In this presidential address given at the 1986 ASM annual meeting, the author seeks in a preliminary way to develop a more responsible view of church growth from a biblical perspective. Contending that some current understandings of church growth are probably illegitimate from a biblical standpoint. Taber examines the scriptural evidence in three areas: God's desire that all be saved, what the New Testament anticipates in terms of concrete results, and various metaphors for growth employed in the Bible. Six hypotheses illustrate the main conclusion: that numerical increase of believers is not the primary understanding of growth in the New Testament.
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