I suppose I could get a number of different answers to this question, for it seems that each of us could suppose that “our own little group of believers in our little assembly” are the sum total of the body of Christ. Nothing could be further from the truth! There are people who belong to the body of Christ who may not belong to any local church, even though they should. What we are to consider in our question above is: whether or not there is more than one “body of Christ”. The answer is clear from the following verses taken from Ephesians 4:4-6: “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” These verses should settle the question concerning the body of Christ, for it is one body, thus every person in the world who has accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior is a member of this one body! Oh, there could be pages filled with arguments against what I am saying, but they will not stand up under the scrutiny of this one verse above!
No, I did not say that we all must belong to the same local assembly that is called the church. First of all, the “church” is not the building, rather it is the “saved people”, who may meet in a building for worship and learning. Yes, we do have differing opinions from different churches, but all who are truly “born again” are a part of the one true body of Christ. Early churches met in homes for some time, before any structures called “churches” were built. I think most people mistakenly suppose that these “buildings” are the churches, but that will not hold water under Bible scrutiny! I am glad we have buildings as places for the church to meet, but I wish we could learn that the people who are saved are the church. The Greek word “ekklesia” means: “a calling out, a popular meeting, a religious congregation”. It never refers to a building, but rather to the people who know Christ! Personally, I do not see a need to spend great amounts of money in making buildings look like the most expensive thing in a community, for we have no biblical warrant for such. Rather, it seems that some of that money could be spent on missions, or on helping the poor of the congregation or community. Yet each local congregation must decide how it spends its moneys.
If all of those who are truly children of God are a part of the same body, then we must not seek to do damage to that body. Oh, we have preferences, and even convictions, about church meetings, and rightly so, but we must not fail to understand that every person who has received Jesus Christ as personal Savior is a member of the one true church. This is not to say that there are not “false religions” even among churches, for there are.
By J. Briggs King, Rainsville, AL (678) 451-0921