Another Ninety-Five

T H E S I S # 87

One does not require any person’s permission to start a house church once he or she has been so directed by God.

If Pastor Whoever decided to hold a wednesday evening Bible study in his home, would he ask your permission to do so? Certainly not, because what he does in his home is nobody’s business. Why, then, should you feel a need to obtain his blessing to have a Bible study, prayer group, or house church in your home?

What you do at home or anywhere other than the church building is between you and Lord Jesus. It is to Him you will one day give an account.

Galatians 1:15-17 (NLT): Then it pleased him to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being. Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was.

At the time Paul was referencing, preaching Christ to gentiles was just not done; Peter had not yet received his “housetop” vision commissioning him to take the gospel to other nations. And Paul was the new kid on the block. Even so, he did not “consult with those who were apostles before [he] was.”

The Lord spoke and Paul obeyed. That’s the way christianity is supposed to work. To seek the approval of man must be an insult to Lord Jesus. Because He is the Lord. Because He is the “head of the church”. Because He is “the captain of [our] salvation”.

God did not appoint any man to be a mediator between Christ and christian. Evangelicalism did, but that doesn’t count; if it does count you have a problem. But it doesn’t count (right?), so…. no problem.

It is, however, a serious matter to start a HC. One should do so prayerfully, earnestly seeking the will of the Lord. Same applies to attaching yourself to an existing HC. We simply do not know how to captain our own ship. But the Holy Spirit does. He knows everything.