Quote:
Originally Posted by Raptor
Considering the line of OCOC in the NT as a descriptive concept:
It seems that the early NT believers had a common experience, sharing, witnessing and simply started gathering as an assembly or assemblies in the city they lived in. They did not know anything else, there was no prescribed teaching or instructions on the way they had to meet or form their assemblies, they just did; they gathered in large assemblies probably in some kind of building and sometimes smaller ones in their homes. It is to those existing assemblies that Paul wrote to and addressed as the church in that city, sometimes in the home. But Paul included all the believers.
What if Paul was suddenly here today, and wanted to reach the believers? If he decided to write a letter to the believers in a city where there is no "local church" but dozens of other kind of assemblies, would he just not write to them, not reach them because none meet as the local church in that city? And if he saw a city with a local church of 25 saints, and 5,000 other believers in other kind of assemblies, would he just write to the 25 and ignore the rest?
I think his heart would be to reach and include all the believers regardless of how they are meeting. One main problem in the Recovery when trying to practice the OCOC is that it ignores all the other believers because of the way they are meeting.
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Agree overall, but don't we basically have OCOC in the letters to the churches in chapters two and three of the book of Revelation? Who are those letters addressed to? Do you think there were no divisions among them at the time? They had let various fleshly things come in, and division is also a fleshly thing.
The point is I don't know that He wouldn't just address something now to the saints living in a particular area or city . . .