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NASB | Acts 2:42 They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Acts 2:42 They were continually and faithfully devoting themselves to the instruction of the apostles, and to fellowship, to eating meals together and to prayers. |
Subject: One Pastor and one assembly? |
Bible Note: Dear Margaret, Our brother Kalos can and will very capably respond for himself. Yet I thought you wouldn't mind if I entered the discussion. Although we must not neglect book-chapter-verse injunctions However, we must be aware of those principles and commands that are borne out through the whole of Scripture as well. In the current context, I'm thinking of the many "one another" directives we have in the New Testament. There are, as I recall, something like thirty of them. How can we walk those out without being in regular attendance with a consistent set of people? Furthermore, where would our accountability be? Remember that the majority of the epistles were written to local congregations or were to be instructive in the context of local congregations. Even the pastoral epistles bear that sense. (Whereas the former are to the flock brought together and chosen by divine providence for the edifying of the body, the latter are to the shepherds chosen and brought to minister to the flock. Scripture even describes both as a calling of God.) A prime example is Ephesians. How could the gist of this epistle -- the call to gather, worship, learn, minister, unify, and walk-together -- be carried out with a constantly changing set of people? As imperfect as it may be, the modern practice of establishing a church as a group of believers drawn from the local community, was devised in order to comply with the spirit of our Scriptural mandates. In Him, Doc |