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The series
Discovering the Importance of the Local Church
THE PERSERVERANCE OF THE CHURCH
August 2, 2020 Jude 3-4
#What makes us Baptists? We are Biblicists.
“A New Testament Church is a community of saved, baptized believers voluntarily associated together for the maintenance of the ordinances and the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Our adherence is not to a label, a hierarchy, a tradition or a creed. Our allegiance is to the Word of God, the mission of the church and a commitment to one another.
In every age since Jesus and the apostles, there have been companies of believers, churches, who have substantially held to the principles of the New Testament.
“They have gone by many names: Christians, Donatists, Montanists, Novations, Puritans, Paulicians, Albigenses, Waldensians, Anabaptists, Baptists and others.
The Donatists arose in Numidia, in the year 311, and they soon extended over Africa. They taught that the church should be a holy body. Crespin, a French historian, says that they held the following views: First, for purity of church members, by asserting that none ought to be admitted into the church but such as are visibly true believers and true saints. Secondly, for purity of church discipline. Thirdly, for the independency of each church. Fourthly, they baptized again those whose first baptism they had reason to doubt. They were consequently termed rebaptizers and Anabaptists”.
So, are we a Protestant church?
Protestant by definition: Any Western Christian who is not an adherent of a Catholic, Anglican, or Eastern Church.
An adherent of any of those Christian bodies that separated from the Church of Rome during the Reformation, or of any group descended from them.
Bible-believing churches have always protested unbiblical doctrine and contaminated “churches”.
Bible-believing Christians were never part of the Roman Catholic Church, therefore never “came out of” the Catholic Church.
So, what denomination are we?
Denominator: that term of a fraction, usually written under the line, that indicates the number of equal parts into which the unit is divided; divisor.
We are not a fraction of Jesus’ church, we ARE the church that Jesus started!
So, we are non-denominational?
The best term is probably, non-denominational Baptists.
Historically, Baptists have held to the purity of Jesus’ church and a strict adherence to Scripture even in the face of great persecution and/or death.
#How NOT to contend for the faith: Be judgmental and angry. Be unnecessarily divisive. Be combative against other people.
How TO contend for the faith:
We must know the faith. We must live the faith. We must love the truth. We must love others.
#We are not the only true church and not the only church with the truth.
You are part of the church that Jesus Himself started.
You are part of the church that was purchased by the blood of Jesus.
You are part of the church that has been preserved by the blood of others.
“There was much compromise, but there were some who held to the truth and fought for it.”
“We do not find anywhere in the writings of the Old Testament that the light of truth and holiness was at any time completely extinguished. There have always been men who walked faithfully in the paths of righteousness. Their number has been at times reduced to few; but has never been altogether lost. We believe that the same has been the case from the time of Jesus Christ until now; and that it will be so until the end. For if the cause of God was founded, it was in order that it might remain until the end of time.”
Recommended Reading: A History of the Baptists by John T. Christian The Trail of Blood by J.M. Carroll A Glorious Church by Mike Gass Outsiders by Paul Chappell Foxes Book of Martyrs by John Foxe
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