Quotes and Musings

"The only places where Socialism is believed to be successful are filled with large numbers of imprisoned, dumbed-down, robotic slaves: North Korea and American Universities."

- Dr. David Lanier

"The first thing that interrupts real revival in the church is a whole slate of false professions of faith sitting in the pews."

- Dr. Herb Reavis

"People want the fruit of faith without having faith."

- Richard Blackaby

"Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant, then it tries to silence the good."

- Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

"When I understand that everything that's happening to me is to make me more Christlike, it resolves a great deal of anxiety."

- A.W. Tozer

"The proof that we are rightly related to God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not."

- Oswald Chambers

Question posted to Nine Marks Ministry: Isn’t the idea of church membership just a modern American idea?

Answer: Hardly. Here are 5 reasons why:

1. The ancient Romans understood each citizen to be a member of their society in the same way that our hands, eyes, feet, and so on are all members of our body.


2. The New Testament asserts that Christians are members of one another because we are all members of the body of Christ (Romans 12:5).


3. The New Testament church was composed of people who had publicly joined themselves to the church such that Paul can assume that the Corinthian church will know who is “inside” and who is “outside” (1 Corinthians 5:12-13).


4. The church in Corinth excluded an unrepentant sinner “by the will of the majority” (2 Corinthians 2:6), which presupposes a defined group of people, all of whom together had the right to act as a church.


5. Even the idea of excluding someone from the church because of unrepentant sin (see Matthew 18:15-20, 1 Corinthians 5:1-13, and 2 Corinthians 2:6) presupposes that there is some defined body to which a person belongs. If there were no formal membership in the New Testament, then Jesus and Paul’s teaching about church discipline would be meaningless. If someone doesn’t formally belong, how can they be kicked out?