CHURCH IN YOUR HOUSE

I was dialoguing with someone on the internet the other day and he was convinced that the New Testament Church did not meet in homes. In fact, he said that as the New Testament did not forbid meeting in sacred buildings, it was OK to do so.

It just shows you what you can do to twist the truth if you try hard enough. He obviously does not understand how to read scripture.

I am not saying that a theological education is essential, but it helps and when you are listening to someone who has one, it just might be that they know something’s that you don’t.

For example, my senior lecturer at Bible College who was a converted Jew, said that you can find out what the bible supports or does not support by what it does and does not say.

An example is leadership in the church. There are 17 verses in the New Testament that says leadership is by male elders. There are no verses that say the leadership is the province of female elders.

He taught us that if the scriptures show clearly one particular idea or concept, if the opposite is not mentioned then it is indicative that it did not happen.

So 17 verses that talk about male eldership means that there was no such thing as female elders. If there were they would have been mentioned.

The same with marriage. There are 770 verses that refer to marriage. Not once does it speak of marriage between Adam and Steve. Therefore we accept that marriage is between Adam and Eve.

The fact that the scriptures talk about the “church in your house” or alludes to it in 12 verses and does not mention the church “in a building” indicates that the idea of the church meeting in public buildings was non existent.

When you get into the idea that something must be OK because the scriptures don’t forbid it, you will be led astray unless you look for what it does allow as that is the method used to show what we should or should not do.

It is known as the general revelation of scripture, where there is an overall theme or course of events that indicate what the New Testament Church did or didn’t do.

Knowing this is more authoritative than looking for a ‘gotcha’ verse which is one that says something specific but does not necessarily flow with the general revelation of scripture. We need to find out what that is if we are to understand the so called ‘gotcha’ verses.

When you are confronted by someone with a verse of scripture that is being used to prove a point, always ask for the general revelation of scripture as it is unacceptable to base any doctrine on one verse of scripture, unless of course there is only one verse.

You will only know that by studying the scriptures. Not very popular these days from what I have seen.