Assembly: Reception, Fellowship, Seat of Unlearned — Norman Crawford

Well, thank you for coming tonight. We're going to read first of all in our passage which we have read several nights in these two weeks, Acts chapter 2, verse 41,. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day were added unto them about three thousand souls.

And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, and fellowship, and breaking of bread, and in prayers. Each one of those four lists of four features in that list have the definite article. It's the apostles' doctrine, it is the fellowship, it is the breaking of bread, and the prayers, that is the prayers of a local assembly.

Saul's Reception into the Assembly at Jerusalem

Now, would you read again please in Acts 9, the ninth chapter of the book of Acts, verse 23. Perhaps verse 22 would help us to link on to it a little easier,. But Saul increased the Moor in strength, and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is the very Christ.

And after that, many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him. But there lying awake was no one of Saul, and they watched the gates day and night to kill him. Then the disciples took him by night, and let him down by the wall in a basket.

And when Saul was Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples. But they were afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple. But Barnas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.

And he was with them, coming in and going out at Jerusalem. And he spake boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus, and disputed against the Grecians, but they went about to slay him. Which when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus.

Then had the churches rest, and that by the way is a singular, it is not churches, it is church in the original. Then had the church rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, and that's the scattered believers of the Jerusalem assembly, the Jerusalem church, and were edified, and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.

Edification and Order in the Local Church

Now 1st Corinthians please, chapter 14, verse 15 of 1st Corinthians 14. This is the summing up of the teaching that Paul has given them regarding edification in the local church. Verse 15 says, what is it then?

I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also. I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the learned say amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?

For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other is not edified. I thank my God I speak with tongues more than y 'all. Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue, or in a tongue.

There is no authority for translating that in an unknown tongue, it is a tongue. Brethren, be not children in understanding, how be it in malice be children, but in understanding be men. Now he makes an appeal to the Old Testament, Isaiah chapter 28.

In the law it is written, with men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people, and yet for all that they will not hear me, saith the Lord. Wherefore, tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe not, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not, but prophesying serveth for them that believe not, excuse me, not for them that believe not, but for them that believe.

If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned or unbelievers, will they not say that you're mad? But of all prophesying there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned.

He is convinced of all, he is judged of all, and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest, and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you by the truth. And then follows the order of a meeting, an actual meeting of an assembly.

A number of times during these meetings I have said that it is perfectly correct to speak of a local church, there's nothing wrong with that particular term, but as long as we understand that by the word church we mean those who gather, the company who meet.

Because of course in the religious world the use of the word church has two meanings, it may have more than that, but it has two common meanings. It means a building or it means an organization, and neither one of those meanings suit the two meanings of the New Testament.

For the word that is used a hundred and eleven times in the New Testament for the church is used either of the body, made up of all true believers, or of a local expression of the body, which is a company of believers, an assembly of believers in a particular locality.

And so we have used in the outline tonight as in other nights we've used the word assembly because we believe that assembly is a better English translation of the Greek word ecclesia, or church. Now the subject tonight is the subject of reception to an assembly.

I would scarcely think that there's a great deal in this subject to warm our hearts or to make us more appreciative of many of the great truths of the Bible, especially truths that relate to the person of the Lord Jesus.

But certainly this is a vital truth when it comes to practice, and because it is so important to us, not only for our own instruction, but that we may be intelligent in what the Word of God teaches, so that when we are asked for a reason of our conduct, we are able to give a scriptural answer.

And I feel that that's the most important thing. Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living, and I would say that unexamined truth is scarcely worth trying to carry out. We must really examine what we do and why we do it.

And so tonight that really is our object, to show from the Word of God the practice of assemblies, why we meet as we do, and why we practice reception in the form in which it is practiced among us. As the outline tells you, it is a subject about which there has been tremendous controversy, and of course all will not believe what I am teaching tonight.

I have to answer to God for what I teach, and I have responsibility to teach what I find to be in the Word of God. But the hearer, of course, he has the responsibility to test what is said by Scripture, and be certain that his convictions come from God's Word alone.

The Assembly's Responsibility in Reception

So there is, of course, in the idea of reception, the responsibility of an assembly. That really is where the responsibility lies. It lies with the individual assembly as to how they receive, as to what kind of guidelines they use in their reception.

And as has been pointed out, no godly assembly will disregard the actions of another assembly unless there is overwhelming cost to do so. Now you'll notice that there are five forms of reception listed on your outline, and before we even look at those five forms of reception, this is something that's an absolute necessity.

We must understand that an assembly is an entity. It does exist. And an assembly is a company of believers. And because it is a company of believers, and is body-like in its character, as is pointed out later on in this outline, therefore it is made up of a number.

There is a number that gather in an assembly. An assembly, in other words, is a company of believers, and that company has a center. The gathering center of a local church is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

It also has a circumference, and that's what we'll be examining tonight, to see whether there is actual scripture that will support that thought. That an assembly exists made up of a number of believers gathered around the Lord Jesus Christ, and that there actually is a circumference to that fellowship of the local assembly.

Fellowship as Shared Privilege and Responsibility

Now even the truth of fellowship itself, though it is spiritual, I hope we all understand that fellowship is one of the greatest spiritual truths of our Christian blessings. We have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

That's the great teaching of John's epistle, the first chapter, and it's a blessed thing to know fellowship with the Father and with His Son. Fellowship is the idea of a table, and sitting at a table is the idea of sharing commonly.

It's the idea of enjoying the same food, receiving the same benefits, and the same blessings. But the table doesn't fully express fellowship. It is a good expression of fellowship, but it does not fully express it, because fellowship is not just receiving.

Fellowship is giving. Fellowship, for instance, is enjoying like or common privileges. I don't mean common in the sense that we usually use common. I mean something that is shared alike by all when I use common.

But not only do we share alike in the same privileges, but fellowship is shared alike in the same responsibilities. Now, I have never found in the New Testament any support for the idea that privileges and responsibilities can ever be divorced.

Always they go together, and whenever we enjoy a privilege, there is a corresponding responsibility to that privilege. And sometimes, the way the gospel is preached today in some places, it is wholly the idea that this is something the Lord will do for the sinner who comes to Him.

And there is never any suggestion that there is an acknowledgment of His authority over them. But of course, we know better than that. We know that we have come under new ownership. We are not our own.

We are bought with a price, and we have come under the Lordship of Christ individually and in an assembly. And meeting as we do, we own that we share in responsibility to Christ as our Lord, that is, to serve Him and to share the needed responsibilities of the assembly together.

I know that's a simple statement. Nobody would need to really be told what I have just said. But it actually is the basis of all that we'll be looking at tonight. Because you see, if there is an actual company, if there is, for instance, the Church of God at Corinth, if there is an assembly meeting together in a particular place, and there are elders there who are acting as shepherds, in the plural, not the singular, never the singular, always the plural, the only time pastor is ever used in a singular in the New Testament is when it is speaking of that which characterizes a pastor.

Never when it is speaking of the responsibility of shepherds or pastors. It's always plural. And those who are shepherds in an assembly have responsibility for the care of the little flock. And that is the expression, little flock, used in Acts 20 and 28, used in 1 Peter 5 and 2, to describe a local assembly, a little flock.

The shepherds know the flock because they are among them. They guide them. They teach them. They feed them. They care for their needs. And they protect them from evil and wrong. Now, here's a simple question.

If the shepherds did not know the little flock, how could they ever function as shepherds? It would be impossible. In other words, if there is not an actual entity of a number of believers in a particular place, there could be no elderhood.

There could be no shepherd function. And to me, that's a far stronger argument for the entity of a local assembly than the one that is normally used. Because the one normally used is this. If the assembly is not made up of a number, how could you carry out the discipline that is taught in such passages as 1 Corinthians 5?

And of course, you could not. If people are not within the assembly, they never can be put without the assembly. So definitely, according to 1 Corinthians 5, 11 to 13, there is a within, and there is a without.

Now, I think that needs to be said first, because if we do not understand that you're coming into an assembly, and we do not know what a person is coming into, then reception doesn't even exist. But we believe it does exist.

Five Forms of Reception

In fact, there are these five forms of reception found in the New Testament. Initial reception, the reception of a resident, the reception of a visitor, the reception of a restored believer, the reception of teachers and their teaching.

And there is distinct guidance given for all these various forms of reception. I have listed some basic facts about reception, and some of those I've already just touched in introducing the subject. I would say that we do understand that it is the Lord who adds to the assembly.

That's what you have in verse 47 of Acts chapter 2, the Lord added on to them, and there was no word for church there, by the way, the Lord added on to them such as were being saved. So here were the number that had gathered together in Jerusalem as a local church.

There were 120, I understand, in the beginning. A brother asked me the other night a very good question, were there the same number at the beginning of Acts 2 as you have at the close of Acts 1? Yes, I think there were the same number.

The idea is that all were together, that is all that are spoken of there in chapter 1 as being in the upper room meeting together, about 120 believers, and they all were together when the day of Pentecost had fully arrived.

And to that 120 believers, and they weren't all the believers in the world at the time, there were 500 brethren in Galilee who were witnesses to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. They were not there in Jerusalem.

Were they not put into the church that day? Yes, they were. First Corinthians 12 and 13 is the doctrinal statement that tells us that on that particular day all believers were baptized in the Spirit and put into the body.

So they may not have been in Jerusalem and yet they too were put into the body wherever they might have been in Judea or Samaria or Galilee or wherever they were. But in Jerusalem there were 120 to begin with in the local church.

The church was formed that day, the local church was formed in Jerusalem, as well as that day being the birthday of the church, which is His body, the large spiritual thing that we've been speaking of on past nights.

But 3 ,000 were added to them after having believed the Word and being baptized, then they were added to the number there in Jerusalem. So if my addition is right, there were 3 ,120 approximately, because it says there were about 3 ,000 souls.

So there were about that number in the assembly of Jerusalem. And then added to that assembly were such as were being saved. And when you get to chapter 5 of the Book of Acts, that number has grown, almost doubled, not quite but almost doubled, so that a large company of believers met there in Jerusalem.

It was that company of believers that were scattered through the persecution that Paul spearheaded, Saul of Tarsus, and they were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria and Galilee and even as far as Damascus in Syria.

And Paul hounded them as far as Damascus. That's the word he uses about his persecution, like a dog on the trail, he hounded them as far as Damascus. And that's what we read in Acts 9 tonight. So God adds to an assembly those that are being saved and baptized, and yet believers receive to the assembly, and it is the assembly that receives into fellowship, into full fellowship.

Now I just want to say something that maybe should be said later on, but it's necessary to understand that full fellowship in an assembly does not mean that all should be teaching, that all should be arising to stand here and teach the Saints.

Somehow or other, some have got that idea into their minds. I have detected in questions that have been asked me in different places, not here but in other places, they wanted to know if a brother is received as a visitor or as a resident and is into the fellowship of the assembly, does that then not give that brother every privilege to minister or preach as the Lord may lead him?

But you see, there are different standards for teaching and preaching than for being received as a believer, and we'll see those as we look on tonight. Now we do not receive to the breaking of bread. We have pointed that out on past nights.

It is not the Father's table, it is the Lord's supper, and He has the right to say who should be present at it. I would not make the mistake of inviting someone else to your dinner table. I have the right to, and my wife and I, have the right to invite someone to our dinner table, but I do not have the right to invite someone to your dinner table, no matter how well I know you.

And I do not have the right to invite someone to the Lord's supper that the Lord himself has not added. That's very simple. But it is not the Father's table, it is the Lord's table, the Lord's supper.

Mutual Reception and the Lord's Table

Now reception must be mutual or it cannot be called fellowship. I was speaking a few moments ago about the great spiritual truth of fellowship. Fellowship, first of all, in the family, and then the fellowship of a local assembly.

Because Acts 2 and 42 is speaking about a particular fellowship that is described for us in 1 Corinthians 10. In 1 Corinthians 10 you have three circles of fellowship. You have the fellowship of the Jewish altar, and you have the fellowship of the table of demons, and you have the fellowship table of the Lord.

So fellowship is a great spiritual truth. But fellowship, though a spiritual truth, has a visible representation. It has a visible evidence in an assembly. I hope you'll keep that in mind. Fellowship is spiritual, but in an assembly there is a visible presentation of fellowship.

And we're going to see what that visible presentation is in a few minutes. And then reception, being mutual, means that not only does the assembly receive a believer, but that believer receives the assembly.

Surely it couldn't be fellowship if it was less than that. So the believer who comes into an assembly must understand what he is coming into, and must receive the practices, the teachings of the assembly.

If he is coming into the fellowship of the assembly, then he must understand what he is coming into. He is a responsible person, she is a responsible person, they must understand what they are receiving.

And then reception to an assembly really is acknowledging that denominationalism is wrong. I hope we understand that assemblies are a protest against denominationalism. That was really what happened many, many years ago, when in various parts of the world, not just in the south of England or not just in Dublin, Ireland, but in a number of parts of the world, exercised believers began to search their Bible, and they saw the error of the many names and systems and organizations in Christendom.

And they came out of those systems that men have organized, and they gathered alone unto the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They paid a great price for obedience to what they saw in the Word of God. And generations have come and gone since that day, and sad to say, many of us have not paid a very great price for the truth that we profess, and it is easy to let it go.

Nevertheless, originally, the assemblies as we know them, were a protest against the many divisions of Christendom. Reception to an assembly is based on the truth that the body is distinct from the local assembly.

And we took that up one night in the meeting. And there is nothing occasional or happenstance about an assembly. This is what I mentioned in the introduction. It is an entity. It is body-like in character.

It is made up of a number of believers. It is in a given locality, and they meet regularly as a testimony for God. And then I also mentioned the fact that the privileges of fellowship and responsibility are never separated.

Initial Reception and Saul's Example

Now let us look at initial reception. The time will go very rapidly, and so we need to move on. Illustrated in the reception of Saul, the outline says, to the assembly of Jerusalem. Now, in that reception of Saul of Tarsus to the assembly of Jerusalem, you have the features of initial reception.

I know that has been debated. I know there were those who would deny that that is the case. But I am quite certain that there was no assembly in Damascus. There were disciples in Damascus. Very clearly there were.

But there is no reason to believe at that point that there was an assembly in Damascus, a local church in Damascus. How do we know that? Well, for instance, Paul says he persecuted the church of God. Verse 31 of Acts 9 says, "...then had the church rest throughout all Judea, Samaria, and Galilee.".

That assembly at Jerusalem, made up of a number of thousands of believers, had been scattered through the bitter persecutions after the death of Stephen. And that scattering of those believers had sent them far and wide.

They didn't set up a breaking of bread and start an assembly. They waited until God manifested that there was to be a divine planting. Because an assembly according to 1 Corinthians 3 is a divine planting of the Lord.

It is not just a few believers happening to be in a place and getting together and say, we'll have an assembly here. It is an operation of God the Holy Spirit. So they did not set up assemblies until God manifested that he was planting testimonies.

And after Saul was saved and actually came to Jerusalem, assemblies did begin. Antioch in Syria, for instance, was the first assembly made up probably primarily of Gentile believers. And then, as you know, the gospel spread throughout the Roman provinces and the assemblies multiplied greatly.

So the reception of Saul at Jerusalem, as far as I am aware, and I hope you understand that I can only say that which I know, and there may be things, of course, that are hid from me that I have not understood.

But as far as I understand, what happened when Saul came to Jerusalem was his initial reception to an assembly. He had not been in an assembly prior to coming to Jerusalem. He had been saved in Damascus, on the road to Damascus.

He had gone on to Damascus. He had publicly testified that this is the very Christ. Among the Jews and proselytes and God-fearers in Damascus, he was well known as having turned from his former radical anti-believer attitude, his persecution of the Christians, and now he has become the great defender of the faith in Damascus.

But he is not in an assembly. He goes to the synagogue in Damascus and speaks there to the Jews that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly the Messiah. He comes now, after bitter persecution at Damascus, to Jerusalem, and he assays to join himself to the disciples, that is, the assembly in Jerusalem.

Well then, why would you not interpret disciples in Damascus as an assembly if you're going to interpret disciples in Jerusalem as an assembly? For the simple reason we have ample evidence that there was an assembly in Jerusalem, and the disciples were in it, and the apostles were in it, and prophets were in it.

What an assembly it must have been. An assembly where they had apostles, and where they had prophets, and the actual disciples who walked with the Lord Jesus here on earth. Surely men like that wouldn't have to be cautious about making a mistake.

Surely they would have the gift of discernment and the gift of wisdom, and they would have been able to tell right away that this was a genuine man. In spite of the fact that there were apostles and prophets there, they used great caution.

In fact, they were afraid of this former persecutor and would not receive him. Now, I know he's an unusual case. I know he was the leader of the persecution. Nevertheless, when he came, he was refused fellowship with the assembly.

And Barnabas came, and he told to those disciples, and actually they are the disciples, he told them about Saul's conversion, how he had seen the Lord in the way, and how the Lord had spoken to him, and how he had been baptized, and how he had lived from the day of his conversion onward.

Well, that's awfully simple, but that's exactly what happens in the initial reception in an assembly. All that elders do is to discover if the person is truly saved to the best of their ability. And then if they have truly been baptized as a believer, and then if their life gives evidence of it, that's all.

And that's exactly what happened there in Jerusalem. So you'll understand why I'm saying that initial reception is illustrated by the reception of Saul to the assembly in Jerusalem. And of course, then he was with them.

Lovely expression of fellowship, he was with them, coming in and going out at Jerusalem. Now, if that assembly, with its great gifts and the power and freshness of those early days, if they had to use caution in the reception of a man who came among them, how can we profess or pretend in our days that we can dispense with caution?

Surely not. In a day when there's so much falseness and so much profession without reality, and so much false teaching, how could we ever say that we do not need to use caution? And that's all we're pleading for is proper godly care and reception.

The Seat of the Unlearned

Now, immediately linked to this thought of initial reception is the seat of the unlearned. It has received the name the back seat, and I would say that that's not a very good name. I had never particularly liked it, because I have met with a number of assemblies where the demarcation between those within the fellowship and those without is clearly marked, but it isn't necessarily a back seat that is given to those without the fellowship.

So I don't particularly enjoy the word back seat. I know how it came into being, and I understand it's used quite favorably by many, but I would rather stick to the biblical term, the seat of the unlearned.

But oh, a person might well say the seat of the unlearned in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 merely means that the man was unlearned in the tongue that was being spoken. I hope you follow that, because that is a very common interpretation of verses 16 and 17 of 1 Corinthians 14, that the man was unlearned in the tongue that was being spoken, and therefore because he was unlearned in the tongue, he couldn't be edified by what was said, and therefore the man is occupying the room of the unlearned, the seat of the unlearned.

Is that really what it means? Well, before you say it is, you need to consider some things. In 1 Corinthians 14, no one understood the tongue, unless there was an interpreter. No one. How do I know that?

That's why I've listed those verses for you. Verse 2, verse 4, verse 6, verse 9, verse 11, verse 19. Every one of those verses make it clear that the tongue was not understood by anyone in the company.

In fact, that's the very argument that Paul is using. The man speaks into the air. He's not edifying anyone. The words he says are not understood by himself. His own spirit is unfruitful. No one else understands him.

That's the whole story. Nobody understood. And that's why Paul gives the clear teaching, unless there is one to interpret, that the man with the tongues should remain silent. He should not speak in the church, unless there was someone there to interpret, for the simple reason that nobody understood him.

Now, I don't think that anybody can intelligently read 1 Corinthians 14 and dispute what I've just said. Nobody understood the man who spoke with the tongues, not even himself. Well, if nobody understood him, how can you put a group of people into one little room and call them the unlearned because they didn't understand the tongue?

If that's all it means, unlearned in the tongue, then that was the whole assembly that was unlearned in the tongue. No, that's not what it means. Mind you, it is very true in verse 16, verse 17, that the man in the room of the unlearned wasn't being edified because the tongue was being used without discretion and without interpretation.

And therefore, the man was unable to be edified, and he very particularly needed to be edified because he wasn't only unlearned in the tongue, he was unlearned in the principle of gathering. How do I know that?

It goes on to explain that. You see, many times in Paul's writing, Paul uses a term such as the word unlearned here, and then later on he explains what it means. And I have given you one illustration of that, only one, but there are many.

In chapter 11 of 1 Corinthians, verse 4, I think it is, of chapter 11, Paul speaks about the woman, or verse 5, he speaks about the woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered. So at that point, did Paul believe that a woman could pray or prophesy in the assembly with her head uncovered?

He doesn't say anything about anything wrong with it, but of course when he gets over to verse 34 of chapter 14, he deals then with the subject of the silence of the woman, and he said, let the woman keep silence in the church, it is not permitted unto her to speak.

So now, Paul is doing something like that in chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians, and if you look at the chapter, maybe that will help you a good bit to understand what I'm trying to say about it. 1 Corinthians 14, and I'll go down through the expressions that Paul uses about the tongue.

In verse 2, he says, no man understandeth him. In verse 4, he says, he edifieth himself. In verse 6, he said, what shall I profit you if I speak with a tongue? In verse 9, he says, ye shall speak into the air.

In verse 11, he says, I know not the meaning of the voice. In verse 14, he says, my understanding is unfruitful. And in verse 19, he says, he'd rather speak five words that he might instruct others than ten thousand in a tongue.

So nobody understood the tongue, that was the problem about it. Verse 16, he says, else when thou shalt bless with the Spirit, and not in language to be understood, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say, Amen, that by giving a thankseeing he understandeth not what thou sayest.

For thou verily givest thanks well, but the other is not edified. Now, what is the meaning of the unlearned? Well, verses 23 to 25 describe to us the meaning of the unlearned, and the reason I wanted you to turn to the passage is that we have to note the exact language.

Unlearned Visitors and the Evidence of Conviction

Verse 23 of 1 Corinthians 14, if therefore the whole church become together into one place. Now, that's an emphatic statement. The whole church become together, the whole assembly. And I wouldn't try to make it ridiculous, but it literally does mean the entire company.

In other words, nobody's sick, nobody's absent, nobody's at night school at that time, nobody's working, they're all present. That's what it means. And there come together, there at least, there come in one, or men, the word is now, there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers.

Now that's plural. The whole church is already met, and actually they're talking in tongues. And there come in men, plural, men. Now, it says unlearned or unbelievers. Now that's not the same. Unlearned and unbelievers are not the same.

But you see, these are strangers. So the whole church doesn't know about them, doesn't know who they are or what they are. And so in this hypothetical case, they are either unlearned, or they are unbelievers.

Now that's quite surprising, isn't it? How would he know they were unlearned? They might say, well, these people are unbelievers, but if they're believers, how did he know they were unlearned? If they had been learned, they would have been in the assembly, you see.

And they would have come if they were visitors with letters to commend them to the assembly. So he knows that they are either unlearned or an unbeliever. And, well, they may not say that you're mad. All they hear is a babble of sound, nothing intelligent.

But if all prophesy, and that was the ability to speak the word of God directly. God giving to the prophet his word without a Bible in his hand. Today we have the Bible. They did not have it then. A man stood up, and he spoke the word of God without the Bible.

And there come in one, now he's gone to the singular, that believe of not or unlearned. He is reproved. That's the Revised Version word at this particular point, and that means convicted. It is the same word that is used of the convicting power of the Holy Spirit in John chapter 16 and verse 8.

He is convicted of all, he is judged. And that is the word that is the strongest word in the New Testament for searching through and through. It is the very strongest of above seven synonyms that are used for judgment.

This is the one that means to search through and through. He is convicted of all, he is judged of all. And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest. And so falling down on his face, he will worship God, so he's a believer.

Or else he could never worship God, and report that God is in you of the truth. Now that's the explanation of an unlearned man. Not one who just is unlearned in the tongue that is being spoken, but one who is unlearned in divine principles.

He's unlearned regarding the church that he has now come to as a visitor, and he's able to recognize God is in you of the truth. He worships God, he is convicted of all, he is judged of all. And we believe in that principle yet.

So there are those who come to an assembly, and they are not in the fellowship of the assembly. So what happens to them? They are invited to look on and see the Christians as they carry out the word of God.