The Normal Christian Church Life (#5) - Chapters Three and Four

This week I'll cover two chapters (3 & 4):

Chapter Three: "The Elders Appointed by the Apostles"
As seen in chapter two, because the apostles were constantly on the move planting house churches, they did not pastor or shepherd the local house churches. Under the leadership of the Holy Spirit they would appoint elders from among the new believers to oversee the local house church:

"The apostolic procedure was quite simple. The apostles visited a place, founded a church, left that church for a while, then returned to establish it...When the apostles left, some of the professing believers would leave too. Others would continue to attend the meetings and would prove themselves to be truly the Lord's, but would make no appreciable progress. (Still) others would eagerly press on in the knowledge of the Lord and show real concern for His interests. Those who had more spiritual life than others would spontaneously come to the front and take responsibility for their weaker brothers. It was because they had proved themselves to be elders that the apostles appointed them to hold office as elders, and it was their business to shepherd and instruct the other believers, and to superintend and control the church affairs."

Nee goes on to emphasize how critical it is that the apostles quickly hand off oversight to the elders: "We (apostles) need to know Christ as Head of His Church in no mere intellectual way if we are to let all its management pass out of our hands at the very outset...All who are engaged in apostolic work and are seeking to follow the example of the first apostles in leaving the churches to the management of local elders, must be spiritually equipped for the task...The Word of God makes it clear that the oversight of a church is not the work of apostles, but of elders...The characteristic of an apostle is going; the characteristic of an elder is staying."

Some other issues related to church elders addressed by Nee are the following:

• The appointment of elders by apostles was not based on personal preference but on those who God had already chosen (Acts 20:28); and the elders were not paid.
  
• On occasion when there was no apparent person and no clear leading of the Spirit when the apostle made his return visit, rather than force something, a "Titus" was left behind in order to see that an appointment was made later (Titus 1:5).
• The elders were the overseers, looking after both temporal and spiritual affairs of the local church. "The ordering of church government, the management of business affairs, and the care of material things are all under their control. But we must remember that a scriptural church does not consist of an active and a passive group of brethren. (I Cor. 12:25) Every church after God's own heart bears the stamp of 'one another' on all its life and activity. Mutuality is its outstanding characteristic. If the elders lose sight of that, then their leading the church will soon be changed to lording it over the church...Christ alone is the Head."
• "In Scripture we see that there was always more than one elder or bishop (another word for elder which means 'overseer') in a local church...To place the responsibility in the hands of several brethren, rather than in the hands of one individual, is God's way of safeguarding His church against the evils that result from the domination of a strong personality."

Chapter Four: "The Churches Founded by the Apostles"

In this chapter Watchman Nee speaks of what the New Testament church was like and points out that this is the pattern that God the Spirit has given us for how to do church.

First he distinguishes between the Church universal and "the churches" (local assemblies). The Church universal is made up of "all the saved, without reference to time or space...all who in the purpose of God are redeemed by virtue of the shed blood of the Lord Jesus, and are born again by the operation of His Spirit." Locality is the scriptural basis for the dividing of the Church of God into "churches." Nee says that "throughout the Word of God we can find no name attached to a church save the name of a place; for example, the church in Jerusalem, the church in Lystra, the church in Derbe..."

"What is a New Testament church? It is not a building, a gospel hall, a preaching center, a mission, a work, an organization, a system, a denomination, or a sect...A New Testament church is the meeting together for worship, prayer, fellowship, and mutual edification of all the people of God in a given locality, on the ground that they are Christians in the same locality."

What is a Scriptural locality? Ephesus, Rome, Jerusalem, Corinth, etc., were not "countries nor provinces nor districts but simply places of convenient size for people to live together in a certain measure of safety and sociability. In modern language we should call them cities." However, if it's a large city such as London, for example, "the political and postal authorities, as well as the man on the street, regard London as more than one unit. They divide it respectively into boroughs and postal districts. What they regard as an administrative unit, we may well regard as a church unit."

Nee finishes the chapter with the following points:

• Each local church (comprised of house churches in a locality) is independent of other local churches, but they learn from one another.
• Each local church's Head is the Lord Jesus, and it must not be formed around a strong personality nor a particular doctrine. "In the purpose of God, Jesus Christ is the center of all the churches, and the locality is their sphere...the children of God must see to it that they have no center of union apart from Christ..."