New Testament Church Organization

This book is the culmination of several years of vital interest on the part of the author in the subject of local church government. The writing of it has been a means of better organizing and coordinating his thinking with regard to this most interesting topic.

Several years ago, while a licensed preacher in one of the larger denominations of Christendom, he felt unable to reconcile certain practices of his church with various Scriptures. Feeling that the Scripture must be the Christian’s norm for church polity as well as for the salvation and moral conduct, he then began study of pertinent New Testament passages relating to local church government. The result of his study led him to leave his denomination and to seek fellowship with those who were insistent upon conformity with the New Testament pattern as inaugurated by the Apostles.

This is an age when even in Christendom there is little vital concern over obedience to Scripture in such matters as these. The lukewarm attitude of the Laodicean Churchhas infiltrated even into conservative Christianity. It is an age when one is labeled as narrow and is condemned as being contentious and irascible if he is dogmatic concerning the teaching of Scripture. Christians are often told they should have less doctrine and more love. Various amalgamation and councils are seeking to do away with doctrinal differences and achieve organizational unity. These are dangerous days for the Christian

It is the sincere hope of the writer that this work may be used to reveal to some the organization of the ApostolicChurch and then to show them the necessity for obedience to this pattern.

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Donald L. Norbie is a Bible teacher and author now living in Colorado. While attending high school in Tucson,Arizona, he was led to Christ by T.B. Gilbert in 1938 and began to fellowship with the Bible Chapel there.

After spending several years in the Navy during World War II he returned to college. Since 1949, when he received a Master of Arts degree from Wheaton College, he and his wife Marie have been active in Bible teaching and evangelism.

A special interest of his has been the New Testament church. Other books are 1 Timothy: Timeless Truths, 2 Timothy and Titus, New Testament Church Organization, The Early Church, Divorce and the Bible, Baptism, The Lord’s Supper, He Loved to Plant: A Biography of T. B. Gilbert, and Danny, A Life Cut Short.