The increase or decrease of members is sometimes used as a basis for determining the strength or weakness of a church. A By-Law entitled "Numbering the People" in the Manual of The Mother Church by Mary Baker Eddy reads as follows (Art. VIII, Sect. 28): "Christian Scientists shall not report for publication the number of the members of The Mother Church, nor that of the branch churches. According to the Scripture they shall turn away from personality and numbering the people." It is the spirituality of the members, not the number of them, which properly determines the strength of a church.
In the twenty-fourth chapter of II Samuel it is recorded that King David ordered the numbering of his people. Although Joab, captain of the host, who was to take the census, questioned the wisdom of the king's command by asking, "Why doth my lord the king delight in this thing?" the king's order stood. But when the count was reported to the king, the Bible records that "David's heart smote him." Apparently he discerned his error of humanly measuring strength and power in the scale with God, omnipotent Spirit.
We are told in the same chapter that under divine direction David asked Araunah, a Jebusite, to sell his threshingfloor that on it an altar to God might be built. Here a sacrifice would be offered to lift from the people the plague which David's sin had brought upon them.
