Alan Knox on Being a Member of Christ's Body

I've been a long time reader and commenter on Alan Knox's The Assembling of the Church blog.  His latest post "replays" an old post of his where he looks at what the NT says about being a member of Christ's body.  He compares this with what we commonly know as the modern concept of church membership:

What did I find? I found that the modern concept of “church membership” is completely different than the scriptural idea of being members of the body of Christ and members of one another.

One helpful tactic Alan uses in his post is that he quotes every passage in the NT that has to do with membership.  He finally points out a number of things regarding the use of the body/member metaphor, including:

We become members of the body through an act of God not because of something that we do or something that we choose.  We do not choose to be members of the body nor do we choose those with whom we are members.

This is an interesting conclusion given what most of us have been taught about church membership.  I agree with Alan on this point.  Read his post here.

Was The Apostle Paul (Saul of Tarsus) The Rich Young Ruler? (4)

Read all posts on this idea here.

"I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, just as you all are today." Acts 22:3

I have written several posts on the idea whether Paul was the rich young ruler from Matthew 19.  Here in this passage, Paul gives his story to the Jews in Jerusalem, and mentions that he was brought up in Jerusalem.  I had not noticed this before.  So, my original question about where Saul could have been during the life and ministry of Jesus has been answered.

Saul was brought up in Jerusalem, and was a Pharisee, so he certainly would have been aware of Jesus.  I cannot imagine that he would have not had direct contact with Jesus given Jesus' record of talking with religious leaders and going to all the feasts and being the center of attention so many times.  Check out all of my posts on this topic here.