Justification for One City-One Church dogma?

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Nell

In the Bible are two categories of scripture: 1) prescriptive, and 2) descriptive. If you Google it, you'll see that this is a commonly accepted practice on accurate interpretation of the Bible.

To me, the entire dogma of one church/one city is wrongly based on a description of the situation at the time when the church was in its infancy. It was never intended to be a "prescription" or command to be obeyed for all times. That's simply the way the church began. If not in cities, then where? Surely not all believers even lived in cities. The church met in cities because that's where larger numbers of believers lived. Therefore, the church was described according to the city.

Nell

Great point, Nell, and let me add two more examples concerning the early church that are descriptive, but never should be prescriptive.

First, there was a short time when the early church had "all things common." (Acts 2.44; 4.32) The "prescription" of this teaching was actually taught by Karl Marx in the 19th century, and the implementation of this teaching has come to be known today as Communism.

Second, there was a brief time in the early church when they "handed over" their belongings to the apostles. (Acts 4.34-35) Barnabas was led by the Spirit to do this. This practice really happened, but quickly ended with the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5.1-11). The apostles never taught this. Ironically both W. Nee in 1948 and W. Lee in 1988 attempted to use this practice as a money grab under the auspices of global evangelization.