Christians Only

Dover young people--

Lessons from our hearts to yours.

For the past couple of weeks we have been studying about the Church of Christ, and from whence it came. We want to be as much like the church of the first century as possible. We are not trying to imitate man-made bodies because we have read what the Bible has to say about them:

I Corinthians 1: 10-15--" Now I beseech you, brethren, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been signified unto me concerning you, my brethren, by them that are of the household of Chloe, that there are contentions among you. Now this I mean, that each one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos: and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized into the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you, save Crispus and Gaius; lest any man should say that ye were baptized into my name."

Wow! Paul was pretty clear about people tacking their own names onto Christ's church, wasn't he? Another passage we were told about was Acts 4: 12--"And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved." Do we need to be careful about spiritual things? I Corinthians 16: 13--" Be on alert, stand firm in the faith . . .”

Names of the church that we can find in the New Testament include "Church of Christ" in Romans 16: 16, "Church of God" in I Corinthians 1: 2, and "the Way" in Acts 9: 2. The members are called "Christians" in Acts 11: 26, and "an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession" in I Peter 2: 9. So we will call ourselves the names given in the Bible.

We are careful to not add to scripture. What is the meaning of the following passage? "I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues which are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the holy city, which are written in this book," from Revelation 22: 18, 19 is a pretty terrifying passage. To the greatest extent possible, we are trying to do what is right. After we have done all we can, we will trust in God to give us grace to take care of the rest.

Could there be Christians in other churches? Yes. We remember that Paul (Saul) came out of Judeaism (Acts 9) to become a Christian. Simon the Sorcerer (Acts 8) was into the occult before he came to Christ. But over a long period of time, Saul of Tarsus didn't keep worshipping with the Jews in the fashion of the Old Testament, and Simon the Sorcerer (despite a shaky start) came to worship with true believers, not the medium/witchcraft crowd. Same thing applies today. In the long run, the person who is truly trying to find God will keep searching until he finds a church that teaches the Bible, not man-made creeds.

We like the expression that "the church should be a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints." Church always had to do with people (not buildings) as the word is used in the Bible. It's not the building. And the people of the church are the ones we can go to in times of trouble or disappointment to find friends and fellow Christians, people who will "bear ye one anothers' burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6: 2).

Jesus said "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14: 15). That's what we are trying to do. Will we come up short some of the time? Yes, a whole lot of the time! Yes, we believe in grace (Ephesians 2: 8-10). But we don't believe in running grace into the ground (Romans 6: 1-15) because we are learning to love the Lord, and if we love the Lord, we won't keep doing things that offend Him without even trying to stop.

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