Spirit and truth. What doctrines makes a church a church? Anyone can presume the Spirit, but Christians aren’t to do so. We know the God by the truth that he teaches us in the Bible. "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24. We are to test the spirits (teachings). 1 John 4:1. And we do so with the truth…as the Spirit teaches us to by his word. 1 John 4:2-3. By clearly articulated truth. It is the truth of God we fight with. "The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God." 2 Corinthians 10:4-5. Tonight, we’ll go over the statement of faith I wrote for my ministry as an example of Christian confession. It is only an articulation of Christian belief. As my faith statement itself affirms, it’s not an end in itself. It is a Christian/ Protestant/ Baptist/Reformed confession of the Faith I love so dearly. It is not the articulation of belief, but it seeks to reflect the truth. What I use if for is to discuss in varying detail eight essential truths that I feel make or break the Christian religion in the life of any mature believer. They’re also what make or break, in my understanding, any church or theology school. It’s always around the truth that God works in his church so establishing truth in any place is never a wasted effort. I believe in confessional Christianity. There is no longstanding Christianity without it.

We’ll talk about this for a little bit over an hour. Then we’ll move into a full question and answer session for the next two hours. A wonderful time full of, I hope, some decent answers to some phenomenal questions. Questions abound about titles and symbols for Jesus before Jesus, Jeconiah’s curse, Catholic theology (purgatory, tradition, transubstantiation) free will, glorification, the wise men from the east and how we know Jesus was actually born in 5 BC, rapture and eschatology, demons, Hades, Tartarus, Gehenna, Paradise and so much more. What a blessed and wonderful night of fellowship in God's word. Soli Deo Gloria! I pray you’re blessed as you listen in…if you can hang.

For a closer look at that Biblecia statement of faith, you can find it on Biblecia.com anytime.

God bless!!!

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