Some professing Christians deny the necessity of church membership. Others join a church for unsubstantial reasons or leave a church for trivial, often selfish, reasons. Many remain members of apostatizing churches because of family or traditional ties. Some Christians find themselves in countries or areas where no true church exists or can be formed. They ask, sometimes in anguish, “What must we do?”
Seemingly forgotten today is the truth that Jesus Christ institutes His catholic or universal church in organized congregations that are clearly identified by objective marks. These are true churches, in distinction from false and apostatizing churches.
In the form of letters to an inquiring (though not always appreciative) European audience, this book addresses the issue of church membership in the twenty-first century. This instruction is applicable to all believers and is based on Scripture, the Belgic Confession and the important, but little known, controversy of John Calvin with the Nicodemites.
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“I found Prof. Engelsma’s Bound to Join a compelling read and very challenging. Since reading it I have dipped into it frequently. I look forward to reading his response to critics. I can understand why objections and criticisms would be raised. But his biblical foundation and logic is in my view unassailable. The marks of a true church are simple enough it seem to me. It is only when they are added to or taken from or indeed ignored that things become complicated, confused and corrupted. Residual sin in man will always want its own way, which is usually the most comfortable to his conscience. When that conscience is pricked, so is his pride. I speak from personal experience. But the dilemma that many face regarding joining themselves to a true church that is both scriptural and confessional in its life and witness is and remains in today’s prevailing apostasy increasingly difficult. – West Midlands, England
“Bound to Join made me realize the importance of church membership, even though I was resistant. Your book also made me realize the importance of membership even though it may take sacrifice to find and join that true church. We desperately need this better understanding of the importance of church membership in this day and age in which Christians are oriented to be too independent and too consumer-oriented and too transitory in attendance in church.” – Florida, USA
To read a review of this book published in the Protestant Reformed Theological Journal, click here.
To read a review of this book published in the British Reformed Journal, click here.
To read a defence of this book published in the Standard Bearer, click here.
To watch the video of the author interview concerning this book, click here.
