Placing Membership
If a man or woman walks into your worship assembly – we’ve had quite a few in the last four months – with no background in the church, how should we respond? Many are looking for a “church home.” Sometimes, someone comes from another congregation, and are looking for a new “church home.”
God foresaw a time when non-Israelites would be motivated and influenced to join the Israelite nation and worship their God. Circumcision would be a key requirement (Gen. 17:12-14). If a stranger, in awe of the God of Israel, chooses to celebrate the Feast of the Passover with them, God required him to be circumcised (Exodus 12:48-49; Num. 9:14). All that God required of the Israelites, He would require of the foreigner (Num. 15:16, 29; cf. Lev. 24:22).
In the New Testament age, we experience the same phenomenon. So, the question arises, how do you respond to someone who says, “I want to be associated with this congregation?”
There is no process recorded in the Scriptures. The Bible does teach that when one obeys the Gospel, the Lord adds that person to His church (Acts 2:47). When Paul preached in Thessalonica, “some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas” (Acts 17:4). We can safely presume that Luke intends they obeyed the Gospel, were added by Christ to His church, and then “joined” the assembly in which Paul and Silas were laboring.
Paul himself did a similar thing back in Acts 9. He was baptized in Damascus but was run out of town by the Jews. He went to Jerusalem where he “was trying to associate with the disciples” (vs 26). Notice the verb tense; it is imperfect. That refers to a repeated action in the past – he “kept” trying to associate with the disciples. But they kept saying, “No,” until Barnabas was able to influence them otherwise.
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In first century Christianity, before denominationalism confused everyone, letters of recommendation were used to help one member move from one congregation to another. Some scholars see references to letters of recommendation in such passages as: Romans 16:1-2; 1 Corinthians 4:17; 2 Corinthians 8:16-24; Philippians 2:19-30. Specifically, in 2 Corinthians 3:1-2, Paul writes: “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all.”
John writes an “anti-“ letter of recommendation, in a sense, in 1 John when he writes that those who were of the spirit of the “anti-Christ” “went out from us, but they were not really of us” (2:19). Of those, John would say, “Do not receive him into your fellowship” (cf. 2 John 9-11).
In the modern age of numerous divisions and a plethora of different doctrines, it would behoove an eldership to question a prospective member on his/her baptism, and perhaps a number of other matters. A Bible study concerning these matters would be appropriate before one is accepted into fellowship. In today’s religious world, we can not just assume that a person has been baptized for the forgiveness of their sins and understands Bible teaching concerning the Lord’s church.
So many future problems could be totally avoided if these matters were addressed with timeliness. Guiding the flock well is often difficult at the out-set, but gives way to greater peace and growth of the body with time. In this way, the eldership can oversee the flock with more confidence and less stress, “with joy and not with grief” (Heb. 13:17).
–Paul Holland
