Why Do We Need the Local Church?

[Alabaster]

1. It is good for people not to be alone.
Genesis 2:18
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone...”

2. The Church is the family of God.
Just as a child needs a family for protection and growth, so we too need a spiritual family for the same reasons.
Psalm 68:6
God places the lonely in families;
he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy.
But he makes the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

3. Being in a local church helps protect us from deception.
1 Timothy 4:1
Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons.

4. Being in a local church helps protect us from false teaching.
2 Peter 2:1
But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves.

5. The local church is a place for us to discover, develop, and release our gifts and talents to glorify God.
Read Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12.

6. We are encouraged by God to encourage each other in love, spurring on one another in our walk, remembering to meet together regularly.
Hebrews 10:25
And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.



Practical benefits of Church:

1. Every person can function: A word of instruction, an interpretation, a hymn, etc. Someone who is outside of a local body cannot participate as God requires, and one's gifts go unused.
1 Corinthians 14:26
Well, my brothers and sisters, let’s summarize. When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach, another will tell some special revelation God has given, one will speak in tongues, and another will interpret what is said. But everything that is done must strengthen all of you.

2. Each person can be discipled: Jesus commands us TO disciple as well as BE discipled.
Matthew 28:19
Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

3. Each person can be trained: all through the gospels we see Jesus training twelve men who would later turn the world upside down!

4. Every member can be a minister: We grow into maturity, receiving gifts and using them.
Ephesians 4:11-16
Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

5. Every believer needs valuable relationships: Jesus is the ultimate friend. We learn about friendship.
John 13:15
I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you.

John 15:15
I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.

6. You can reach your friends and family for Christ.
Matthew 28:16-19
Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him—but some of them doubted!
Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

 

[Snowcat]

There is only the church, lilke there is nursery school for little kids -once you grow up you don't need to suck from the nipple anymore.

 

[jasoncran]

There is only the church, lilke there is nursery school for little kids -once you grow up you don't need to suck from the nipple anymore.

am i to assume that you dont need the local body?

 

[Snowcat]

am i to assume that you dont need the local body?

That is correct.

Hebrews 13:13 Let us go unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.

:D

 

[jasoncran]

That is correct.

Hebrews 13:13 Let us go unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.

:D

huh? after this verse

let us not forsake the assembling together as the manner of some is. that is in the same book.

hebrews 10:25.

paul preached always to the lost and and the believers when they gathered and he was there.

yet surely he taught and learned from all the believers.

 

[Snowcat]

The greek word for 'assembling' in Hebrews 10:25 is Epi-Sunagoge, which means the highest form of assembly, with the remnant that is attaining the Zenith of Zion =Immortality. Most christians are not into attaining immortality, they are to content in playing church

Hows about Jeremiah 51:9"We would have healed Babylon, but she was not healed, FORSAKE HER AND LET EACH MAN GO INTO HIS OWN COUNTRY".

Amen.

 

[jasoncran]

The greek word for 'assembling' in Hebrews 10:25 is Epi-Sunagoge, which means the highest form of assembly, with the remnant that is attaining the Zenith of Zion =Immortality. Most christians are not into attaining immortality, they are to content in playing church

Hows about Jeremiah 51:9"We would have healed Babylon, but she was not healed, FORSAKE HER AND LET EACH MAN GO INTO HIS OWN COUNTRY".

Amen.

wow.just wow.

uh the church has a function and paul said it best

he didnt attain the prize and was continually striving for it.

what was that prize or high mark. perfection in the lord! he said that he wont ever attain it.


phillipans 3:10-16.kjv
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;


Phl 3:11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.


Phl 3:12 ¶ Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.


Phl 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,


Phl 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.


Phl 3:15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.


Phl 3:16 Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing



this means that we must always strive to be like christ, nothing to do with not needing the church.

the elder shall teach the younger, john the apostle wrote this.

who can you if are really that matured teach a babe if you dont attend any church?

and surely theres someone more knowledgeable then you.

 

[farouk]

Not sure I follow everything that has just been posted, but I do love the Epistle to the Philippians, anyway.

 

[Snowcat]

Read my first post, I said the church has its place as you are growing up, sooner or later you do not need to be held by the hand.

Secondly, we don't GO TO CHURCH...WE ARE THE CHURCH.

Most christians use going to church to compensate for their utter lack of committment to Jesus in prayer. Frankly, most churches are not Houses of Prayer, they are lukewarm pits of darkness and death.

Jesus said in John 8:51 He that keeps my sayings shall never see death.

The ultimate intention of Jesus for your life is to live in the fullness of His Glory in which there is no more death. There will be a firstfruits that attains this realm of the presence of God. You won't find this group playing paddy-cake with the churchgoers.

:D

Jasoncran...you have not addressed Hebrews 13:13 yet.

 

[jasoncran]

Not sure I follow everything that has just been posted, but I do love the Epistle to the Philippians, anyway.

snowcat is trying to say that we dont need the church anymore once we attain a certian level.

i posted those verses saying the opposite! paul says let us be likeminded in the striving to be like christ.

if a group is striving to the samething for christ what is that? a body of christ! the church!

for where there are two or three gathered in my name there i am in the midst of them.

 

[jasoncran]

Read my first post, I said the church has its place as you are growing up, sooner or later you do not need to be held by the hand.

Secondly, we don't GO TO CHURCH...WE ARE THE CHURCH.

Most christians use going to church to compensate for their utter lack of committment to Jesus in prayer. Frankly, most churches are not Houses of Prayer, they are lukewarm pits of darkness and death.

Jesus said in John 8:51 He that keeps my sayings shall never see death.

The ultimate intention of Jesus for your life is to live in the fullness of His Glory in which there is no more death. There will be a firstfruits that attains this realm of the presence of God. You won't find this group playing paddy-cake with the churchgoers.

:D

Jasoncran...you have not addressed Hebrews 13:13 yet.

no i did, you say we dont need to assemble,

and here in that same chapter from 7-17

Remember them which have the RULE over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of [their] conversation.

(meaning you submit to them in any place of gathering,thus some building is needed as one must have a group to rule over)
Hbr 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.


Hbr 13:9 Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For [it is] a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.


Hbr 13:10 We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.


Hbr 13:11 For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.


Hbr 13:12 Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.


Hbr 13:13 Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.


Hbr 13:14 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.


Hbr 13:15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of [our] lips giving thanks to his name.


Hbr 13:16 But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.


Hbr 13:17 Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for THEY WATCH for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that [is] unprofitable for you


hmm who is this they and how do they do this.

if you say we are the body and need not meet who does this stuff happen?

 

[Snowcat]

snowcat is trying to say that we dont need the church anymore once we attain a certian level.

i posted those verses saying the opposite! paul says let us be likeminded in the striving to be like christ.

if a group is striving to the samething for christ what is that? a body of christ! the church!

for where there are two or three gathered in my name there i am in the midst of them.

Jasoncran, name a church for me that had dedicated their entire existence to Praying in the Spirit and Fasting to attain the Resurrection of the Dead?

In this hour, Jesus is calling His Elect to enter into their chambers and shut the door -Isaiah 26:20

 

[theLords]

Read my first post, I said the church has its place as you are growing up, sooner or later you do not need to be held by the hand.

Most of my spiritual elders say that the older they get, the more they realize they really don't know anything. I can only hope to have this sort of attitude when I am older

 

[jasoncran]

partial truth if you mature then you will also be found in some use for the local body, as in teaching, preaching well the five fold ministry or divers helpers.

that is what the purpose maturing is for. to be sent out to win souls.

but you must be in a church or form if church if so called.

a missionary goes out from the local body and forms his own church as he or she wins souls, while his local body support him in this cause.

 

[jasoncran]

Jasoncran, name a church for me that had dedicated their entire existence to Praying in the Spirit and Fasting to attain the Resurrection of the Dead?

In this hour, Jesus is calling His Elect to enter into their chambers and shut the door -Isaiah 26:20

i am charismatic!

we believe and do this.

sheesh. and the ressurection the dead as in christs return.

and no, i will stop you here.

the gifts are for today and yes i have seen them but which is more important.

the gifts or the giver and even more so the holy life and us living it.

miracles dont keep you in christ but the word does.

 

[Elijah674]

We need the [local church,] which one? Eph. 4:5 has only one Faith! It is not talking about one having faith.

When God's chosen Rom. 8:14 ones come to this Rev. 14 place in their personal devotion to their Master, it is there and even sooner, that satan goes 'hog/wild' in his attempt to divert, distort and distract the sincere one from accepting this required duty!

Rev. 14
[6] And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,

This is the Eternal GOSPEL of the Righteousness of Christ ! As seen in Acts 4:12 Saved BY CHRIST with Loving Works of Obedience to follow! Not that of Rev. 3:16-17 lukewarm Spewed OUT stuff, but Exod. 19:5-8's Obey My Voice!!

[7] Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.

satan wants NO one in this category!! A CRY to Matt. 25 AWAKEN, A MIDNIGHT CRY?? NO, stay 'Lukewarm' and be SPEWED OUT as SICKENING!!

[8] And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

And here we see the last required WARNING to the ABOMINATION OF THE EARTH ONES of Rev. 17:5, Both mother & daughter harlots!! So take your pick to which one that you will be Spewed Out from??

But that is NOT ALL! The Rev. 18:4 WARNING MUST BE 'FAITHFULLY' GIVEN, & IT WILL DO ITS WORK!! 'Come out of her My people, THAT YE BE NOT PARTAKERS OF HER SINS, AND THAT YE NOT RECEIVE OF HER PLAGUES.' (Or else. Obad. 1:16's ETERNALLY GONE NEVER TO EXIST AGAIN!)

[9] And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,

[10] The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

[11] And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.

[12] Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

[13] And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

[14] And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

[15] And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

[16] And He that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.

And this Message the devil's helpers will do anything & everything to silence, even telling us that the Rev. 17:5 ones are Christian church's!

Or is it just one, and if so which one is it?

--Elijah

 

[Mike]

Man, didn't we just close a thread with this exact topic? Overhead, I hear some obscure message... "The part of the "rejector of corporate worship usually played by strangelove will be played by his equally adamant understudy, Snowcat. aahhhh. So that's why this topic was "resurrected" so quickly.


Anyone who looks hard enough to find their point of view in the Bible will find it, even if doesn't say what they want it to say. In spite of the many versus describing the stated biblical evidence for the call to assemble in a community of believers, the benefits gathering, and the obligation to other fellow-Christians, etc., there still exists this fragment who neglects this call to gather. Citing Heb 13:13 in support of this choice to live on an island and stopping short of verse 14.

So in this scenario, you've learned all you can learn from fellow Christians, and you're off on your own with no need of others. You are missing out on much that you were called to do and that you could do for others. They can do none of the following.

• Be supported by others in worship
• Be a source of inspiration
• Be certain they're not becoming a Kuresh in moving away from essential doctrine.
• Make a positive difference in a flawed church by exerting pressure to change.

I've learned from others, if someone is unwilling to accept advice from fellow believers, there is very little that is open to change. Snowcat, it says exactly what we are not to do in Heb 13:14. You can find obscure passages that support your reasoning, but they will not contradict Hebrews. This is sad...2

 

[Chris]

let me think-

so we can get new corny jokes from pastors every week.

so we can hang out with like minded believers

so we can watch power point presentations of how contemporary our church is.

so we can go out to dinner with cool church families with ladies that are awesome cooks.

so the kids can run wild in kids club.

so the guys can go out on camps together.

so you can be amused when you invite your non christian friend that swears a lot to church for the first time

so you can have beer and boxing night to invite your mates to with the church guys.

teaching too- that's gotta go in there or someone will start to worry.

church can be amusing that's one of the reasons I go. its fun.

 

[Alabaster]

Read my first post, I said the church has its place as you are growing up, sooner or later you do not need to be held by the hand.

Secondly, we don't GO TO CHURCH...WE ARE THE CHURCH.

Most christians use going to church to compensate for their utter lack of committment to Jesus in prayer. Frankly, most churches are not Houses of Prayer, they are lukewarm pits of darkness and death.

You are merely playing a game with semantics. The Church (the Body of Christ) assembles in local groups we have chosen to call 'churches'. Using the excuse that we do not need each other is a cop-out, and a tired one at that. Christians who reject meeting together are rejecting the Body and the word of God has something to say about that. It says in 1 Corinthians 12 how we are all part of ONE body, and one part does NOT say it has no need of another.

1 Corinthians 12:21
The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.”

Notice the word, 'can't'. Wake up. Smell the coffee.

Jesus said in John 8:51 He that keeps my sayings shall never see death.

The ultimate intention of Jesus for your life is to live in the fullness of His Glory in which there is no more death. There will be a firstfruits that attains this realm of the presence of God. You won't find this group playing paddy-cake with the churchgoers.

As we congregate and worship God in HIS name and in HIS sanctuary, His presence fills the place. He did it with the Israelites in the wilderness, and He does it now.

Nowhere in the OP is there any mention of playing patty cake. That is your particular poison---not ours.

Jasoncran...you have not addressed Hebrews 13:13 yet.

Huh? Once again you rationalize. The Lord is calling you to sacrifice yourself, identifying with His disgrace. He is certainly not telling us not to disassemble. Rather the entire NT epistles testify to the local assembly. You disregard them---and Jesus' provision for His children.

Even just a couple verses down, Hebrews 13:15 says:
17 Obey your spiritual leaders, and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls, and they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this with joy and not with sorrow. That would certainly not be for your benefit.

Plug in. Enjoy the MANY benefits of the assembly!

I thank the Lord and praise Him every day, sometimes with tears of gratitude, for the Body of Christ I have been led to by Him! I am so GRATEFUL TO GOD for supplying me with many leaders, whose lives I desire to emulate, whose walk with God is strong, and tireless and uncompromising! We love and care for each other according to His word, and regularly meet together in one place and in our homes for instruction in the scriptures, and for worship and prayer. We grow in Christ, advancing His Kingdom on the earth continually, until He comes.

 

[Alabaster]

let me think-

so we can get new corny jokes from pastors every week.

so we can hang out with like minded believers

so we can watch power point presentations of how contemporary our church is.

so we can go out to dinner with cool church families with ladies that are awesome cooks.

so the kids can run wild in kids club.

so the guys can go out on camps together.

so you can be amused when you invite your non christian friend that swears a lot to church for the first time

so you can have beer and boxing night to invite your mates to with the church guys.

teaching too- that's gotta go in there or someone will start to worry.

church can be amusing that's one of the reasons I go. its fun.

Wow. You describe a social club, and not necessarily a Christian one at that. That's not the assembly.