The Ground Of The Church

[YP0534]

Originally Posted by Hope

Forget what was okay in 20th Century China or the freedom loving West. We need to have discernment. The Church in Ephesus, in Revelation chapter two, was commended for testing apostles and rejecting the false ones. I should have used my discernment when meeting with the LSM/LC. I can say that I was not driven out but eventually used my discernment and the plain scriptures to follow the Lord away from that organization. I did not follow my freedom loving western culture.

Hope?

This is the second time in this post that your response suggests to me that the situation under a state-church might be different. So, suppose we're in post-Reformation England and subject to the see of Canterbury. Or even in the hills of Albi in the 12th century.

Care to address that?

I follow you that the reality of the situation might be different from America where anyone can start a new religion. Also different from a white field ripe for a nativist movement.

But a simple reference to a Biblical context doesn't really solve the problem in that what we are discussing at the end of the day is the Biblical context, right? Yes, Ephesus was praised for exercising discernment in receiving those who might attempt to exercise teaching (or even "deputy"?) authority over them, but that is precisely why we are discussing these matters instead of being an answer about what to do about them. You kind of take premise as proof here, if you see what I mean.

You previously quoted 1 Cor. 11:19, as you said.

Originally Posted by Hope

We have a tough problem. Paul was very open in his first letter to Corinth. There was division there and he condemned it. In chapter 11 he declares, 1 Cor 11:18-20, For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part, I believe it. 19 For there must also be factions among you, in order that those who are approved may have become evident among you. NASB

We should seek to be those who are approved? Does this desire make someone divisive? Sometimes it seems you are contending that if you are concerned about division then you are by default divisive. I Corinthians is very clear. Those who declared “I am of Christ” were guilty of division just as those who declared “I am of Paul.” Taking the position “I am it”, “We four and no more are it.” Of course that should be condemned as divisive. How to have a positive testimony of the oneness of the Body of Christ and not be part of the “I am of Christ” sect is the dilemma.

Thus, please give some attention to how we should address the problem of division.

However, the flurry of activity following that post was mostly about one church in a city vs. many churches in a city. (Also, my posting in response to yours was edited for brevity by an admin and I believe a few other posts were as well, which seems to have unintentionally had the effect of influencing the focus of that discourse.) We then had a number of posts to say essentially that our preference alone cannot win the day but that the Lord clearly has a role even for those who operate within a denominational system (plus a nod to the fact that the doctrine of locality is not presented in scripture as a prescriptive edict.) And then we got right back to the whole issue of the practicality of one church in a city.

So, on the one hand, you are correct that the matter of who might be "approved" (and HOW) has not yet been explored, but neither really has there been a response concerning the underlying point about the practicality of one church in a city. And in your most recent post, you have essentially said, well, look at Ephesus, the one church in that city, for guidance. So now I'm saying, well, I started off looking at Ephesus (where I believe I saw Prisca and Aquilla and the assembly in their house) but when it came to dealing with the false apostles (who probably came from Jerusalem) I got stumped. They come and say they have whatever claim of authority and therefore know best how we should go on here in Ephesus. I'm not buying it but my brothers over there have bought it and now they all want me to be circumcised or else they won't fellowship with me any longer, denouncing me as unclean and deceived and a false teacher.

What shall we do in Ephesus, Hope?

Or, as I suggest, what shall we do in England or in Albi?

I don't believe there's a bright line rule that we might know when we might be required to separate from other believers to go on with the Lord. "False teachings" as a reason for separation is no help whatsoever (and neither is "gross sin" practically speaking) because those terms are not sufficiently well defined. But we must have, and throughout the history of Christianity from the Reformation forward, there must be, some sufficient scriptural ground for saying at some point, "You guys - you're not my kind of guys." Right? Sort of a chapter and verse version of the U.S. Declaration of Independence?

When, in the course of believers' events, it becomes necessary for one assembly to dissolve the uniting bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the sons of God, the separate and equal station to which the laws of God's Word and of God Himself entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of Christianity requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident...

Luther's 95 Theses are rather light on scriptural authority for separation, as I recall, but he at least was addressing the underlying problem, as I see it: it's not about a relatively pure expression of God's heart's desire in the assembly rejecting the influence of the untoward outsiders who seek to pollute it; it's a matter of dealing with the entire environment when the synagogue of Satan holds sway over you. What about the believers that Luther withdrew from? You cannot help but say he divided, right?

I hope you can catch my drift here. When I got ejected, I was cut off from the fellowship of the genuine believers whom I loved. I can read that as "they sinned, not me" and suffer the loss as from the Lord. But must we follow Stephen's pattern? (Is that what Paul meant when eventually he said he was bound to return to Jerusalem?) Or, as we remain diligent in the uniting bond of peace, is there a way to also be fully faithful to conscience? I agree that it's only theoretical and that's a problem but if we don't have a scriptural basis for this sort of following our precious Head, don't we just rebuild the Vatican in Anaheim again and again? Or the Church of England on Plymouth Rock?

If the Spirit is the engine and the Bible is the railroad track, where is the switch so that we don't merely go off the rails?

Put more simply: Suppose I meet with my family in my house on the ground of oneness. The folks across the street do the same and we meet together alternate days until one day their cousin from out of town sells them on a mandatory tongues-speaking doctrine and they insist that my family must participate or we are in error. Who rejects who is irrelevant in the final analysis, of course, but how does my house go on?