When Kevin and I started looking towards the possibility of linking arms with Grace Harbor Community Church in Providence, RI we planned a final trip to meet with their elders. They sent us a handful of questions to be answered and sent back to them before we arrived--mostly about the role of the local church, elders, etc. I'm posting some of my answers since these are such central and important questions and deserve sharpening from any brothers or sisters reading this blog. For conscience sake I didn't use any resources (save the Bible) when answering, so surely, there is lots of room for improvement both in addition and clarity.
What is your understanding of the identity, focus, and purpose of the church?
I’m baptistic in my ecclesiology because I believe only Christians are to be baptized into the church. And so I believe the identity of the church is a local group of Christians, uniting together as the body of Christ on earth, being equipped and cared for through the office of deacon and spiritually shepherded, taught, prayed for, and led by elders, assembling together for the preaching of and submission to God’s Word in everything and the observance of the two ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, caring for one another’s souls and bodies and evangelizing to an unbelieving world for the ultimate purpose of glorifying our triune God.
The purpose and focus of the church is to be the attractive bride of Christ that God through Christ’s person and work purchased Her out of the world to be and is to reflect the heart and will of God as expressed clearly to us in the Bible and the New Testament epistles in particular.
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3 comments:
Could the line about "particularly the New Testament epistles," be a bit confusing? I think I know what you mean, but perhaps in a broad statement on the church it might be distracting. Otherwise, very, very well said! It lights a fire in me to serve the church just reading your words here. You're 'OK' in my book, Scotty.
I guess the motivation for that line comes from my impatience with cats (Presbyterians in particular) taking a systematic category and laying it down on clear teaching to the contrary.
So, the clearest place to look for teaching on what one of Jesus Christ's local churches should look like is the New Testament epistles which were written to Jesus Christ's local churches. Presbyterians (and others)--it seems to me--oftentimes contradict clear epistle teaching with what they see as "themes" from the Old Testament, Jesus' ministry, etc. Obviously these different places in Scripture will never contradict each other, but we have to chose which one is clearer and will therefore "interpret" the other. I chose the NT epistles as the most clear. Where the OT themes seem to disagree, I chose the former.
Does that make sense?
That makes sense, Scott. thanks.
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