talking about the church

       Why is the Church necessary? This is the question that we pondered Thursday night at our College Bible study. The Church is necessary because it has been appointed by God to lead those outside the covenant into a right knowledge of God and His truth. However, our present culture, which has been influenced by the Enlightenment and Evolution, teaches that truth is something apart from God and through the unaided mind man can somehow determine who God is and what he requires. This is not a biblical view of man. Doug Kelly in his Systematic Theology rightly comments that, “those who seek to know God and his truth outside Israel and the Church are always doomed to failure.” God and his truth have always been revealed within a believing community as Jesus’ high priestly prayer demonstrates, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” May this truth exhort us to be more evangelistic. Since the church, as the Westminster Confession of faith says, is “God’s ordinary means of salvation,” we as members of that body must see the absolute necessity in carrying the knowledge of God and his truth to the lost. 

welcome

Last night’s study was very beneficial in aiding our understanding of Sanctification. "Sanctification" being the work of God’s free grace that renews the whole man after his image and enables him to die unto sin and live unto righteousness more and more each day. We discussed questions about Sanctification like “are there two types of Christians… those who are spiritual and those who are not?” We also discussed the theology behind a “let go and let God” mentality. There are two errors we have to avoid: (1) That we let go and let God. By “letting go” we are releasing ourselves from “working out our salvation with fear and trembling.” (2) The opinion that God’s favor can be earned by human works. To have a healthy balance we must remember that God is doing the work in us. However, we cannot forget our calling to mortify the deeds of the flesh, die to sin, and live in loving obedience unto God. Sanctification should drive us to humility rather than haughtiness. “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.” –John Owen

Looking forward to many, many more Thursday nights with the college students of this community.

JULY 2011