My apologies for the lack of new entries. New postings will begin soon.

Unity

One thing that would go a long way in helping people to discover the church of the New testament; would be if we could come to a consensus on how the New Testament is written and what it is telling us. Sounds simple doesn't it? One would think that all Christians would see the New Testament in the same light. If that were only true Satan wouldn't have such a grasp on believers.
Let's begin by looking at Ephesians 4:1-6. Paul is speaking about unity in the church.

Verse 1 I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, He speaks to the church about walking in a worthy way. In verse 2 he tells how to do this. With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; these terms call us to not think more of ourselves than we ought, not to be overbearing, to be patient and to love one another. In verse Paul says to continue “giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” He calls the church to unity of the Spirit. The spirit he is speaking of here is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit cannot be divided, he is one. The message the Holy Spirit sends to us through the inspired writers of the New Testament is singular in its purpose. His message is to show all mankind who Jesus is, what he has done for us, how we can come to God through him and how to live as his children when we have come to him on his terms. Verses 4-6 tells us there is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. We see that Paul is talking about oneness in these last three verses, not a multitude of the items listed. There is only one body, which is the church. Paul doesn’t speak of plural churches or bodies; just one. So somewhere we have gone astray. He also says there is on one Spirit, and as we have already discussed He is the one that guided the New Testament writers in recording the one message. One hope of our calling; one would think that means we are all called to walk in the same way. He then goes on to say that there is only 1 Lord 1 faith 1 baptism 1 God and He is the Father of all. It sure sounds like Paul is trying to get the message across that there is only one way of being the church that Jesus died for. There is only on Lord; I certainly believe that all Christians agree on that. So this will be our starting point. There is only one LORD! He then is the one we are called to serve on His terms.

In future postings we will address the rest of the points that Paul makes in theses verses.Then we will begin to do a survey of the New Testament.

Confusion

Confusion reigns supreme. So many people today are asking, where is the church? The answer is simple; in your bible. All one has to do to find the church is to read the bible and they will know what the church looks like. Once one knows what the church looks like they can then begin to look amongst the local bodies of believers for the church that resembles the church they see in the pages of the New testament. The goal of this blog will be to help it's readers explore the New Testament and discover for themselves the New Testament church.

Conversation

This blog will be a place where there will always be conversation about the basics of New Testament Christianity. I believe that in order to serve God on His terms we must follow the instruction manual. (the New Testament) There we will find what is necessary for salvation and Christian living. This blog will be a plea to return to primitive Christianity as it was practiced by the first century church.