Recently, I began to search out books on church membership because the elders at CEFC were discussing the issue. If you have ever conducted a similar search, you probably discovered, just like me, that there are not many books in the evangelical world that provide a thorough, comprehensive treatment on the subject. For that reason alone, Leeman’s book is a valuable contribution.

Leeman spends a great deal of material in the opening chapters to demonstrate how our culture’s misunderstanding of authority, submission, love, and the benefit of institutions have become an influential factor within our churches. As a result, biblical practices such as membership and discipline have been downplayed or jettisoned altogether. You simply can’t expect people to “join” a church in our day. You simply can’t discipline a person in our day. Those actions hint of judgement and authority, not “love.” Right?

Leeman unpacks those assumptions, pointing out how the conclusions to lower the bar on membership and discipline are founded upon philosophical, cultural definitions. If we begin with the Bible’s definition of love, authority, etc., we arrive at a much different conviction. Membership and Discipline actually portray true love, God’s love, to the world. They are key aspects of a healthy church.

Along the way, Leeman addresses some questions that are sure to arise. For example, he illustrates how membership was indeed practiced in the NT even though it was not named “membership,” and he explains how tools like covenants are helpful in carrying out in our day what we find occurring in the NT church.

Strength: If I had to choose one part of Leeman’s book that is most helpful in building biblical case for membership, it would be his explanation and application of Matthew 16,18, and 28 (pp.178-195). Leeman shows how these passages are thematically connected (authority and presence) and then explains how the local church carries out this authority through the practice of membership and discipline. He writes, “Jesus is building not a group of unassociated individuals but a church, a gathering” (p.189).

Weakness: Way too much material is the book’s most notable weakness, in my opinion of course! I believe Leeman could have made his case and his points with far less, in depth analysis and illustration, maybe even as much as 30% reduction. I don’t consider myself an avid reader, although I am a daily reader. I usually have at least 5 books going at the same time, and I enjoy it. However, I found myself trudging through the material and only because I wanted to have a better grasp on membership. I fear the massive amount of information is going to either dishearten readers into quitting before they finish or dissuade them from starting it at all. That’s a shame because the church in our day really needs to give attention to this issue. If a couple of opening chapters were dedicated to brief cultural and church observations followed by chapters devoted to engaging biblical texts and concluding with a few chapters of application, in about 1/2 or 2/3 the size of its present form, accessibility would increase enormously. As it stands now though, I only know of a very few people I could recommend this book to as their next read. Don’t get me wrong. I wholeheartedly commend it, as far as Leeman’s conclusions. However, I can’t recommend it to a wide-scale audience; it’s just too difficult to complete.

For me, though, I am glad I did force myself to finish it. As a teaching pastor of a local church, membership and discipline are issues that I strongly desire to ground in Scripture. I want to know how best to put into practice what we find in the NT church and why because I want our church to be healthy, to be biblical and sound.