The charter of love.

Getting down to more concrete implications, Jonathan unpacks what authority Christ gives to local churches. So what's the difference between a mere gathering of Christians and a local church?

The local church is the place where a gathering of Christians can responsibly and meaningfully carry out the charter given in Matthew 16, especially as it's further clarified in chapters 18 and 28, and in 26 in the episode of the Lord's Supper (204).

After discussing Matthew 16, 18, and 28 in-depth, Jonathan asks the timely question: so why join a local church?

1. The nature of the universal church requires it. The universal church is an eschatalogical body in that the full gathering of all Christians will occur at consummation. However, this gathering has already begun on earth, and the love and holiness of the eschatalogical body must be displayed now.
2. The nature of authority and submission requires it. Christ has instituted that Christians should meet together and to do so self-consciously aware that they are vested with authority. The biblical ideas of authority and submission require commitment, not merely gathering as autonomous individuals who can come and go as they please.
3. Out biblical obligations to the "body" require it. To actually utilize the 1 Cor. 12 image of different members contributing to the well-being of the body requires commitment and submission. We are not at local churches as consumers. A consumer has autonomous authority.
4. The biblical commands to submit to our overseers require it. We cannot submit to our elders/overseers if we are not part of their flock.
5. The nature of our salvation requires it. We are saved by faith alone, but faith is never alone. We are called to be sanctified, and without belonging to a church, individuals look like nominal Christians or hypocrites. Christians obey God by obeying fellow believers and this sanctifies us. Eph. 5:21 tells us to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
6. The nature of our new identity requires it. "An adopted son attends the family dinner with his new brothers and sisters not just because it's good for him but because that's what he is--a member of the family" (p. 216).

And some brief definitions:

Church membership is: "(1) a covenant of union between a particular church and a Christian, a covenant that consists of (2) the church's affirmation of the Christian's gospel profession, (3) the church's promise to give oversight to the Christian, and (4) the Christian's promise to gather with the church and submit to its oversight" (p. 217).

Corrective church discipline: "occurs any time sin is corrected within the church body, and it occurs most fully when the church body announces that the covenant between church and member is already broken because the member has proven to be unsubmissive in his or her discipleship to Christ. By this token, the church withdraws its affirmation of the individual's faith, announces that it will cease giving oversight, and releases the individual back into the world" (p. 220).

General Updates:

• Going to Satron/Sitton wedding this afternoon. Fawaz is coming with me, which should be cool and a good conversation starter.
• CI tabling went well. Watched the Brazil v. Netherlands game with Matt Hill afterward in the Marvin Center.
• Had dinner with some old friends from Taiwan, which was fun.

Reading Updates:

• Started W.E.B. DuBois' The Souls of Black Folks, recommended by DMF.
• In the middle of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray on my Kindle. Go free Kindle books!
• Also picked up Hemingway's A Moveable Feast and Collingwood's The Idea of Nature. Not going to start these yet until I'm done reading DuBois', but got them from the library, so have a deadline.