http://www.christiananswers.net/q-acb/acb-t009.html
Some people joke about the “Bedside
Baptists” who attend the "Chapel of the Tube" on Sunday mornings.
But it's more than a joke. Many people refuse to get near a church
unless their nephew is playing the role of a sheep in the Christmas
pageant! They claim they can get more out of a walk in the woods
than from the typical sermon.
Can a Christian survive apart from a church? Some Christians
have no choice. They are trapped in a hospital bed, or working in
an isolated area where no church exists. And God is certainly
sufficient to care for their needs. You can still get to heaven if
you can't go to church.
But even though it's technically possible to live the Christian
life in isolation, it's certainly not the norm.
When you become a Christian, you are called into a relationship
with God (1
Corinthians 1:9). But I John
1:3 makes it clear that we enter a fellowship that goes two ways:
with God and with other Christians.
The New Testament never divides Christians into the church
members and the non-church members. All the way through, it assumes
that everybody participates in their local assembly. It gives no
samples of Christians who belong to the “universal church” but have
no link with a local church. One scholar has said that "any
idea...of enjoying salvation or being a Christian in isolation is
foreign to the New Testament writings" (Alan Stibbs, God's
Church, p. 92). Wherever Christians are within range of each
other in the New Testament, they meet. Every time the apostle Paul
comes to a town in the book of Acts where there are no Christians,
he wins a few converts and immediately organizes them into a small
group - a little church.
Acts
20:7 reveals the practice of the early church:
"And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came
together to break bread, Paul preached to them." For Christians in
every location, regular gathering was a part of life.
It's illogical to say that you are merely part of the worldwide,
universal church, yet refuse to gather with the segment of that
universal church that exists in your geographical area. It would be
like claiming you have a car, when the right fender is in Phoenix,
the engine is in Tucson, and the wheels are in Paradise Valley! You
don't have a car; you have the beginning of the inventory for a
junkyard. It just won't function until the pieces are put
together.
The church must be together to carry out many of its
purposes.
Here are some irreplaceable pieces of the Christian that cannot
happen when you live in isolation from the church:
USE OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS - I
Corinthians 12 makes it clear that God has given
spiritual gifts to every Christian. And verse 7 states unmistakably
that these abilities are not provided to make you feel good; they
are abilities to minister that should be used for the common good!
I Peter
4:10 commands us to use spiritual gifts to help
each other.
The same passage makes it clear that we meet with other
Christians so they can use their gifts to strengthen us. God's gift
of a preacher or teacher is wasted if no one comes to hear them
speak.
MUTUAL MINISTRY - The church is pictured as a body in I
Corinthians 12, and Paul explains that each part
of the body exists to meet the needs of other body parts. In the
same way, God intends each of us to meet the needs of other
believers, using our strengths to help in their areas of weakness.
I
Corinthians 12:21 expresses it this way: "The eye
cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you." Neither can a
Christian claim to be self-sufficient today.
The New Testament is full of “one another” commands. We are to
comfort one another (I
Thessalonians 4:18), build up one another
(I
Thessalonians 5:11), confess our sins to one
another (James
5:16), pray for one another (James
5:16), and many more. How can we obey these
directives if we stay away from the gathering of believers?
ACCOUNTABILITY - God designed the church as a place where
spiritual leaders could watch out for our welfare, as a shepherd
guards the sheep (I Peter
5:1-4; Hebrews
13:17). A Christian who answers only to himself
can easily rationalize sinful attitudes or actions; regular contact
with other Christians can keep us sharp.
A single verse should actually be sufficient answer for this
question:
Hebrews 10:25 warns its readers against
“forsaking the assembly of yourselves together, as the manner of
some is.”
Author: Dr. John Bechtle.