not make a virtue of our limitations. In many areas, biblical standards are above our ability to reach perfectly, but that does not justify lowering those standards. In the same way, we should retain the ideal of a membership of all believers as the goal for local churches, even if we must acknowledge imperfectly reaching that ideal in practice. Second, it seems as if the New Testament anticipates the possibility that local churches will inadvertently allow false members to creep in, and provides