Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
The church in the house was referred to as the church in the house. This is the side you have neglected. You cannot demonstrate from scripture that the church in the house referred to in the NT is equivalent to the church in the city...
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Igzy,
Not necessarily. I have several counterexamples to your logic. In my country, some groups which used to gather separately eventually gathered together after recognizing each other's right ground as the local church in that city. Of course, as you described, there are many cases in which two groups just reject others even after recognizing other's right ground. However, just becase it is not so easy to practice the truth, that does not necessarily follow that we can give up the truth.
As opposed to the general understanding of many posters here, I believe a local church has more chrateristic of unversal church than local because basically, for example, the church in Moscow include all the saints there, regardless of their accepting of the truth of one church - one locality.
My point is that even though one unifying eldership of a local church should be accepted as a valid truth in the Bible, that should not be over-empahsized as to make divisions - as done by "Late Lee." To my understanding, Paul seems that he did not trouble so much from the saints who did not belong to his ministry, those must have been under the other eldership of the specific city than that set up by Paul.
[14] Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly. [15] It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. [16] The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. [17] The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. [18] But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, (Philipians 1, NIV)
Of course, my conjecture should be confined in the condition that those saints did not promote any other "signboard" like Presbyterian, Mothodist, Baptist etc, as we notice Paul's another warnings not to do so. After all, to have a group's own interprestatoin of a specific truth in the Bible is one thing, and to officailly hang a signboard of that interpretatoin as the way it distinguish themselves from other Christains is another. In that sense, I criticize all the denominations.
The reason why I think the universal charateristic of a local church is more important is that at the end of the day the second coming of our Lord is more related with the produce of overcomers who will be from all the saints, regardless of their acceptance of one church - one city truth. BUT this cannot deny the stern existence of the truth in the Bible ; one church - one city.
To me, seeing how difficult it is to practice the truth just leads me more into the deplorable sigh of how human nature is divisive than into the doubt of how this truth is not plausible.
Gubei.