The House Church:

[OP_Carl]

Originally Posted by Digging4Truth

Now... do please consider when you make such a statement the sheer number of religious organizations that are out there (many thousands) and how many of those got it right. (At least right enough to get someone saved)

So... taking a fair look at your statement I would have to say that centralized organizations have failed miserably and beyond all expression.

Well, yes, but I was talking about organizations that promote 3-step Acts 2:38

Org... no org... in a building church, house church, park church, sidewalk church.... any church. Balance is the need and the key. No church model needs it any more than another. They all need it. And with it... God can do great things.

I believe that house church can offer a great opportunity for those attending to see truth and let the word & the spirit lead them (which is some peoples greatest fear... that God be left alone leading someone without the proper man to help him along)

The biggest delay to that discovery of truth is that most will bring with them their preconceived ideas that their centralized org (talking about all orgs... thousands of them...) has worked so hard to program them with and will, therefore, resist truth outside their small doctrinal box.

Once they escape the packaged doctrine mentality they become more able to be led by the spirit & the word.

Or led to divine flesh, latter rain, etc., etc...

FIrst.... what is approbriation?

First . . . it was the WRONG WORD ! ! ! I was up past my bedtime, what can I say. I meant ..... opprobrium.

op·pro·bri·um [uh-proh-bree-uhm] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. the disgrace or the reproach incurred by conduct considered outrageously shameful; infamy.

Second... I find that they are generally called letters. Pauls letter to the Ephesians... Pauls letters to the Corinthians.

Right. And when was the last time you wrote a letter that needed to be divided into chapters? The key notion is that they're L________O_______N_______G letters.

We do sometimes call them books but that is because of our reference to "books of the Bible" but it is somewhat a misnomer. The NT books are mostly letters.

L_____o_____n_____g letters.

I do not understand your point but I hope I have answered your "thought experiment".

Those "house churches" that Paul had planted 15 to 30 years prior were dallying with such a variety of mistaken and twisted notions that a simple "STOP IT!" would have been insufficient.

Oh it is a good enough site to get wrapped up in if one wants to get wrapped up in something.

My observation has been that getting 'unwrapped' usually takes banishment.

Originally Posted by Digging4Truth

I'm not sure how you meant "democratic republic"... A democratic and a republic form of government are 2 different forms of government. They are not interchangeable.

A democratic form of government is preferred to tyranny or communism etc but a republic (which we used to have) is far and above preferred to a democracy and if one is going to have secular government then there is, in my opinion of course, there is no better form of government to have than that of a republic.

See 'up past my bedtime,' above . . .