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Redeemer Bible Church

Unreserved Accountability to Christ. Undeserved Acceptance from Christ.

The Meaning of Membership

Selected Scriptures

Introduction
The Lord Jesus loves the church. And his love for it cannot be overestimated. The
apostle Paul reminds the Ephesian elders that Jesus emphatically purchased the church of
God with his own blood (Acts 20:28). In his letter to the Ephesian church, he tells them that
Christ gave himself up for the church in order to present her to himself as a beautiful and
chaste bride, “having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Eph 5:25-27).

What this means at the very least is that Jesus is very protective of his people. His
disposition towards those who would seek to harm his bride is as the Avenger. The gates of
Hades will not overpower the church that the Lord himself is building (Matt 16:18). Though
nothing can or will threaten to undo the work that Christ is doing in the construction of his
church, it is not because Jesus has, if you will, built a wall around the church to protect it
from marauders. Jesus is active in the process. In other words, the reason why the gates of
Hades will not overpower the church is due to Jesus’ continued presence with the church
actively to protect her from any threat, no matter what kind.

And there are many threats to the church from within and without. False teachers
often come from among the brethren, members fall into unrepentant sin, opponents of the
good news of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ persecute the church, Satan and his minions
are actively attempt to sow discord—we could multiply examples.

But for our purposes this morning, I would like us to focus on what I perceive to be a
threat to the church, something about which we need to be aware, and if we are contributing
to the threat, to make a deliberate change of course.

The threat is this: in evangelicalism today there is a widespread unwillingness to

submit to the authority of the church. Many professing Christians simply refuse to
acknowledge their need to be in subjection to the structures of authority that have been
established for them by the Lord Jesus Christ.

In a debate with R C Sproul on the subject of infant baptism, John MacArthur,

speaking from the side of believers-only baptism, makes the point that “there is presently
the largest unbaptized population of professing Christians ever,” which, he says, “is
symptomatic of the general independence and unfaithfulness of professing Christians who
function autonomously like Christian consumers, rather than under church…authority.”1

1 John MacArthur, “Reasons to Reject Infant Baptism” (unpublished personal notes), 1-2.

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MacArthur is right. Currently, there is a general independence among professing

Christians who function autonomously like consumers, rather than under church authority.

This clearly does not comport with the biblical ideal. For the Bible teaches that the
church is the only institution ordained by God that carries with her his own authority. Listen
to what Jesus says to Peter after Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ: “And upon this
rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it. I will give you the
keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven, and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt 16:18b-19).

This description of the power of the keys is applied to the practice of the church later
in Matthew 18:18, in which Jesus says, “Truly I say to you, whatever you [all] shall bind on
earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Anyone who fails to submit to the discipline of the church is to be bound—declared a Gentile
and tax gatherer, an outsider to the kingdom community.

Though Jesus delivers the keys of the kingdom to Peter, the representative of the
apostles, the authority he gives is given to the whole church, as Matt 18:18 makes clear.
The church has Christ’s authority. And that earthly authority finds its locus in the authority of
heaven itself. Authority in general refers to the power or right to enforce obedience; it is the
right to command and give a final decision. This right to enforce obedience from Christians,
this right to command and give a final decision for believers is the sole property of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And what we learn from the Bible is that he has shared this authority with the
church.

The Church’s Authority

The question we must ask is this: with whom in the church has he shared it? If it is
not the apostles alone who have authority in the churches, who else exercises Christ’s
authority in them? Early in the church’s history, we see the apostles and a group of men
called elders exercising Christ’s authority.

Turn to Acts 15.

Here, Paul and Barnabas, after having engaged in a very serious debate with the
Judaizers in Antioch come to Jerusalem for arbitration by the church’s leadership. Verse 2
says that the brethren [of Antioch] determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others
of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue.
Verse 6 reports that after having listened to certain Pharisees continue the debate with Paul
and Barnabas, the apostles and elders came together to look into the matter. The
Jerusalem church, the first church, understood that Christ’s authority had been invested not
only with the apostles, but with the elders as well.

In addition to the teaching of the book of Acts there are several other significant texts
that set forth that elders (also called overseers and pastors) exercise rule in the church.
Paul tells Timothy that an elder must be one who rules his household well because one who
is struggling to give direction in the home certainly is incapable of exercising rule in the
church, which is the household of God (1 Tim 3:4-5, 15).

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First Thessalonians 5:12 says that the Lord has given Christians men to “have charge
over them (rule or lead them) in the Lord and give them instruction.” And in 1 Tim 5:17,
Paul mandates that the church give double honor to the elders who rule the church well,
“especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.”

It is important to note in this connection that the authority that the government of the
church has to rule God’s people is not self-appointed. It has been granted to men by the
Lord himself. In the passage to which we alluded earlier (Acts 20:28), for example, the
apostle Paul says that the Holy Spirit of God made the Ephesian elders overseers of God’s
flock. They did not call themselves to pastoral office, God did.

Thus it is clear that the leadership of the church has Christ’s own authority to
exercise rule in the churches. This, of course, does not mean that the government of the
church is infallible in its application of the word of God; nevertheless, Christians are
commanded to submit to its just authority.

The Church’s Responsibility

Now the fact that Christ shares his own authority with the leadership of the church
should work to engender an implicit obligation in our hearts. We should think it our solemn
duty to obey our pastors. Yet, as if the implication of such investiture were insufficient, God
has given explicit instruction to believers regarding their responsibility to yield to the
authority of their elders.

Turn to Heb 13:17: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over
your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for
this would be unprofitable for you.”

According to this passage, believers have two clear-cut obligations: obedience and
submission. When the writer calls the believing community to obey its leaders, he is calling
it simply to follow the directives of its rulers. And when he calls his readers to submit to
those who rule over them, he is commanding them to yield to their authority. Together the
obligation is that there ought to be an explicit acknowledgment of their leaders’ just
authority to rule by being quick to obey their commands.

This is not some blanket call to do whatever your leaders say without reference to
what is right and just. In other words, if your leaders command you to do that which is
forbidden in Scripture your obligation is rather to disobey. For no leader in the church has
the authority to command others to sin. But to the extent that you are being commanded to
comply with what the Bible teaches, and to the extent that your leaders are giving you wise
counsel, you are to heed their instructions. Alexander Strauch summarizes the demand
nicely: “This means Christians are responsive to their leaders, yield to their authority, and
subordinate themselves to them even when they have a difference of opinion.”2

2 Alexander Strauch, Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership, 3rd edition
(Littleton, CO: Lewis & Roth, 1995), 268.

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In addition, the text sets forth the reasons for such a requirement. It says, For they
keep watch over your souls, as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy
and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

The first reason why leaders must be obeyed and submitted to has to do with the
nature of their work. They keep watch over your souls. Leaders deserve obedience
because their task is indispensable for the welfare of the sheep. The implication here is that
your failure to obey and submit to your leaders has an adverse impact on your souls. Your
leaders are the ones God has chosen on this earth to keep watch over your souls. If you are
not submitting to their authority, it means that you have no one watching over your soul. Of
course, Christ himself keeps his sheep, but according to Scripture he has ordained to
accomplish this through means—in this case, by means of your leaders’ oversight.
Obedience and submission are good for your soul.

Moreover, leaders need their sheep to obey their voice because as leaders they have
a high accountability. They are those who will give an account to God for the discharge of
the duties of their office. When God’s people truly appropriate the magnitude of their
leaders’ responsibilities, they will be much more responsive, tolerant, understanding,
sensitive, and receptive to their leadership.

The second reason for obedience and submission to church leaders has to do with
the benefits, both for those who lead and those who follow. Failing to obey and submit
results in misery for the leaders. The text literally reads, “in order that they might do this
with joy and not with grief.” The writer is saying obey your leaders and submit to them in
order that they might perform their duties with joy and not with grief.

Nothing could make the shepherds’ task more difficult than ornery and obstreperous
sheep. And nothing is more exhilarating for a shepherd than submissive and obedient
sheep. The apostle John speaks for all church leaders when he says, “I have no greater joy
than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth” (3 John 4).

But it is not only the shepherds who benefit, but the sheep do as well. You ought to
obey your leaders and submit to them because it is unprofitable for you not to do so. In
other words, you will not be helped by your disobedient and unsubmissive attitudes and
behaviors. When you spurn the very instruments that the Lord has placed in your life to help
you to experience progress and joy in the faith, it is an understatement to say that such
behavior is unprofitable for you. It will make you miserable; for a grief-stricken, unhappy
shepherd is of no help to his sheep, especially if the sheep have contributed to his condition.

So the mandate of this text, then, is straightforward: obey your leaders and submit
to them. Your failure results only in misery all around.

I must add that the teaching of this text excludes the common, but gravely mistaken
notion that professing Christians may be faithful to the Lord apart from a commitment to the
life of a local church. Unless you are submitting to the God-ordained, Christ-established
government of a local church, you cannot be faithful to the Lord. To do so is to despise the
church of God, the church for whom Christ died.

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It is insufficient to claim that your living-room Bible study is a proper gathering of the
church; for though the church may gather without leaders, it will not for long be the church
without them. Look, for example, at Acts 14:23: “When they had appointed elders for them
in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they
had believed.”

On an earlier occasion, Paul and Barnabas had preached the gospel to Lystra,
Iconium, and Antioch, with a wonderful harvest. They had since departed to preach the
gospel elsewhere. After having preached the word to the people of Derbe and “made many
disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch” (14:21). Upon their return
they spent time strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to continue in the faith.
Their final act was the appointment of elders in every church.

Why were Barnabas and Paul interested in appointing elders in every church? If the
churches were sufficient without leaders, if they could have just continued gathering
according to the status quo, why did the apostles bother to ordain elders in each and every
church? Part of the answer is found in Paul’s instruction to Titus. He says, “For this reason I
left you [Titus] in Crete, in order that you might set in order what remains, and appoint elders
in every city” (Titus 1:5). What this means is that in the mind of the Apostle Paul, the
churches in Crete were not yet fully organized churches until elders were established in
them.

Part of the reason for the delay in a church-plant is that it takes time to train men
capable of the work of pastoral ministry. One of the qualifications for the elder is that he not
be a new convert (1 Tim 3:6). As a result, it is natural that some time would elapse between
the conversion of believers in a given locale (the birth of a church) and the establishment of
indigenous leadership (the ordering of a church).

All this is to say that the reason why appointing leaders in the churches was
important to Paul and Barnabas is that a church is not properly ordered without them. Oh,
there may be a period of time in which a church is without formal leadership, but that time
won’t last long. For the apostles, their last order of business was to see to it that the
nascent congregations were placed under the loving rule of pastors.

So if you have been content to think that reading your Bible and praying with a few
friends in your house with none of the authority structures and ordinances of the local
church is sufficient, you must think again. For a true church will not be content without the
leaders God has ordained to shepherd it. How do you imagine Paul and Barnabas would
have reacted if after appointing elders for the believers of Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, if
these baby churches had told the apostles that since the churches knew the apostolic
teaching, they wouldn’t need elders to lead them? Such a question is prima facie absurd.
Yet this is how many Christians today approach their relationship to the church.

Brothers and sisters, if you are not submitting to a local Christian eldership, then you
are sinning. You need to be under the authority of the church, which has been granted to
the elders of the church. And if you are unwilling to submit to biblically qualified leaders,

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then you need to see your unwillingness as disobedience to God’s word. You can not say
with any legitimacy that you are striving to be obedient to the Bible and at the same time
remove yourself out from under the authority of the church.

Do not think that this passage speaks only to those who refuse to submit to the
leadership of the local church. It speaks to all those who are disobedient and unsubmissive
to the elders of the church, both actively and passively.

Perhaps you have been grumbling against the leadership. Perhaps you have been
quick to dispute our decisions in your heart. Maybe you have shared your discontent with
your brethren. Or maybe you are one of the ones who has until now refused to commit to
the life of the local church. Now is the time to make a mid-course correction. Confess and
forsake your sin and run back into the arms of the great and only forgiver of sins, the true
and living Triune God. Believe what this passage teaches. Believe that continuing along
your obstinate and disobedient path will bring only grief.

Having said all that, there is still more that is involved in this obligation. Implicit in
the command to obey your leaders is a recognized relationship between you and them.

A Recognized Relationship: Local Church Membership

Notice that the call is to obey your leaders. The writer is telling the members of his
audience to obey and to submit to those who are their leaders in the church. The mandate
is not to submit to the leaders of another congregation, but of the one of which they are
members.

The flip side of this is that it is not enough for a professing Christian to think of a
certain council of elders as his or her leaders when those very shepherds have no idea of
such a relationship.3 From the perspective of the leadership, it is important that they know
who their sheep are in light of the fact that they will give an account for them to God some
day. And from the perspective of the sheep, it is important for them to know who their
leaders are so that they might know the right voices to obey.

This is why it is absolutely essential that the churches have some form, some
structure, by which both the leadership may know those for whom they will have to give an
account and the sheep may know those to whom they are immediately accountable.

Such a structure existed from the very early days of the church.

Turn to Acts 2:41: “So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and
that day there were added about three thousand souls.”

As you can see, the passage says that on the day of Peter’s sermon there were
added about three thousand souls. That an actual number was recorded suggests that the
church kept track of those who belonged to the church. Perhaps this was done simply

3For this insight I am indebted to an unpublished paper by Ted Bigelow, Pastor-Teacher of Calvary Church,
West Hartford, CT entitled “Membership in the Local Church,” p. 2.

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through a list; for the church made use of lists for a variety of purposes in the outworking of
its ministry. There was, for instance, a list of those who fit the qualifications for what Paul
calls “widows indeed” (see 1 Tim 5:9).

A variety of passages record that when believers in the first century moved or
relocated, letters of reference were sent to the new assembly with which they would be
associating. Acts 18:27 is one such example: And when [Apollos] wanted to go across to
Achaia, the brethren encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. These
letters were commonplace. 4 This procedure would allow the elders of a given local church
quickly to identify and accept brethren now under their leadership.

There are other texts that indicate that the early church had some procedure in place
whereby they could easily identify who belonged to the church and who did not. First
Corinthians 5 is one such instance. Read 5:11-13.

But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is
an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a
swindler-- not even to eat with such a one. 12 For what have I to do with judging
outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? 13 But those who are
outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.

Here we have a very clear reference to insiders and outsiders of the assembly. Such
teaching is based upon the assumption that the insiders could be distinguished from the
outsiders and that not only by the leadership, but by the entire congregation. Thus there are
only two kinds of people, members of the local church and outsiders (or non-members). The
notion of the “Regularly Attending Non-Member” as is prevalent in many churches today is
something that is conspicuously missing from the NT.

Later in 1 Cor 14:23, Paul mentions the whole church. This means that there is also
such a thing as “part of the church.” If the Corinthians could know when the whole church
was gathered, the implication is that there were a definite number of believers in Corinth
who were expected to gather together. How could such a number in a large congregation be
identified without any procedures for doing so?

Furthermore, this passage talks about the entrance of ungifted men or unbelievers.
Again we could ask how the congregation could now that the whole church was gathered
and at the same time distinguish between ungifted or unbelieving men without some form of
recognition regarding who is affiliated with a the church and who is not? The whole church
of Corinth would not have been small enough to spot what we would call a “visitor.”

Even a cursory reading of Rom 16:3-16 indicates that there were records kept as to
the membership along with the leadership of the local churches.

Conclusion
Thus it seems reasonably apparent that the early church employed some structure,
some set of procedures whereby it was able to recognize members of the believing

4 See also Rom 16:1-2; Col 4:10; 2 Cor 3:1.

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community. It is regrettable that the church has slowly moved away from this careful
attention to the shepherding of God’s people. Very few churches today are interested in a
formal membership roll; or of doing the very hard work of diligently keeping watch over the
souls of God’s people.

Today, there some complicating issues which adversely affect the elders’ ability to
know the sheep for which they will have to give an account. One very obvious complication
is the proliferation of denominations, some of which have such seriously mistaken doctrine
that to call them a church is even a borderline designation. Others, certainly true churches,
have serious differences of opinion with reference to the teaching of Scripture on a variety of
subjects. This makes the case for a formalized procedure all the more compelling. Certainly
rule and obedience between shepherds and sheep cannot take place where there are
significant doctrinal disagreements.

Additionally, the amazing mobility of our culture functions as another complication for
proper shepherd-sheep relations. In the first century when there was only one Christian
church and communities were not highly mobile, leadership and the congregation could be
more readily identified. As we have seen, this did not prevent them from keeping records of
the membership and so forth; but the change in cultural circumstances has made it even
more imperative for both shepherds and sheep to make explicit their relationship to one
another.

Unless there is a way to give explicit recognition to the church members and the
elders, our ability to obey the mandate of Heb 13:17 is severely compromised.

We, the elders of Redeemer Bible Church do not want to be irresponsible in the
discharge of our duties. We want to make a way not only for you to observe the command to
obey your leaders and submit to them, but we also want to make a way for us more faithfully
to comply with the mandate incumbent upon us as your shepherds. We need to know
whose souls are ours, and whose are not.

As a result, in two weeks, Redeemer is going to have what we are calling a

membership class. Beginning on September 7, and lasting for eight consecutive Lord’s
days, we will meet to discuss our confession of faith and our creeds, our constitution, and
the commitment of membership. We do this not because the Bible says to have a class, but
because wisdom tells us that the nature of the contemporary church demands that we do
so.

We began this morning’s meditation with the issue of authority. If you see yourself as
those who are submitting to the leadership of this church or as those who desire to submit
to this leadership team, it is imperative that you attend. If you cannot see yourself as
yielding to the shepherds of Redeemer, let’s get together to discuss it. If after working
through the issues, you still cannot in good conscience be a part of this local church, or if we
as leaders believe that you would thrive elsewhere, we will be active in directing you to local
believing communities to whose leaders you may confidently submit.

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The plain truth of the matter is that you must be submitting to some set of elders in a
local church somewhere. If you are not, you are disobeying a clear command of Scripture.
And you are placing your soul in jeopardy; for your leaders are those who keep watch over
your souls, as those who will give an account.

Redeemer Bible Church

16205 Highway 7
Minnetonka, MN 55345
Office: 952.935.2425
Fax: 952.938.8299
info@redeemerbiblechurch.com
www.redeemerbiblechurch.com
www.solidfood.net

The Meaning of Membership © 2003 by R W Glenn