BRAVE, GOOD MEN FOR CHRIST

STATEMENT OF BIBLICAL FAITH:

We believe in the Trinitarian God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as eternally sovereign and perfect in all His attributes and transcendent to man and his reason. Man can only know God through His revelation of Himself by the Holy Spirit in nature and in Scriptural revelations.

We hold that all men are sinful and without hope, and that God alone is the sovereign Redeemer in Christ. All sin is primarily against God and secondarily against neighbors. Because of man’s sinful nature his judgment and wisdom is deficient. We believe there is no salvation except by God’s sovereign grace. We attribute direct moral responsibility and evil to man and the devil, under God’s sovereign control.
We hold to complete salvation by grace through faith in Christ involving three aspects:

	a) Salvation from the guilt of sin by Christ’s holy life and substitutionary death on the cross. (Justification)
	b) Salvation from the power of sin to grow, live and serve (without perfection) by His Holy Spirit. (Sanctification)
	c) Salvation from the consequences of sin by a new creation begun in Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection to a new heaven and earth. (Glorification)
We believe that Christ calls His elect to eternal life thorough grace, but we reject the view that escaping hell is God’s only concern. We are created for good works.

We hold that every believer who is saved by grace was created and given gifts to work in this world for God’s glory and for the benefit of his neighbor. God’s grace has foreordained that each one should fulfill these good works in their witness for Him (Ephesians 2:8-10; Titus 3:4-8). These works involve all earthly tasks for man’s preservation, and redemption and for all biblical work of the church. Each believer is a member of the body of Christ that does Christ’s work.

We are committed to fulfilling the final Great Commission of Christ. This involves proclaiming the gospel to every creature in every nation, baptizing them in the name of the Trinitarian God, and teaching the disciples to obey all things Christ commanded. This assumes all men are sinners, that Christ is the only sufficient atonement for sin and He is the redeemer from sin’s guilt, power and consequences, and that the church must teach and hold men accountable. But man repents only as the Holy Spirit opens his mind and enables him to understand and respond, and that prayer is an essential aspect of the ministry.

We believe the church depends on mature leaders who offer teaching and accountability in love. We believe that the early church performed this function both by public preaching and by elders teaching in house churches (Acts 20:20). It is our belief that the congregational model which today emphasizes public preaching should recapture and include the New Testament dynamic of the relationships and supervision by discipling the people in small house churches.

We hold that man’s freedom is experienced by faith and obedience to God.
We hold that modern demonic subversion of the minds of Christians today is done more by deceptive perversion to promote individual freedom and material self-sufficiency than by direct attack on Christian teachings. This work of the devil destroys social relationships and responsibilities for others. The devil thereby subverts God’s law of love, which is the center for all Christian conduct. The devil thus uses these deceptions to undermine faith in the Bible and its doctrines.

POINTS OF SOCIAL PERVERSION NEEDING CORRECTION BY SCRIPTURE

We believe human education and science may yield valid truth, but should be subject to the word of God in Scripture. Modern intellectual views, which arose out of the European enlightenment, have exalted human wisdom over God’s revelation. Intellectuals have perverted science by adding a theory of scientific determinism. The biblical perspective of God and the world is given dominance.

We believe in the stewardship before God in money and economics. We believe that the correct economic philosophy is that of Christian stewardship–that we ourselves and all things are created by God and entrusted or loaned to us. Greed is the essence of idolatry and is the worship of that which is created rather than the Creator. All economic theories must be subjected to our stewardship before God.

We believe in unity through marriage of one man and woman rather than gender individualism. We believe that oneness in marriage of husband and wife supersedes selfish individualism that is now dividing society. We believe that every person is both of individual equal worth before God and created with different social responsibilities towards others. The world’s view of women’s equality with men places husband and wife in competition and divides the family.

We believe in the ontological oneness of mankind and spiritual unity of the elect of God. We believe that all men are generated from one man and one woman who were created by God and that all ethnic or other natural handles for divisions and for claim of personal superiority are a manifestation of selfish individualism and sin.

We believe the unity of the elect is based on experiencing our love from Christ and the Father, which extends to other believers by the Spirit expressing that love through us. We believe that the best manifestation of Christian unity is in cooperation and working together in local communities. Our love for others who trust and love Christ is the source for oneness in the body. Other views of unity degenerate into human control rather than Christ control.

Our hope has its priority in our gift of eternal life and rewards in Christ, and transcends concern for earthly cultural and national renewal. We believe that our citizenship is permanently in heaven and our hope is in a final renewed and blessed state with Christ after He returns. Renewal of the church and political reform are secondary and incidental to the kingdom of God.