Dr. John MacArthur often engaged in a question and answer time with his own congregation. Here is a transcript of one such interaction regarding church membership.

Elliot: My name is Elliot.

John MacArthur: Hi, Elliot.

Elliot: My wife and I have enjoyed coming to your church for the past couple of months.

John MacArthur: Great.

Elliot: We have been considering church membership. In light of that, I think I understand the rationale behind church membership, but I wonder whether there is possibly a danger in making a distinction between members of the body of Christ and nonmembers of the body of Christ. What Scripture supports church membership? Could things such as church discipline, fellowship, and commitment simply accompany a genuine profession of faith?

John MacArthur: Well, let me simply say this.

We will start with the Day of Pentecost, when the church began. Three thousand people believed, and three thousand people were baptized, essentially by the apostles and the other believers. There were only 120 believers before that, so they knew the number. There was no such thing as an unbaptized believer.

When a person becomes a believer, he is placed into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit, who literally immerses him into the body of Christ. You become one with Christ, in union with Him, and one with everyone else who is in union with Him. Spiritually, therefore, you are part of the body of Christ. You have to understand the spiritual reality of that. All believers are part of the body of Christ.

All believers were then baptized. That is, they were publicly identified with the other believers. They were publicly identified by the leaders of the early church. Later in the book of Acts, it says that there were five thousand men who believed. They were keeping track of who was a believer, who had been baptized, who had publicly confessed Christ, and who was under their care.

What we are saying is that, from the very beginning, there was leadership in the church. By the time you reach Acts 6, they knew who their people were, and they knew they had a responsibility to care for those people. In Acts 6, they were struggling to ensure that the widows among the believers received a fair allotment of food.

They knew there was a shepherding responsibility. Therefore, they chose men who were full of the Spirit and full of faith to serve the flock. Peter says to the elders, “Shepherd the flock of God which is among you.” There was no such thing in the early church as a believer who was simply unattached.

In the book of Acts, we find that when people moved from one city to another, they took letters from the church of which they had been a part to the church to which they were moving. In this way, they were introduced as members of the church of Jesus Christ in another place. They knew who the people were. They kept track of them.

Church membership is not simply signing your name on a line. It is essentially saying, “I submit myself to the shepherding, leadership, discipleship, and discipline of those who are over me in the Lord.”

In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, he says that we are to give honor to those who are over us in the Lord. They knew who their shepherds were. They knew who their spiritual leaders were. On the other hand, in the book of Hebrews, the leaders are presented as examples whom the people could follow. The people are told to follow their faith.

There is no ambiguity about life in the church. You submit to godly elders who care for your soul and to deacons who minister on your behalf. You submit to the discipline of the church, which is for your benefit, just as the discipline of God described in Hebrews is intended to produce righteousness.

You place your life in the care of the shepherds. The Great Shepherd is the Lord Jesus, who shepherds His flock through undershepherds. This is simply what the New Testament defines as life in the church.

What, then, are the privileges of membership? By becoming a member, you are saying, “Care for me. Lead me spiritually. Direct me. Help me to use my spiritual gift. Help me to be a blessing to others by practicing the ‘one anothers’ of the New Testament, such as praying for one another, loving one another, and edifying one another.”

The New Testament knows nothing of a free-floating believer who simply bounces from one place to another. There is a built-in sense of accountability, obligation, and responsibility for shepherding. That is the only kind of church life the New Testament knows.

When we talk about church membership, we are simply saying that it is a covenant between a true believer and those whom the Lord will use to shepherd that believer. The believer commits to receive that shepherding, follow the faith of those leaders, learn from them, love them, and honor them. That is exactly what a church is.

As a believer, therefore, you should seek to be fully connected to that process, where the leaders know who you are, you know who they are, and you share together in that mutual ministry.

Okay?

Elliot: Thank you, sir.