Throughout the book of Acts the Apostle Paul’s aim was to plant churches, not just convert isolated, independent individuals.
- Acts 14:23 “Appointed elders in every church…”
- Acts 15:41 “He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches…”
- Acts 16:5 “So the churches were strengthened in the faith…”
The metaphors used to describe the church exhibit interconnection and interdependence and they cannot refer solely to the universal church (all Christians). It is impossible to be “family” or part of the same “body” with people we do not know or are not in direct proximity with. God chose these particular metaphors to describe a people that are vitally and organically committed to one another. Church membership represents the commitment to live out our corporate identity in Christ.
- Eph 2:19 “You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens…”
- Phil 3:20 “But our citizenship is in heaven…”
- 1 Cor 12:12 “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…For the body does not consist of one member but of many…As it is, there are many parts, yet one body…now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”
- 2 Cor 6:16 “We are the temple of the living God…”
- Eph 2:22 “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God….”
- 1 Peter 2:5 “You yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house…”
- Eph 2:19 “You are no longer strangers… but…members of the household of God.”
- Gal 6:10 “Let us do good to everyone…especially to… the household of faith.”
- Heb 3:6 “Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son…we are his house…”
