Statement of faith
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3. Provide a detailed, specific, doctrinal statement of faith (include, but not limited to, the Bible, God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, Sin, Salvation, and the Church).
Contents
The Bible
Mt 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
God seems to think that every stroke and dot of scripture is important enough to protect. The implication is that every dot and stroke has meaning. In every age some in the church have practiced an allegorical method of interpretation. To quote gotquestions.com: The problem with the allegorical method of interpretation is that it seeks to find an allegorical interpretation for every passage of Scripture, regardless of whether or not it is intended to be understood in that way. Interpreters who allegorize can be very creative, with no control based in the text itself. It becomes easy to read one’s own beliefs into the allegory and then think that they have scriptural support. [1]
It is incomprehensible that God would perfectly inspire the authors of his word to write the exact words that he desired, protect those words until the end of the age, and then leave the interpretation up to the fallible methods of Greek rhetorical invention, debate, logic, philosophy and myth. The doctrine of the unity of scripture implies that Jesus and the New Testament authors had a unity of faith cemented by a proper interpretation of scripture as guided by the Holy Spirit. What happened?
By the end of the first century, the church had done everything they were warned not to do;
- They deified Mary and lost their first love [2]
- They compromised with the flesh [3] [4]
- They created a priesthood to lord over the laity [5].
As factions arose in the church, unity of the faith was shredded over petty Greek debates [6] These debates remain, and there is no agreement on the interpretation of even the most simple parable [7]
The foundling Greek church had no desire to be Jewish, and were given the simplest summary of the Jewish law [8] Paul chose not to teach them the deep mysteries of the faith, but to know only Christ and him crucified [9].
By 400 A.D., Constantine in the east and Augustine in the west had removed anything that looked or smelled Hebrew. Augustine even advocated that the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, was more reliable than the original Hebrew text. The church had eliminated Hebrew so completely from the church that by the time Jerome (347-419AD) wanted to learn Hebrew, he had to go to disbelieving Jews to do so [10] [11]
Fortunately, the method of interpretation used by Jesus and the New Testament authors is preserved in the New Testament itself. Each gospel author captured the collective learning of the apostles at intervals of ten to fifteen years. Mark captured the earliest syllabus where the story of Christ began with the preaching of John the Baptist. Matthew captures the results of more study and was able to push the beginning back to Abraham. Matthew was able to interpret the pictures of Christ in the history of Israel. Luke saw Christ in the history beginning with Adam. And John captured the pinnacle of understanding, concerning the 'mystery hidden from the beginning' which all spoke of Christ, and derived the doctrine of John 1:1-4 from the first three words of Genesis 1:1.
The hermeneutic used by the Jesus and the apostles interprets scripture in a repeatable, verifiable, self-correcting way, leaving nothing to the frailties human weaknesses. It is such that a child can correct a master. Not only is the Bible inspired and protected by God, but it's interpretation is guided by the very Spirit which gave it, so that we may know even before we believe an understand, that God alone is God [12]
God the Father
Jesus Christ
The Holy Spirit
The Trinity
Sin
Salvation
The Church
- ↑ https://www.gotquestions.org/allegorical-interpretation.html
- ↑ Re 2:4 Nevertheless I have [somewhat] against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
- ↑ Re 2:14 But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.
- ↑ Re 2:20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.
- ↑ Re 2:6 But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
- ↑ 1Ti 1:4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: [so do].
- ↑ http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/85594
- ↑ Ac 21:25 As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written [and] concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from [things] offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.
- ↑ 1Co 2:2 For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
- ↑ http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jerome-x00b0
- ↑ "Jerome rocked the boat in which the early church had been comfortably settled for two hundred years. He upset Christian tradition by arguing for the priority of the Hebrew Old Testament over the supposedly inspired Greek Septuagint. "Jerome and the Jews: Innovative Supersessionism", William L. Krewson. https://www.amazon.com/Jerome-Jews-Supersessionism-William-Krewson/dp/1498218229
- ↑ Isa 43:10 Ye [are] my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I [am] he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
