Gubei,
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The definition of city should be found in the Bible.
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Yet you did not find one.
Using NYC is an interesting choice. It is composed of the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. These all are, by normal definitions, cities with their own mayors. In fact, Brooklyn by itself would be among the top 10 cities in the US. But for whatever reason, these cities banded together as one to comprise New York City, which also has its mayor. If you watch TV, you would see that the NYC District Attorney is really just the DA for Manhattan.
Then look at Houston and Dallas. Each has grown over the years by taking in both unincorporated land and absorbing smaller cities that surrounded them. Under your model, the LC in Renner, had there been one some 30 or so years ago, would have disappeared into Dallas when the city voted to be annexed. So once again, an action by people who have no interest in any church could dictate how two separate churches exist by merely merging two separate cities. A separate existence would be obliterated by a governmental action.
Actually, when you read about the “church in” wherever in scripture, are you really sure that it is defining a single group of people, other than the fact that they are in one general vicinity? You say that you answered all of Igzy’s questions, but without the starting notion that there is only one legitimate assembly with one set of elders within a particular governmental jurisdiction, your arguments fall flat. You read each verse as if it says there is one church (assembly) in a city. Then based on that, you read that elders, which are legitimately according to an assembly, must also be according to the city because you have pre-defined an assembly as covering the whole of a city.
So what about those “churches” that were in someone’s house to which Paul made reference? Surely Paul sent his letter to someone whom he had a close association. But he was not exclusive. He wanted to make sure that the group that got the letter included some others there that met in someone’s home. He did not chastise either group as being divisive with respect to the other.
You are incorrect to say that I did not read your response to Igzy. I read all of your comments. You have laid them out like a expository preacher making his points. But when the starting premise is in controversy, those that follow cannot be accepted as given. Each is premised upon a fact of one city one church. Poke a hole in that and the following points are meaningless.
Igzy has not prescribed anything. You have prescribed one church per city even though the very texts of scripture make no definitive statements on the subject and the descriptive ones available are at best (from your perspective) unclear and more rightly seen as making no statement about how we are to meet.
If your only argument continues to be that Paul’s letters (actually, only the two to Corinth) say church in city and the seven letters in Revelation say church in city, then how do you understand Christ saying that he would build his church (singular) and not churches (plural) since there would be many cities? And I don’t think he was talking about Jerusalem because he was not in Jerusalem at the time. Despite YP’s strong aversion to the idea of universal church, it would appear that the scriptural use of the term we translate as church is not entirely based on the practical expression of assemblies that meet together, but on the reality of the brotherhood of believers. So Paul had no conflict to make reference to the church in Nympha’s house while writing to the whole of the believers in Colosse. And he wrote to “all in Rome,” “saints in Ephesus” (assuming that “Ephesus” is actually in the original text), “saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi,” and “brothers in Christ at Colosse.”
If your only argument is to continue to repeat that the few instances where scripture used the term “church” in conjunction with the name of a city without dealing with the places where the scriptures indicate potentially more than one “church” in a city and where “church” was clearly talking more universally than to mean practical assemblies, then you have exhausted your resources and have not made your case. You are correct to point out that I will continue to say your prescriptive is not in scripture. But it is not because I simply refuse to see it. I see what is actually there. You have done no more than provide descriptions as indication of prescription.
There are many doctrines that have been developed from descriptions. And those are almost all controversial when all Christians are asked to make a determination as to their scriptural correctness. Only the basics of the faith are understood consistently. Note that even the doctrine of the trinity is not a fundamental of the faith. Neither is baptism by emersion, or Calvinism v Armenianism. Likewise, you may like to hold to a doctrine of one church per city. But when you make it a requirement — like a fundamental of the faith — it defeats itself by taking a divisive stand in the name of unity. It defines those who disagree as in error. And to correct that error, they must agree with you. It is never the answer that you determine that you are incorrect and allow them.
So, once again, you need to de better than say the same things in different ways. Scripture does not appear to be on your side. Don’t prove me wrong by analogy or metaphor. Find scripture that says it must be. If scripture says it must be, then it must be. But we have not been shown where it makes such a statement. In fact we have found where it indicates quite the contrary.