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Originally Posted by Trapped
I am pretty sure I know what exposition Ohio referred to in his post prior to this one (Ohio you are welcome to repost as it is an excellent one), and IIRC, it brings up the matter of "the church in [so and so's house]" in the Bible.
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Here is a link to that referenced post.
Here is the conclusion to that article ...
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One final point is just to look at our history. Anybody remotely honest among us will agree that we have tended towards exclusiveness. We have set ourselves apart from other Christians and elevated ourselves as being "unique". Your conscience knows that this is wrong. This is the fruit that has been produced. The Bible says to look at the fruit. Examine yourself. How do you feel about other Christians? Do you automatically assume that they are off? I know I am guilty of this. But as the "ground" truth gets dismantled piece by piece I am experiencing a freedom related to my other brothers and sisters in Christ. It is wonderful when you don't have to assume every other Christian you meet is somehow "off". The Bible says that the truth sets us free, and I am experiencing an unbelievable freedom. Hallelujah!
Even the most pure forms of the “local ground” teaching are inherently exclusive. Even if your view is that all the believers in the city are the church in that city and you simply say you are taking a “stand” as the church in the city. In its very nicest form, we would say that others just have not yet seen who they are and they are living according to what they see. However we try to avoid it, the implication is that the proper boundary is the city and others should come into the vision of “one church, one city”. Even the purest form has its basis in the “ground of locality” teaching. I believe the six points above have effectively dismantled this teaching to show that it has no scriptural authority. We should neither bind ourselves nor others to a teaching that is based on many assumptions, or at best a pattern without apostolic mandate. To insist on a non-authoritative practical implementation would undermine the higher principles of love and oneness taught directly by the Lord.
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This piece was written to correct some of the flaws in David Canfield's article, which is the opening post for this thread. Canfield wrote this in the aftermath of the Midwest quarantines. He subscribed to Titus Chu's views, which I have simplistically labeled as "WL good -- Blendeds bad."
Canfield and other saints have started another "church in Chicago" which did not side with the Chicago region, which sided with the Blendeds against Titus Chu. The divisions were all political in nature, rooted in offenses, using the Bible to endorse their skewed viewpoints.