It doesn’t matter.
When two or more people come together in HIS name, that is church. That is the One True Church, that is the church founded by Jesus Christ.
yup. :-)
Exactly. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who tries to stir trouble between Protestants and Catholics is no friend of Christianity.
Amen and Amen!!
You are correct sir. The church is in the hearts of His followers. I do not have a big problem grasping the concept.
Wherever two or more are gathered, Jesus said he was also there. I don’t know about your church, but the Lutheran church I was once a board member of took Jesus literally and inflated every attendance figure by one. My time on the board was eye-opening. Heh.
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No, the word "church" is not in that text. You added that word.
God is among those people gathered together, and God is also with every individual by himself or herself. (God is omnipresent.)
If you and "CynicalBear" were "together" like that, and an argument broke out between you, and you both would not listen to each other, how could you "tell it to the church" like it says in Matthew 18:17, if the two of you are "the church"? Would you take it to him, and he take it to you? (That's how the problem started in the first place!)
(Do you see how absurd and ridiculous that text sounds, when you misinterpret the text you were quoting by falsely adding the word "church" to that text, when the Holy Spirit did not put it there?)
"If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector." Matthew 18:17
The LORD was speaking to the Jewish Apostles in the first passage, when he gave those apostles the power to bind and loose. The Apostle to the Gentiles was writing to the church in Corinth in the second when he was correcting the members there of misbehavior. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints. Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord. But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.