A Few More Thoughts on Church Membership

When I wrote about the importance of membership earlier this week a few people objected that I only provided pragmatic reasons for church membership, not actual biblical reasons. I happen to think that my pragmatic reasons were rooted in biblical principles, but nevertheless, there are more explicitly chapter-and-verse arguments that can be made in support of church membership.

My good friend Jason Helopoulos, a PCA church planter in East Lansing, offers this by way of bolstering my argument:

It saddens me when I hear people make the claim that the Scriptures are not definitive on the need for church membership. It seems to me that even in just looking at the New Testament (let alone the passages in the OT that we could cite) that there is sufficient reason to not only suggest, but promote the need for church membership. 1 Corinthians 5 is a classic passage in this regard. Paul’s whole argument is based upon the idea that there is a defined church which includes membership. He writes, “Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?” There is an inside and an outside. They are to “purge the evil person” from their midst. He is to be cast outside the church. What is outside and what is inside if the membership itself is not defined? Paul does the same thing in 2 Corinthians 2:6, “For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough.” How does one define a “majority” if there is no defined body? These two passages are sufficient for arguing the case, though we could also look at the list of widows in 1 Timothy 5 or even the fact that the Lord Himself keeps a list of those within the Church (Rev. 21:27). All this to say, in addition to the arguments you made in your post, there are biblical “proof texts” for church membership that I would like to suggest to those who are hesitant to embrace it.

Likewise, R. Scott Clark weighed in on his blog with biblical support for official church membership:

In the Old Covenant, God is a bookkeeper. In Exodus 32:32 we see a very interesting phrase. In a prayer, Moses pleads with God not to blot him out of “the Book you have written.” The Lord replies to Moses that He will indeed blot anyone who sins out of His “Book.”46 David declares in Psalm 9.5 that the Lord has “blotted out” the name of his enemies forever.47 In Psalm 40:7 David is assured that his righteousness is written on God’s scroll…

Because God is revealed as a book keeper His Covenant people were also (according to the commandments of God) also book keepers.

There is significant evidence that in the Old Covenant there were membership rolls with the names of all the Covenant families and the Covenant heads of households. Genesis 5:1ff. speaks of the “book of the generations.” Moses worked from existing books in compiling his (selective) genealogies. This idea of membership roll figured conspicuously in the life of the Qahal. Later after the exile when the beginnings of the Synagogue can be traced, there is archeological evidence that there were membership rolls there as well. It took at least twelve men in good standing in the community to form a synagogue.

God commanded Moses in Exodus 17:14 to write down the destruction of the Amelakites because without this record there would not be any. In turn (Deutronomy 25.19), God will “blot out” the Amelakites. In Exodus 24:7 we read of the “Book of the Covenant” which contained the laws by which God’s Covenant people were to live. God commanded Moses to take a census of the people and to make a record of them (Exodus 30:11). Psalm 87:6 speaks of a “register of the peoples” (NIV). Ezekiel 13:9 speaks of a “register of the house of Israel” (NASB). There was a written record of the descendents of Aaron (Nu 3:10). It would seem to be beyond controversy that God’s people kept written records during the Mosaic theocracy. The question remains then whether similar practices continued into the New Covenant era.

There is a great deal of unity and continuity between the Old Covenant conception of the Qahal and the New Covenant Ekklesia. Thus there is good reason to suspect that there is continuity in the practice of record keeping. Remember that in both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, one had to join the visible assembly and take the sign of the Covenant.

The bottom line is that if you are looking for a verse that talks about a membership class and certificates of transfer, you won’t find it. But if you are looking for the concepts of a defined in/out community, record-keeping, covenant making, and submission to a recognized body that exercises authority over the circumscribed group, you can find all of that in both testaments.

Oh yeah, and the word member is in the Bible too.