WHAT BELIEFS UNITE US AS FAMILY?

(2 Timothy 3:14-17), (2 Peter 3:15-16) Technically speaking, the word “Scripture” in this passage refers to only the Old Testament. Now, through the inspiration of the Spirit, we believe that it applies to the New Testament as well.

(Colossians 2:13-14) We believe the Old Testament applies to our lives — as much as the New Testament — except for the Mosaic Law and any teaching in the New Testament that supersedes the Old Testament.

(Genesis 2:19) In applying scriptural principles to build the visible church, we believe we must obey God’s Word, but where the Bible does not prohibit a practice or name, we are free to use our God-given creativity.

(1 Corinthians 10:23) We are free to practice or name something as long as it does not contradict the Scriptures.

 (Matthew 28:19-20), (Colossians 1:28-29), (John 15:15) The dynamic in this relationship begins as a teacher/student relationship and then matures to a more peer/peer relationship.

(2 Timothy 2:1-3) Discipling is teaching obedience to scripture and is detailed in the “one another” passages: “love one another,” “instruct one another,” “confess your sins to each other,” “pray for each other,” etc.

(Numbers 27:12-23), (Exodus 18:12-26), (Judges 21:25), (1 Corinthians 4:15-17), (Titus 1:5) Throughout God’s Word, when His people were unified, there was a strong central leadership and a godly central leader. (Examples: Moses, Joshua, David and of course Jesus and the Apostles.) Local congregations had an overseeing evangelist who unified the disciples “everywhere in every church.” In the first century, congregations were a collective movement — not autonomous, not self-governing.

(Acts 15:19-24), (Acts 21:24) In the New Testament, Jesus is the leader of “the Movement!” Uniquely, when He ascends to Heaven, Peter takes on this responsibility as “the apostle to the Jews,” since for the first seven years of Christianity only Jews became Christians. Interestingly, after Paul became “the apostle to the Gentiles,” the leadership of the movement by Acts 15 had passed to Jesus’ oldest half-brother James. At the Jerusalem Council, James, after listening to both sides of the circumcision issue, gives his singular authoritative “judgment,” which is then bound on all the churches.

(Matthew 28:19-20), (Acts 1:8), (Colossians 1:6 & 23), (1 Timothy 2:3-4) If the world was evangelized in the first century, we can certainly do it again in the twenty-first century! This will be accomplished through every disciple making disciples, and every disciple having discipling relationships.