The Unique Move of God

[Evangelical]

Originally Posted by Igzy

The Bible tells us to discern teachings. It tells us to discern teachers and apostles. It tells us to discern spirits.

But what's interesting is the Bible never says nor implies that we should discern what is and isn't a church. Never.

There is no place in the NT where a writer talks about a "false church." Some churches are rebuked for being in error, but no group is ever directly or indirectly said to be "false."

I would say this is more evidence that the impulse to find some standard for deciding whether a group is or isn't a "church" is completely wrong-headed, and it exposes a huge error of the Local Church Movement.

To say that this group is church because they do this and this, and another isn't because they do that and that (assuming no gross sin) is not in keeping with the Lord's heart. I believe the Lord gives us neither the wisdom nor the commission to do that. And with good reason. If he did, then the back and forth claims of "you are not a church" would be never-ending and fatal to the Lord's testimony.

Fortunately, only tiny, fringe groups make such claims now. The RCC used to do it. How did that work out for the Lord, eh?

Sure, there has to be some point where a group of so-called Christians are so off-the-mark that they become no longer a church. But long before that point most real seekers would have left anyway, because the conditions which led to that ultimate losing of the lampstand would have already become blatantly obvious.

The reason the bible does not talk about false churches is because at the time there was only one church per city.

There was only one church per town/city as even Christian evangelical websites recognize, such as gotquestions.org:

https://www.gotquestions.org/church-hopping.html

The early church consisted of small groups of Christians meeting in homes or in public places. There is no indication in Scripture that towns or cities had more than one group of believers meeting there.

So it would not make sense for Paul at the time to write about avoiding "false churches".

"Fortunately, only tiny, fringe groups make such claims now. The RCC used to do it. " - Used to?
see

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...icism.religion
"It is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to [Protestant communities]

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/comm...why-hes-wrong/