46 So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved (Acts 2:46–47, NKJV).
The Scriptures show a distinction and separation between the collective activity of a local church (assembling “in the temple”) and the individual action of its members (“from house to house”). Specifically, this passage teaches the local church is not a mess hall designed to feed stomachs. It is the house of God, intended to feed souls the word of God (1 Tim. 3:15; Acts 20:7, 28). People have turned local churches into little more than community centers offering all sorts of social, recreational, political, and other secular-based activities that Scripture does not assign to churches. Such things are left to individual disciples to do when and how they please (Gal. 6:10). The Scriptures reveal the local church does not automatically have the Lord’s approval to do whatever individual Christians may do. Notably, in 1 Timothy 5:16, the church is not charged with an action expected of certain Christians. Since the Lord adds saved ones to the church, the individual and the church are not the same thing (Acts 2:47). Do not assume “whatever the individual Christian may do the local church may do.” Such an assertion does not withstand the scrutiny of Scripture.
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