{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Christ Covenant Church","title":"What the Bible Has To Say About The Transfer Of Our Church Membership","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":4104,"description":"Common belief today: “We have the right to transfer our membership whenever we want, for whatever reason we want, as long as we believe the other church to be biblical.” \nThose who believe such things indicate they are not only completely ignorant – or rebellious to, what the Bible actually teaches on this subject, but also the church’s divine authority in such matters[1].\n \n1. We cannot transfer to another church without our current church’s allowance or approval.\n \nWhy? Because our membership is attached to our baptism and our baptism is the property of the church currently possessing it -not us.\n \n1.1. God only recognizes us as a member of a specific church when that church performs/possesses our baptism (Act 2:41 “added” [to the church as members] at the point of baptism). IOW: Membership = Baptism.\n \n1.2. To transfer our membership to another church therefore requires the transfer of our baptism to that church. \n \n1.3. Given that baptism is also the way we receive initial forgiveness or the washing away of our sins, it constitutes one of the keys of salvation given to the Christ’s churches – not the individual (Act 2:38, 22:16 w/Joh 20:21-23 w/Mat 16:18-19: Keys unlock gates – in this case, the gates to the kingdom of heaven [in contrast to v18 “gates of Hades”]. The key of baptism gives us access to the blessings of the Spirit and forgiveness [the blood of Christ]).[2]\n \n1.4. Transferring to another church would therefore also require allowance/approval of the church (possessing your baptism) since: 1) they (not you) are the owners of that heavenly access key (baptism) (again, the keys are the property of the church not the individual) (Gen 28:11-18: Notice the gate to heaven is in God’s house, the pillar of truth; the NT church is that place today - 1Ti 3:15 “household of God…pillar…of the truth”), 2) it is impossible to have access granted by another church since only one legitimate baptism is allowed (Heb 6:1-6 “washings” which makes us “partakers of the...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/UXGjftzm8Yw--IISwUKe6A6-CX1YtARptisfLmFJFoI/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS81Zjc4/MmNmNTMxZjNmOTgw/YjA1NWRhYmMxMTNl/YmE1Zi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}