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Originally Posted by OBW
And your point is?
I didn't make a definite point. I suggested that the definitive points are problematic because of ambiguities.
And even if you point to various kinds and sizes of Christian gatherings and liken them to the full spectrum of basketball teams and games, from one-on-one street ball to professional teams, I'm not sure that it matters. Or that noting that it doesn't matter actually supports or questions what I said.
Basketball is still basketball no matter how you play it. Unless you try to do it with a small, hard, leather-covered ball and a bat.
But no matter how you speak of it, basketball is not both a game and a sports drink. The analogy may be poor, but my thinking was more along the lines that "church" is used for different things. It is not just a gathering. It is also the collection of gatherings. Possibly also covers all those who could be gathering but are not (it doesn't turn off just because there is not currently a gathering), whether that gathering would be one group or many groups. It can be used for any of those.
Can it be used for all at the same time? I'd have to consider that one. But I would tend to think that it would be confusing as to what was the topic.
And what is the topic is the real point. In one place, church is a specific gathering (the church in "her" house). In another, it is all those in a city without reference to how they meet, even if in multiple, separate groups. In another, it is a singular statement about "my church" and that is somewhat clearly more than any single assembly. And since it was made without a place of reference, it is not clear that any particular assembly or group of assemblies was considered.
Some of Paul's words are about practical aspects of the gathering of believers. So how church meets is not completely open. It needs to at least reflect the person of the one we allegedly gather around — Christ. Other of his words are about the church as an organism, likened to a body, then in another place to a wife. In yet other places, it is not an organism, but an army, a building, and even a farm. These are not really organisms. Yet these word pictures tell us some more about the church, whether a practical assembly or the mystical union of us all.
So what is it that basketball was supposed to tell me without actually saying anything? Or what was the question it raised supposed to be that furthered or diminished the previous post?
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My point is you are raising questions about whether the church was ever not a large organization. Yes there are small "house churches" and people gathering, but even in Acts we see a very large church in Jerusalem. So I am suggesting looking at this differently. If we were talking about basketball it is very easy to see churches in a region like Galatia or Asia being similar to Basketball teams in a league like the NBA, NCAA, or Europe, etc. We can see very organized teams, and we can see small pickup games and still recognize them as the same thing. We can see gifted members like Michael Jordan being "given unto" the NBA, we can see people "serving" the team, and many games are "in someone's house" even if it is "Staples" or some other major arena. We also see a higher level of submission required for the NBA than we do in a pickup game. For example, when the replacement refs were officiating in the NFL no one under the authority of the NFL could speak negatively of them without getting fined by the NFL. A coach or player couldn't voice or tweet their opinion without getting a $50,000 fine. So this goes to the heart of the thread, the more organized it gets the more submission there is. For example I learned that Belichick dresses the way he does because it is the ugliest, most heinous outfit he can come up with that stays within the NFL guidelines for what a coach can wear. He was offended that they tell grown men how to dress so this is his way of rebelling.
But here is the real question, is spectating part of basketball? The NBA has lots of spectators, is watching a game basketball or is basketball only refer to those who are actively involved (including coaches, refs, timers, ball boys, water boys, mascots, etc)?
Spectators are not a problem for pick up games or even high school games. But for professional sports it seems to be much more of an entity unto itself. Because it seems from my experience that spectating in a small church is not an issue, but once you have thousands of members there is a significant group that are essentially spectators.