There is a dual definition to the term church. One is the corporate body of Christ and the other is the local assembly. Those local assemblies were organized. There is a move away from what some call the "organized church" in our day, they say that the local church in the scriptures was only a loose fellowship of believers meeting in houses with no leadership and no organization. Is that what N.T. churches looked like in the Bible?
1.)They had officers that had to meet specific qualifications. (Eph. 4:11;Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:1-13)
2.)They had a prescribed mission. (Matthew 28:19, 20; Acts 1:8)
3.)They had ordinances given to them to observe with instructions on how they were to be observed. (Matthew 28:19, 20; 1 Cor. 11:23-34)
4.) There was a prescribed procedure for judging matters and disciplining errant believers. (Matt. 18:15-17; 1 Cor. 5:1-15; 1 Cor. 6:1-8)
Were there churches meeting in houses? Certainly (Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philemon 1:2) But that was not to the exclusion of larger assemblies. 120 believers were meeting in the upper room in Acts 1. A number of believers were meeting in an upper room in Troas in Acts 20. My point is that there seems to be the idea of believers meeting in homes throughout the week, then on Sunday they would meet corporately.
The argument against the organized church is not tenable.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
The Contradictions of Egalitarianism
There is a very militant faction today that rebels against all authority. In particular this group says that nowhere in the Bible is a wife commanded to submit to her husband. They generally will proceed with a three phase argument that is self contradictory. The argument goes as follows:
1.) The scriptures that clearly tell women to submit to their husbands are really products of centuries of bad translation. If this fails to convince then they proceed to the next argument:
2.) The scriptures in question should only be construed to apply to the culture of the 1st century only and not to today. If that fails they proceed to the next argument:
3.) Some in this camp that are at least more consistent about their argument simply say that the Bible is wrong on this citing the human component of scriptures as being in error.
The problem with this progression of argumentation is that each point contradicts the previous one. Point one says the scriptures were mistranslated, but point two says they were translated properly but are misapplied culturally. Point three says that neither point one nor two are correct because the original scriptures were always errant in as much as the human component is concerned.
My point? That this demonstrates that the egalitarian group is not interested in the truth or they wouldn't resort to obviously contradictory and dishonest argumentation. What's tragic is that submission is at the very heart of what it means to be Christ-like. "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:5-11) ESV
More on these points later.
1.) The scriptures that clearly tell women to submit to their husbands are really products of centuries of bad translation. If this fails to convince then they proceed to the next argument:
2.) The scriptures in question should only be construed to apply to the culture of the 1st century only and not to today. If that fails they proceed to the next argument:
3.) Some in this camp that are at least more consistent about their argument simply say that the Bible is wrong on this citing the human component of scriptures as being in error.
The problem with this progression of argumentation is that each point contradicts the previous one. Point one says the scriptures were mistranslated, but point two says they were translated properly but are misapplied culturally. Point three says that neither point one nor two are correct because the original scriptures were always errant in as much as the human component is concerned.
My point? That this demonstrates that the egalitarian group is not interested in the truth or they wouldn't resort to obviously contradictory and dishonest argumentation. What's tragic is that submission is at the very heart of what it means to be Christ-like. "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:5-11) ESV
More on these points later.
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