Emmanuel Evangelical Church Chippenham

From 12^th May 2005:

In this session we will look at what the Bible has to say about who can belong to a local church.

Background

We saw three weeks ago that scripture is quite clear: Church has eternal, international, regional and local expressions (our local church being the church called “EECC”).

Two weeks ago we saw that scripture was also very clear that each local church is a clearly defined group of people.

Last week we saw that scripture has much to say on the responsibility, commitment, identity and love that belonging to a church implies.

Who can belong?

This week we’re going to focus on the whole question of ‘who’ can be a member.

Obviously to be a member of a local church means that the person must accept both the benefits and responsibilities, as we considered last week. However, scripture has more to say about this.

Look at the following passages of scripture, and write down the indicators of those who were said to belong to the church.

1. Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 10:47-48; Acts 14:21-23
2. Acts 2:36-47
3. 1 Corinthians 1:1-3; 1 Corinthians 5:1-13
4. 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10