Paul called Christians to bear with one another (Eph. 4:2), sing truth to one another (Eph. 5:19), forgive one another (Col. 3:13), teach and admonish one another (Col. 3:16), care for one another (1 Cor. 12:25), serve one another (Gal. 5:13), show hospitality toward one another (1 Pet. 4:9), and love one another (1 Pet. 4:8). Are these primarily ambiguous Christians? No, they’re not. They belong to the house church at Ephesus and the house church at Colosse and the house church at Corinth. Who are you responsible to teach and admonish? To show hospitality toward? To care for? To bear the burdens of? To sing to? To serve and edify? The context of these letters is instructive: we are called to practice the “one another” commands with those who belong to our church.
Have you ever heard a professing Christian say, “I don’t need to join a church to follow Jesus. Church membership isn’t even biblical!” Such a person would require a verse that says, “Thou shalt join a local church as a member”—and there’s not such a verse.
Is church membership biblical? Yes. The reason is that the biblical nature of church membership is established from a variety of passages and considerations. Here’s a cumulative case of ten reasons why church membership is biblical.
First, the New Testament letters were written to organized churches. People were to gather and hear the words of the apostles who exhorted and taught them. What evidence is there of organized saints? Think about the opening of Paul’s letters.
Paul wrote Philippians to “all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi” (Phil. 1:1). This is a group in the Philippian church. He also mentioned “the overseers and deacons” at Philippi (1:1). These were church officers. This pair of terms means there was church government! The presence of church government suggests both leadership and an organized body of believers.
Paul wrote letters to the church in Corinth (1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1), the churches of Galatia (Gal. 1:2), and the church in Thessalonica (1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Thess. 1:1). If you were not part of the churches in these places, you wouldn’t be reading those letters. Paul wrote his letters to recognized bodies of believers who assembled together and belonged to one another.
Second, there are reports in the New Testament of people being counted and added. We can see such reports, for example, in the book of Acts and in 1 Timothy.
In Acts 2:41, “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” In Acts 16:5, “So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.”
People were added to the church. This involves a formal recognition. People were not just being baptized and then disappearing in their own individual pursuit of Jesus. People were being incorporated, added to those who professed to know and follow Christ.
In 1 Timothy 5:9, “Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband…” Apparently this church kept a record of particular church widows. This record reported the names of those who met certain criteria.
Third, elders are called to shepherd a particular flock. Elders were not tasked with shepherding random flocks. They had oversight over particular people.
In 1 Peter 5:2 we read, “Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you…” In Hebrews 13:17, the leaders are those who “are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.”
Who makes up this flock? Anybody who would show up to an assembly? Surely not. How do you know who to shepherd? Who are the leaders responsible for? Whose souls are they entrusted with?
There is an understanding in these passages that a flock is under the oversight of its leaders, and a “church member” is our phrase for someone who belongs to that flock.
Fourth, the practice of excommunication involves removal from something you belong to. Several passages confirm this. We will consider words from Matthew’s Gospel and from 1 Corinthians.
In Matthew 18:17, the church must treat an unrepentant sinner as “a Gentile and a tax collector,” which means as an unbeliever. In 1 Corinthians 5:2, Paul is speaking about the unrepentant person when he says, “Let him who has done this be removed from among you.” Later in that same chapter, he writes, “Purge the evil person from among you” (1 Cor. 5:13).