In Support of the Institutional Church

These days it is increasingly fashionable to bash "the church."  In Why We Love the Church by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, the lament is voiced, "Community is hip, but the church is lame.  Both inside the church and out, organized religion is seen as oppressive, irrelevant, and a waste of time.  Outsiders like Jesus but not the church.  Insiders have been told they can do just fine with God apart from the church."

Today though, Jared Wilson offers up a helpful piece reminding us of the biblical support for the institutional church:

1. The New Testament presumes church governance

2. The New Testament commands church discipline

3. The New Testament designates insiders and outsiders in relation to the church

4. The image of "the body" presumes unified order

5. The New Testament churches had recognizable structures. The apostles sent their letters to somebody

6. "Spirit-filled community or institutional organization" is a false dichotomy that presumes the Spirit is powerless against institution

7. Logically speaking, there is no such thing as "no institution" except chaos or anarchy. Every community made up of people is institutional to some degree

8. That institution is not eternal is not grounds for jettisoning it. Marriage isn't eternal either.

9. The subjection of kings and nations presumes institutional subjection to Christ and therefore that God works in, with, and through institutions

10. No one in 2,000 years has successfully cultivated an enduring institution-less expression of the local church

Read the whole post here.