House Church Talk - City wide vs home church

[Bruce Woodford]

Hi Tom,

You wrote to me saying:"I believe you wrote that Paul stayed longer at 
Corinth than anywhere else, thereby proving they must have had a huge city 
wide church.

Dear brother, you write as if that was the only evidence I presented for 
believing there was a very large city church at Corinth, but that is not the 
case at all!

You wrote:"I may be wrong but didn't Paul stay longer at Ephesus?"   I don't 
know, what scripture would indicate he was at Ephesus longer than 18 months?

You wrote:"Also how long was he imprisioned at Rome?  Or in the wilderness 
of Arabia.  Did those places
have huge city wide churches because of the length of time Paul dwelt 
there?"

Brother, I think you are grasping at straws here! Do you really believe that 
Paul was involved in establishing (planting churches) in either of these 
instances?

You continued:"Now onto the whole supposition that city wide love feasts are 
unscriptural our Lord Jesus must have been in disobedience when He 
multiplied the loaves and fishes at His love feasts in the wilderness before 
the vast multitudes."

Tom, when the Lord Jesus fed the 5,000 and 4,000...He had not yet instructed 
His followers in breaking bread in remembrance of Himself! Also, if we could 
miraculously multiply meals like He did in these instances, there would be 
no diffculty in having meals with thousands of believers at once! But 
usually meal preparation for large crowds of people is a major undertaking 
which requires many believers to be absent from the gathering itself!! BTW, 
if a whole city church DID break bread together, do you believe all the 
regulations of I Cor.14 should apply?  (i.e. one speaker at a time so that 
all that is spoken will edify all, women to be silent and not to speak, etc)

You closed with the following:"I believe that when we look thru that tiny 
lense we call scripture trying to see the vast array of God's magnificent 
workings in former times we may get too dogmatic beating our brother over 
the head with our looking glass thereby cracking the tiny lense and losing 
the right to see correctly what is truly there to behold.
Your brother trying to walk softly and carry an uncracked lense, tom."

Dear brother, other than the scriptures, from what source(s) would you draw 
reliable information, instructions,  examples, principle or warnings that 
would direct us in what we are to do when we gather together! I certainly do 
not view inspired scripture as a "tiny lense", but rather the major resource 
which God has given for our learning.

But brother, "dogmatically beating my brothers over the head" with what I've 
been writing concerning scriptures relative to "whole churches and house 
churches" seems like pretty strong language when I've been supporting what 
I've been suggesting with statements of scripture and allowing for the 
possibility that I could be wrong (as I have often been in the past) and 
asking for scriptural evidence to the contrary.

I would welcome from you, brother, clear scriptural teaching that 
demonstrates that there should be no vital difference between house and 
whole church gatherings if that is, in fact, the teaching of scripture.

Your brother in Christ,
Bruce

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