Meeting together is under the umbrella of CHURCH though, you'd agree? Scripture doesn't say to meet together in homes for some other purpose than church, right? It's always Church that's in view, correct?
In particularly the way in which the Lord promised that He would come upon His Apostles though? John 14:26 isn't a promise that every baptized person will have infallible knowledge of the truth. I don't see that in there. And partly I don't see it in there because that's not what I see in the world. There are a thousand-and-1 opinions for every thousand baptized people.
Yeah.
Meeting together does not necessarily mean church... they never had a liturgy or formula for what they did when they met together. Besides, the meaning of 'church' that you understand is not consistent with the meaning of 'church' that the apostles had.
They didn't read a passage for the Old Testament then read one from the New Testament, have communion, sing and pray a bit and go home.
They ate meals together, had fellowship with one another, they may not even have heard a sermon (most recorded sermons from Jesus and the Apostles were to Non-Converts) they may or may not have sung anything. To them it was like a large organic family get together to worship and build one another up.
The Eucharist that you do, isn't even close to what they did back then. You partake in an institutional sterilized ritual. The church back then made sure that everyone ate a meal prior to setting aside time to break bread and share a cup of wine. In remembrance of what Jesus did and to look forward to his return.
As far as authority... it was totally voluntary. Those that preached in error or another Gospel were shunned... they were not killed for heresy or 'excommunicated'.. they were just avoided.
We are all one big extended family... we are not just people sitting in pews, repeating a prayer and taking a wafer from a priests hands.