Quote:
Originally Posted by Jake
As far as I can tell, the entire concept of having one church per city seems to be an almost childishly simplistic reading of Paul's letters which refer to the church in some particular city. If we really want to be semantically strict, the only true "church" is the body of Christ, the universal church consisting of all believers. I think most Christians understand the distinction that when we say "church" in reference to a building, it's really just shorthand for "a meeting place for members of the Church", it doesn't mean that the Body of Christ is actually contained within that physical place. The idea that there is one church per city, and each of these city-based churches is somehow distinct and separate as an entity, seems to directly contradict the idea of the universal corporate Church.
It also seems strange that we would tie something divine to a man-made secular structure--cities, after all, are just arbitrary geographic boundaries created for political reasons. What happens when two cities merge? Does the decision of politicians miraculously result in the Body of Christ being rearranged? Merging several cities to create large mega-cities has been popular practice in urban development over the last few decades, how have LCs actually responded when this occurs?
Other denominations often name their churches after cities, neighborhoods or streets, but they don't make any claims about the city being some kind of divine basis for the unique expression of the Church, it's simply used to identify the location of the building...
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Wow, Jake, I think you are taking a lot of different concepts, blending different ingredients in your blender, and pouring out a smoothie that doesn't taste so good to me. I would say you are correct about the universal church body. I think your perception of the "local church" (disregard the LSM definition and practice in that term) is off the mark. My reading and understanding of the scriptures would be that those of the universal body, living in a certain city, meet in some fashion as an, for lack of better terms, a franchise of the universal church, representing and functioning as members of that universal body- hence the scripture talks in terms of THE church in such and such cities. The head of the Universal church is Christ our Lord. THE church "franchise" in each city has elders who oversee the practical aspects of the gathering of the saints, and shepherd the believers in the environment of the city they live and meet in. I wold say the function of the elders is to keep the saints pointed to the head, who is Christ Jesus.
If 2 cities merged, and a new city emerged, THE church in the new city would still be THE church meeting in the new city.
The problem with the LC/LSM was that someone, WL to be specific, and the BBs now, reverted from recovering a healthy understanding and practice of the biblical concept into the Roman Catholic system of Popery. The elders, instead of directing the saints to the head, gave obeisance to the LSM pope! Thus the recovery crashed, and the resulting unscriptural remains are still the smoldering heap that falsely uses "THE church in" title, while acting in the exact same manner as the Roman Catholic model.
Thus, in my opinion, the recovery of The church in xxxx still needs to take place! How saints meet in a city- homes or buildings, would be up to the saints and elders of that location.
I would disagree with you that most Christians have a healthy view of the church, else why is one of the first questions asked when meeting another believer "what church do you go to?". No, I feel there is a tremendous need for the recovery of the genuine understanding and practice of the scriptural concept of THE church in xxxx. This wasn't, isn't, a WL concept, but that man and his organization, while introducing something that was lacking, ended up creating a worse mess in that the whole concept was never recovered, but was polluted with his popery.