The Local Church

Mark Dunagan
08/28/11 - Sunday Evening

The Local Church

If we were to asked the question, “What makes or defines a local congregation?”, we would first note:

Location

Obviously the  term “church” can apply collectively to all faithful Christians everywhere (Matthew 16:18), yet in many scriptures it applies to the Christians in a specific location:

• “To the church of God which is at Corinth” (1 Corinthians 1:2).
• “Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there” (Acts 13:1).
• “Have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans” (Colossians 4:16).

Organization

The universal church has only one officer— Christ as head (Ephesians 1:22-23).  All the other passages deal with organizational structure at the local level.  It is the local congregation which has elders and deacons:

• “When they had appointed elders for them in every church” (Acts 14:23).
• “From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church” (Acts 20:17).
• “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons” (Philippians 1:1).

How Local is Local?

Throughout the years some groups have argued that the local church can be or is actually a group that is composed of many smaller churches.  These smaller congregations might be house churches, satellites, or extended campuses of a larger congregation.  They all might be in the same city or some might be in other cities or even other countries.  There are a couple of passages that are used in the attempt to prove this arrangement:

• “For this reason I left you in Crete, that you might set in order what remains, and appoint elders in every city as I directed you” (Titus 1:5).

It is claimed that this verse would authorize one group of elders to oversee an entire city of congregations.  Yet there are a number of problems with this interpretation:

• We have absolutely no examples of elders overseeing a congregation which is composed of smaller congregations.  We only have examples or direct statements of elders overseeing a single group (Acts 14:22; 20:17; Philippians 1:1).
• Elders are specifically commanded to shepherd the flock of God among them (1 Peter 5:2), that is, the congregation of which they themselves are members.  They are not allowed to shepherd a congregation that is not among them.  Or, in other terms, they have no business shepherding a group of people that they never see or see very infrequently. A shepherd must be well acquainted with the souls he shepherds.
• Nothing in Titus 1:5 demands the interpretation that one group of elders can be over more than one congregation.  First, appointing elderships among various congregations in one city would not violate any other passages and would still fulfill the meaning of the verse.  Secondly, in a place like the Island of Crete, there may have only been one congregation per city. Obviously nothing in the verse demands an eldership over an entire city of congregations, in fact, this would violate other examples, in which elders were appointed in every church (Acts 14:23).  Thus, the two passages complement one another.  Elders need to be appointed in every city, but the elders appointed must be in each local church.
• Finally, it has been my experience that groups which use Titus 1:5 to justify an eldership overseeing multiple groups often do not stop at the city level.  Typically a church that opts to have satellite groups does not stop at having other groups in the same city.  They always tend to move their realm of authority farther and farther.  They start congregations in other cities, other states and even in other countries. 

Another passage is:

• “And day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart” (Acts 2:46).

Here it is claimed that the church in Jerusalem was composed of many house churches. Yet the verse does not call these meetings “house churches”, rather, it simply says that the church in Jerusalem met in the Temple area, and at the same time when it came to their social meals, Christians invited other Christians into their homes.  The other argument I have heard is that the church of Jerusalem swelled to such a size that no place could accommodate them, so they had to divide up into house churches that were all under the same eldership.  Yet there is no proof of this, and actually evidence for the contrary.  According to 2:46 and 5:12 this congregation had a place to meet in for worship, where they all could be together.

Church means Church

There are a number of passages which reinforce the idea that a local congregation is exactly that and no more:

• Paul pointed out to the Corinthians that the body at Corinth was composed of individuals and not individual groups of individuals, “many members, but one body” (1 Corinthians 12:20).  I cannot think of any passage that even hints that a local congregation is composed of anything other than people—and not other local congregations.
• When it came to assembling and observing the Lord’s Supper, Paul specifically said, “When you come together as a church” (1 Corinthians 11:18).  He did not say, “When the churches in Corinth come together”.
• Phoebe was a servant of the church at Cenchrea (Romans 16:1).  Cenchrea was only seven miles distant from Corinth and yet it was considered a separate and distinct congregation.
• There was a congregation in Colossae and Laodicea (Colossians 4:16) and yet these cities were only 10-12 miles apart.
• On Paul’s first journey he traveled to various cities, many near to each other, and yet they were distinct congregations with their own elders (Acts 14:23). 
• The Seven churches of Asia were all in the same geographical region and yet they were all separate congregations.

Each local congregation stood alone before God.  Here we find a great lesson demonstrating the reality of congregational autonomy. The sins and or successes of one congregation in no way tainted or credited the other congregations in the same geographical region. Jesus did not direct the Revelation letter to the “association of churches in Asia”, or the “church board of Asian churches”, or even to the “Asian Diocese”.

• The Galatian letter was written to the “churches of Galatia” (Galatians 1:2), not a Galatian church composed of churches.
• In Matthew 18:15-17 when it comes to handling a rebellious member we find first a purely individual approach (18:15).  Then the individual arrives with their witnesses (18:15).  Then if the person is unrepentant, the church is told (18:17).  Yet, if a congregation was actually composed of individual and smaller congregations it seems a step is missing.  Why would the entire congregation be told if another level existed before this level?  If a church is composed of house churches, should not the verse have read, “tell it to the house church”…and then, “tell it to the church”?

Practical Considerations

I find a number of serious practical problems involved when a supposed local congregation is composed, not of individual members, but rather, of various smaller congregations or campuses and all under one eldership:

• This does not resemble what we find in the New Testament.  For example, the congregations mentioned in the book of Revelation were obviously one local group of people.  It does not make any sense to say that each one of these congregations was composed of many smaller congregations and yet all the smaller congregations were exactly identical in the same strengths, weaknesses and flaws.  If the church at Ephesus (2:4) was composed of separate groups, it seems unlikely that all the groups had left their first love.  Or that every campus of the Laodicean congregation just happened to be lukewarm.  Just as there are differences in these congregations there would have to be differences in the congregations that made up larger congregations.
• Having been an elder, the question would naturally arise, how does one oversee a congregation which is composed of separate congregations?  It has been my experience that when God's Biblical patterns for the church are discarded, manmade patterns always fill the void.  In the groups that I have seen that have opted for the group composed of groups, rather than individuals that each local congregation ends up with its own manmade leadership or authority structure.  There is always a layer of officers or leaders unknown in the Bible, for example, often “house churches” have a “house church leader”.  Yet no such office exists in the New Testament.

The Church in Their House

This expression is found in Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:19; Colossians 4:15; and Philemon 2.  Some commentators take the expression as referring to the Christians that meet for worship in the house provided by this couple, and yet this is not the only possibility. “The church in one's house, i.e. the company of Christians belonging to a person's family; others less aptly understand the phrase of the Christians accustomed to meeting for worship in the house of someone” (Thayer p. 196). The word "house" often refers to one's "household" (Acts 10:2,30; 11:14; 1 Cor. 16:15).

Mark Dunagan/www.beavertonchurchofchrist.net