesus to not fellowship with his body (Church). If a person is truly in love with Jesus then he will not stop until he gets in contact with a true Body of Jesus. He will not boast about how super spiritual he is without a Church, nor defend it in Internet forum like this!

Everything I have posted here is scripture both from Ephesians and Revelation. If you have anything against the point I am inferring, you have to first quote your understanding of those scripture. If you have no scripture to offer then your understanding is not right at all or subjective.

If Matt 18:20 is so generic and can be applicable to any 2 people gathering together then why was Jesus standing out side and knocking the doors of Leodicia Church when the people there where assuming that they are gathering in Jesus name? (Rev 3:20).

Compare scripture with scripture to avoid all such deceptions. The epistles and the letters of Jesus in revelation are all written for Churches. If you are unwilling to be part of a Church then tear those pages and live with rest of your Bible!

By being part of a Church, I do not mean sitting in a dead denomination. It is to be committed to a set of believers. Every part in our body is committed to work together, they just do not work with anyone randomly. They both give and receive from other parts. A Christian is supposed to be committed to other Christians in his locality. Just saying "hello how are you", or chatting in an internet forum are not commitment. It is mockery of God intended fellowship of saints.


_________________
Sreeram

 2017/3/2 10:40Profile





©2002-2024 SermonIndex.net
Promoting Revival to this Generation.
Privacy Policy