Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
And by region, and by the person in who's house they meet.
The real evidence of Nee's answer trying to force evidence is that when he revisited it in Further Talks, he essentially notes that there are some examples that are contrary to his city-church rule, but that they can't mean the city-church rule is wrong because of the city-church rule.
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City-church rule is proven by the fact that in Revelation 1:11 it only counts SEVEN churches.
Revelation 1:11
saying "Write in a book what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea."
If a regional church, it would count less than 7.
If house assemblies were considered churches, it would count more than 7.
Furthermore we find that there are seven lamp stands:
"And I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands." (Revelation 1:12).
Each lamp stand symbolizes only one local church in each city.
I'm afraid that you have little biblical evidence to support your notion that each assembly in each house could be considered a church, or that a church can comprise of multiple localities. Yes it does say the "church in " this house and that house, but this means the "assembly", and besides, the whole church of a city would not fit inside a house.
That's the way Jesus Himself referred to his own churches, you would have to admit that there are many beliefs and practices in Christianity that are based upon far less biblical evidence than that which I have provided here.