People have treasured pearls for centuries. How are these beautiful gems made? Scientists have a theory. In the wild, oysters make a pearl when a small irritant gets inside their mouths. In order to handle the irritant, the creature puts layers of material over the irritant repeatedly until a pearl results.
What started out as an irritant is now a rare, beautiful gem. But catch this: for any of this to happen, the irritant must first be in the oyster’s mouth.
Christian, you were an irritant, just like a pearl. When we first believe in Christ, we are immature, baby Christians, and we have much growing to do. You are becoming a pearl, but you will never grow until you find your oyster. Your oyster is the church.
Here is the problem: We want to become pearls, but we often aren’t inside of our oyster. We don’t want to become active members of a church.
The Church is Not Optional
Many Christians see a meaningful connection with the church as optional to their relationship with Jesus. A distrust of authority, the championing of the individual’s self-sufficiency, the “spiritual but not religious” sentiment, a disappointment with cultural Christianity, traumatic experiences in a toxic church, etc. has left many people saying “no thank you” to the church. Since black Africans are some of the most church-going demographics in the United States, Black Christians are very familiar with the church. We can often look at it as a cultural institution with little spiritual value. We think, “Been there, done that.”
Though people of our era see church membership as optional, church membership was hardly a question for many eras of Christian history. The Bible assumes that church membership is basic to the Christian life. To be a Christian was to be a member of the church.
Let me explain.
What is the Church?
The church is God’s people. From the first book of the Bible (Genesis) to the last book (Revelation), God is claiming a people for himself by forming covenants. Covenants are formal relationships. God’s covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15, 17) and his covenant with Israel (Exodus 19-24) are examples of these covenants. Today, the church is in the “new covenant” with God (1 Cor 11:25). I will use the term “church” and “God’s people” synonymously.
Entrance into a covenant relationship with God was an inward process and an outward process. We see this with Abraham. For example, Abraham had to believe in God and his promises (Genesis 15:6), go through a covenant ceremony (Gen 15:12-21), and be circumcised (Genesis 17:9-14). The belief was inward; the ceremony and circumcision were outward.
Furthermore, having a covenant relationship meant being connected to both God and his people/church. For example, God told Abraham, “Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant” (Gen 17:14 ESV). God commanded that anyone who did not receive circumcision should be removed from God’s people. Why? Anyone who wasn’t circumcised wasn’t in covenant with God and, therefore, not a member of the church. You could also state it in reverse: anyone who wasn’t circumcised wasn’t a member of the church and therefore wasn’t in covenant with God.
A connection with God is a connection to God’s people. Both ordinarily go together.
What is Church Membership?
Church membership is simply what I have been describing above when I say, “to be a part of the church,” or, “to be connected to God’s people,” or, “entrance into a covenant relationship with God.” Church membership is the inward and outward process that brings us into a covenant relationship with God and his people. In other words, to become a member of a church is to become a Christian.
You might be thinking, “Where is church membership in the Bible?” Well, it’s everywhere. Linguistically, to be a “member” of something means to be a part of a whole. Christians are those who are parts of the whole church. Thus, any Bible book addressed to Christians is also addressed to church members. To illustrate this point, when Paul says, “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi” (Phil 1:1 NASB), he could also say, “To all the church members in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi.” If this isn’t enough, the explicit mention of the word “member” in the Bible is many (e.g. Rom 12:4; 1 Cor 6:15; Eph 2:19)
As a Christian, being a member of the church is who we are, and being a faithful member is what we do. If you have already become a member of a church, then staying a church member is to live as a Christian.
The pieces required to become a church member are simply the pieces of being a Christian. Things get a little more tricky when we talk about children (the outward commitment often comes before the inward), so let’s talk about adults becoming church members. When we bring people into church membership, we ask them if 1) they believe they are sinners in need of God’s mercy 2) they believe Jesus is their savior 3) they commit to living as followers of Jesus 4) they will actively help the church’s work, purity, and peace and 5) they will follow the church’s caring leadership. Then, the church baptizes them if they haven’t already been baptized.
Again, these pieces are a part of the formula of becoming a Christian. To locate the different pieces in the Bible, God requires that we acknowledge of need for salvation (1 John 1:8); confess and believe in Jesus (Rom 10:9-10); repent of our sins (Mark 1:15; 1 John 2:1-6); and get baptized (Acts 2:38). After such, we should submit ourselves to the church’s leadership and community life (Acts 2:42; Heb 13:17), which is being an active church member.
The Community Declares Who is a Christian
After saying all of this, there is a problem: anyone can pretend their way into becoming a church member. I believe that this issue is why many of us see church membership as optional. We see it cheapened by pretenders.
How do we deal with pretenders, people who are members of churches but far away from Jesus? This question rightly assumes the fact that the church is not pure. There will always be non-Christians who are outward church members but inwardly are not. Jesus teaches us this in his parable about the weeds in Matthew 13:24-30. In a field, weeds and wheat can grow. In the same way, in the church, there are both true Christians and superficial Christians.
Only God truly knows who is a genuine Christians and who is not. The Bible calls these genuine Christians “the elect” (Matt 22:14; Rom 11:7).
Though only God knows, God has appointed a process for the church. The church judges who is a Christian and who isn’t. Wait, isn’t Jesus the only judge? Aren’t we commanded not to judge? We are not to judge as individuals (Matt 7:1), but we are supposed to judge as a community. Jesus has delegated some of his judging powers to the church, and church-appointed leaders exercise it on behalf of the church (Deut 17:8-13; 1 Cor 5:1-6:8).
Let me explain.
There are moments where Jesus instructs his disciples about their responsibilities to be judges in the church. Jesus tells Peter, the leader of the disciples, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven” (Matt 16:19 NASB). He later tells his disciples, “Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven” (Matt 18:18 NASB).
It is difficult to tell what Jesus means by “binding” and “loosing” in this context. The Bible authors use the Greek words translated as “binding” and “loosing” to literally describe tying or untying something (Luke 19:30). Related to its literal use, the Bible authors use these words in many metaphorical ways. They can be used metaphorically to describe an obligation from God’s law or the removal of an obligation from God’s law (Rom 7:2; 1 Cor 7:27). In a similar metaphorical use, when someone breaks a law or removes its authority, they are “loosing” the law (Matthew 5:19; John 7:23). In another similar use, to “loose” something is to destroy something (John 2:19). Whatever Jesus precisely means in our Matthew 16 and 18, to “bind” and “loose” in the church is to exercise authority in the church. Jesus is appointing the disciples to exercise authority here on earth on behalf of heaven.
This means Jesus tasked the church with making heavenly decisions visible here on earth. Processes removing people from the church make sense only because of this authority Jesus grants (Matt 18:15-20; 1 Cor 5:1-6:8). If someone is a Christian from the eyes of God in heaven, then the disciples are to discern such and then welcome them into the church on earth. If someone is a not a Christian in the eyes of God in heaven, then the disciples are to discern such and then remove them from membership in church here on earth. The intake process comprises a credible profession of faith, repentance, and baptism (Acts 2:38; Rom 6:2-4; Gal 3:26-28). On the other hand, the process outlined in Matthew 18:15-20 explains how the church is to recognize false Christians and remove them. When the church removes people, they hope that false Christians will “wake up” and then recommit to being Christians.
Church membership is Jesus’ intake process for his people. Christians, as independent individuals, don’t definitively declare themselves as Christians. Jesus has given that responsibility to the church. This seems wrong in our age of individualism and self-expression-over-everything-ism. However, the Bible pushes Christians into accepting a strong sense of community and family over and against the cultural pressures of Western modernity. To become a part of the family, the family must receive you. Jesus gives you the family name of “Christian” through the Christian family.
What Should I Do?
Family, Christians are members of churches. If you have recently followed Jesus, pursue joining a church! That is the next step. If you are a Christian who is not an active member of a church in your city, then join a church! Why? God wants to morph you into a pearl. So embrace your oyster.