[UntoHim]

Is one church one city a bad idea or unbiblical?

I would slightly rephrase this to read:
Is the one city one church idea biblical?

And the answer to my rephrased, unabashedly rhetorical question would be a thundering, resounding YES! The next question - one which is equally as important and impactful as the base question - is this biblical idea descriptive or prescriptive? To the vast majority of Christian teachers, scholars and apologists over the centuries the answer is that one city one church is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Unfortunately, and for a multitude of reasons, those sects, ministries and movements which have chosen to interpret the one city one church as prescriptive have become the most dogmatically strict and abusive towards their brothers and sisters in Christ who see the one city one church model as certainly ideal, but at the end of the day, simply descriptive. Church history has borne this out again and again.

A slightly less dramatic example of the descriptive vs. prescriptive issue concerns how the New Testament describes the early Christians meeting in homes (Acts 2:46; 20:20; Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:19; Colossians 4:15). Some interpret this to mean that Christians today should only meet in homes, and, therefore, meeting in church buildings is wrong. Yet none of the passages that describe believers meeting at home prescribe that believers only meet in homes. In fact, the New Testament nowhere instructs believers to meet in homes. The Bible describes believers meeting in homes, but there is no command to do so. So, meeting in homes is allowable, but it is not advocated or even necessarily preferred.
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