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agreed upon Doctrine's
is what makes a denomination a denomination
not a name a church body goes by.

For example one should never concider one baptist chuch in kansas where the preacher's message to the public  is ;God hates fags. To be part of the denomination Known as southern baptist which is the largest protestant denomination in America  with around 20 million member's .In fact that
God hates fags main message  church as far as i can tell  is not  a member of any known  baptist denomination; nor can i find they claim any.. They are not  Primitive baptist's or Southern baptist's or American baptist's .perhaps it would be fairest to concider them a denomination unto them selves.

One should keep in mind  their are no laws that forbid
 a church body from using the name baptist or lutheran or methodist.
Any one can start a church body and go under such general names no matter how far from the others of  that general  name they may believe.

So when we concider denomination's now day's we must concider what type of baptist or lutheran or methosist or even nondenominational Church body they are .
Meaning what are their doctrine's what are their teaching's.
"All of them."

do they believe in  the whole truth? of Gods word or do they
not.

And I obviously disagree that one can not have the whole truth. Since God say's they can . What does he say?
does he not say

My word is truth!

and has God not given the bible to all?
So their is no excuse any of us can have for not having the whole truth and absoulute truth; Given to all in his Scriptures.

Where the problem lies is with us not God's Scripture's . Do we believe it?

 Any denomination has the whole truth if they have the Holy  Bible .
But is their teachings  in agreement as  scriptures set forth what is to be believed.

And none of us can live or practice the bible perfectly even if we believe it's truth's .
Thank God Jesus has lived it perfectly for us.




 

Hi pocket,

While I agree with you to some extent on your statements I must say that people usually, with a few exceptions as you have stated,  give a denominational name based upon their churches doctrines. My point is that most people divide the church in this manner. This was not the original intent nor was it the practice of the early church. If you take notice in the Bible when the word church is used there are no denominations. Denominations was the invention of man not God. The Bible always said "the Church" and would delineate between them only by their geographical location (i.e. "the church that was at Antioch")  as they considered them to be all one church, the body of Christ. Man in his infinite wisdom (sarcasm here) decided that they needed to change the doctrines to fit there own needs and in conjunction with those doctrines attached a denominational name, further splitting up the body of Christ.

There are those that hide behind a name that are not necessarily of that denomination. Just as there are those that may go to a certain church for many, many years that are not saved. There are at least 321 Baptist denominations in the U.S. alone and this number is continually growing.

The problem I am talking about are those people that use this denominational split by saying things such as "my church is the only true church, all others have false doctrines". This is what I mean. That we as members of the body of Christ need to get beyond this division caused by denominational names and to be unifed through the Spirit.




Eph 4:12  For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Eph 4:13  Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
Eph 4:14  That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
Eph 4:15  But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
Eph 4:16  From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

Once again i must disagree with you.
the name "denominational " is  what men used for naming
all  different church's in the christian church because of the  doctrine's.

The problem is not the name denominational the problem is with each individual who do not bother to check out with scripture which denomination believes scripture .
here are two different denomination's with the same general name. Which one is inline with scripture. Using scripture you
tell me.
Link Removed - Denomination Promotion and Denominatoin Bashing

 men called our great 3 in one God the Trinity . there is nothing wrong with men giving thing's name's. You will not fing the name Trinity in the bible but that does not make the word Trinity describing God  wrong .
there would be nothing wrong at all with all the different denomination's if they all believed the bible . So the problem is not the name but the teachings do they agree with the bible ? If  all do not . than it is well with God that they  divide .
because God's teaching's divide ---------the sheep from the Goat's!
or the chaff from the wheat! If the fences have open gate's
sheep and goat's get to gether.
so what's wrong with that?
Jesus say's a little leaven leaven the whole loaf.
We might in to day's language say a bad spot in a aplle will ruin the whole apple. Or a bad apple will spoil all the apples
that come in contact with it.

Jesus is talking about just a little wrong doctrine that destroy's his believer's in his true doctrine's

I am not going to get into individual denominational bashing here. You are missing the overall idea behind the comments I made in my post.

My main point is that I do not worship a denomination. I worship God. Salvation is not through a denomination it is through Jesus Christ. The body of Christ is not a denomination made by man, it is made up of those saved through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Pastor You seem angry that I am aware .That most people belief's have been formed or "misinformed" by  clergy
of many different denomination's or nondenominational churches.

and that it is "sin " when one knows that certain denomination's are teaching in error not to alert other's.

You call it bashing Thats a fair ward  . And you imply I am sinner.
well you certainly are right on target again.

I suppose one could call alerting people to the harmful
cigarett brands that have been Known to cause cancer  as bashing these brand's . AND IF you thought their  were safe cigarett brands that were not known to cause cancer you would keep
it to your self.



well sir  you are a much better person than me.
but a old  rascal like me just cant' help but telling people
about

 a few safe places  where  Gods word

is respected and taught .
place's  where any critical views  of the bible are  rejected .



God's blessing's

I think, Pockets, that you place an undue importance on denominational doctrine. All that really matters is the core truth of what Scripture teaches and what is taught of Christ. The most important facts of Christ: He is God, first and foremost. He came to this world over 2000 years ago, born of the virgin Mary, whom was God's chosen vessel, His handmaiden, as she herself said, no more, no less. That Christ lived a sinless life. That Christ died upon the cross and therefore paid the penalty for all sins, past, present, and future, and that this sacrifice is sufficient for all humanity. That Jesus Christ laid in the tomb three days and then rose again on the third day, thus proving His power over death and death's master, the enemy. That Christ is even now at the Father's right hand, preparing a place for all those who now or who will love Him. And that Christ has sent the Spirit to assist all His children, the Christians.
Other things are open to individual interpretation. These are the only truths which are necessary to be held for salvation, and the truths upon which the church must unite.

I am not angry at all.  


Again you have missed my point. I have been to many WELS churches and while I believe that many teach the word of God correctly it does not change the point that I was making. I have also been to Baptist churches and other denominations that correctly taught the word of God and yet others that did not. It still is not my point.

The point that I was and am making is that many people put the denomination ahead of the word of God. The idea "If you don't go to my church then you are in a bad church", "If you don't go to my church then you aren't saved".

As I said, I do not worship a denomination, I worship God. Salvation is not through a denomination it is through Jesus Christ. The body of Christ is not a denomination made by man, it is made up of those saved through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

AMEN PASTOR ROGER!!!!  :D

Brothers and Sisters,

I'll just simply say that man's denominations, tags, and labels mean absolutely nothing to God. God looks at the heart, and the Holy Spirit is either there or not.

If the Holy Spirit of God is in a person's heart, that person already belongs to the ONLY TRUE CHURCH, THE CHURCH WHICH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST. There won't be any of man's denominations, labels, and tags in Heaven. They will simply be left behind as things of the world - not GOD! Those who think that they have the only truth and path to Salvation are simply displaying the vanity of man. JESUS is the only WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE. Many of the people sitting in the pews of the brick and mortar church claiming to be the only way are lost, and there are many brick and mortar churches making this ridiculous claim. Hosts of people will be able to continue this debate for eternity in hell.


Love In Christ,
Tom

Hebrews 11:1-3 NASB  Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

you are kinda  saying.  God sure waisted his time authoring
the rest of the bible that tell us many other truth's  that are important to one's salvation. If they were not important for us to know for our salvation God would not have wrote all those extra thing's . He would have had you simply write the above your summary  .
Since that is all you think is important for ones salvation.

 i can certainly now see by your example why their must be division because I think every doctrine is important for ones salvation or God would not have authored so much more than you tell.

division is grand is it not ! Imagine if i was in your church
I think you would be grabbing me by the throat by now.

Gods blessing's

No pocket, division is not grand. Division causes the fall of the Church, it separates brother from brother. You say that you think every doctrine is important and yet you ignore the doctrine that teaches against division and even advocate division amongst the Church.

Even in the time of Paul there were divisions started in the Church. People started this " I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ."


Take note of Pauls response:

1Co 1:13  Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?



Mat 12:25  And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:

pockets, i'm sorry i did not catch what denomination you are. and this denomination, does it teach division as you do? is this teaching of yours....yours, or your churches? does your pastor know this is what you are teaching? you certainly must have another message. you seem a bit passionate about denomination....i imagine every denomination thinks theirs is right, but only god can weigh the spirits...and what spirit do you teach this message in? please do not be affended, i'm only asking. because jesus greatest message was not that of denomination, i wonder if yours should be.

let me say this to you, if you are about a work for the lord, and you have a desire to lead people to the "truth", there are a whole host of people on the corners, in hospitals, and in prison, etc who hasn't found a church yet...target those people....why preach to people who are being taught already.

hey heres an idea, if the heart of the believer is sincere towards god, he by the spirit will lead them and guide them into all truths....if your church/denomination is the truth, than get prepared to receive them, because god himself will order there steps right to your door....

if they are not coming to the point where you are frustrated, perhaps you should seek the lord to find if you are getting the truth....you might find that you may have found a church, and never found jesus!

Pockets is a lutheran, GKB, to answer your question. :)

And Pockets, that is not what I'm saying at all. Of course everything taught in the Scriptures is important. But what I am telling you is that one can doubt the Creation story (which I personally do not, but I have come across younger believers who do) and still be a sincere believer in Christ and the salvation He brings. You need to stop preaching denominational doctrine and start preaching Christ to those who need Him... Not to those who have already found Him.

Of course, there are plenty of discussions you can have with your brothers and sisters in Christ. We all have different viewpoints. The Spirit reveals different things to us about the same portions of Scripture, according to His will. But do not bash other denominations just because they do not follow the Lutheran doctrine (which, BTW, if I wanted to, I could find several major Biblical flaws with).

But the point is, you focus too much on division and differences. We need to unite around this: That there is One God, made up of three divine persons; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That there is ONE way to be saved, through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that we are ONE body, ONE church. Christ is not polygamus. He does not have many brides, but rather one bride... His church.

I "became" Baptist because the only church within 20 miles was a Baptist church - not because I chose a particular denominational doctrine.  If the local congregation had of been Methodist, Lutheran or even Catholic, I don't think I would love Jesus any less.  

If I was a new Christian at 50, I'm not sure how I would approach "choosing" a church - but I would probably lean toward the congregation of the person who introduced me to the Lord.

Since I'm an "old" Christian at 50 church shopping is easier.  I lean toward the "dunkin' doner" recipe: A heaping tablespoon of grace, copious amounts of Christ’s blood, a cup of raw love and a gallon of humility.  Toss it all in the blender – top it off with as much of The Spirit as possible and hit the “frappe” button.  This is the recipe for a charitable heart to be followed by a heap of heavenly dessert.  Mmmmm.   :)

I'm still "church shopping" here in central Tejas.  I actually prefer a smallish community congregation - but all the churches in NW Austin seem to be in the mega-church variety.  There are at least a half-dozen within a few miles of me that require sheriff’s deputies to direct traffic on Sunday mornings - that's not my cup-o-tea.

 ;D

once again, time for us to get caught up on jesus, and not all this other non-sense! what denomination was jesus? thats the one i'm going with. not to mention the only doctrine that we were instructed to follow in the bible was the apostalic doctrine (acts 2:42)....never really read about any other doctrine, have you....so i guess if i had to pick, i'd be apostolic.maybe you have the wrong doctrine!!!! not the lutherans, just you.

Hello JudgeNot,

Brother, did you settle in the city or out in the country? I remember you were talking about getting a piece of land in the country.

If you were near Ft. Worth or Mineral Wells, I could give you a couple of nice churches to try. I'll do some checking with family and friends and get back with you by PM.

In the meantime - KEEP LOOKING UP!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Galatians 4:4-6 NASB  But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"

Denomination is made from man, not God. Then you follow one denomination only, You are following the cult of man. Man didn't author the Bible, God did. In all my time here, I have never said what denomination I am. The reason for that is, I follow the Bible. Salvation is not through, denomination it is only through Jesus Christ.

Resting in the hands, of the Lord.
Bob

1Co 1:13  Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?

Prime example of what I had previously written about, majoring on minor things, yet totally ignoring the most primary thing of the BIBLE: Love the Lord your God with all your heart,and all your soul and all your strength and all your mind. Love your neighbour as yourself.

For ALL the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. In other words, ALL the scripture hang on those two commandments.

So what do you think is primary here? Squabblings about denominations, or love? Denominations or Jesus? Nay I say, if we're going to squabble about something, let us conflict over the height and width and depth of the love of Christ! To which, I should imagine, we'd find no small resolution!  ;D

Me too!  Course that's namely because we started a new church and called it Grace Bible Church.  So the only thing we can call ourselves is Christians.  Namely because Bibleans sounds slightly odd.   ;D

Seriously though, I agree Bob.  Jesus Christ and Him crucified.  Thanks for posting!   :)

Now I'm laughing, we call our Church "The Grace Bible Church." But we call ourselves only Christians.

ANOTHER AMEN BROTHER!

Many men have traveled far away from the simplicity of the Gospel of the Grace of God that a child can understand.

1 Corinthians 2:1-5 NASB  And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.


Love In Christ,
Tom

Romans 10:16-17 NASB  However, they did not all heed the good news; for Isaiah says, "LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT?" So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

Lots of good posts. :) But going back to one of pocket's earlier posts ..


Yes God has given the Bible to all of us - but that's not the same as saying there's no excuse for not having the whole and absolute truth. Leaving aside the fact that some people suffer from learning difficulties, or don't get good grades in school for whatever reason - you need to remember that most of us have to make do with a translation of the Bible. All translations have their strengths and weaknesses. And scholars continue to debate the probability of variations of the original Hebrew and Greek texts. A good translation will try to take into account the scope of this possible variation, though this may sometimes be at expense of simplicity of meaning.

Although the Bible is God's word and is holy, the language that it is rendered into is not. The meanings of words change as time passes by. Some people revere the King James Version as if it's the only Bible translation into any language with any credibility - but even among English-speaking people, many find the KJV to be obscure and hopelessly inaccessible by itself.

Not to mention people whose mother tongue is not English. Are we to insist that people must learn English to understand the Word of God? That seems to be very arrogant to me. How is that better than requiring everyone to learn Arabic?

My point here is that there is room for variations of interpretation on some of the finer points within the church, and the church encourages discussion on that.

Outsiders consider these to be different denominations - but I believe we're still one church.

Once you start saying that your own denomination is the right one, because it sticks closer to scripture, and all other denominations are wrong - then you're ignoring Biblical teachings on Christian unity - and therefore, by your own arguments, your own denomination becomes the wrong one. Ironic really, isn't it?

But the good news is that Christ has taken the sins and restored the life of everyone - regardless of the denominations of church communities near you.

When men in their religion choose to name their religious groups with names they choose instead of just identifying themselves as Jesus Christ's and describing themselves as Christ's rather then of things of men.

ollie

AMEN OLLIE AND FREDERICK DALTON!!

I have been praying about and thinking about many VERY simple things recently, and they give me peace.

I keep thinking of small children who genuinely come to JESUS in their childlike and simple way. I've seen this many times in my life, and it is one of the most beautiful experiences there is in this short life.

Our young Brothers and Sisters in Christ don't know any sophisticated Bible terminology and doctrines, but they are ROCK-SOLID SAVED AND BELONG TO JESUS FOR ETERNITY!

I know that we are to grow, mature, study God's Word, and become workmen that are not ashamed of the Word of God. What if a part of us could always keep that simple, childlike faith and attitude about JESUS in our fellowship with other Brothers and Sisters in Christ? Some say this is impossible because of differences, but JESUS disagrees.

Proverbs 3:3-4 NASB  Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart.  So you will find favor and good repute In the sight of God and man.

John 17:21-23 NASB  that they may all be one; even 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 sent Me. "The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.

I'm thinking that it would be a good thing to have that simple, childlike faith as a part of our entire lives. I really think this is the part of us that makes us known to others with the same heart. The Holy Spirit of God does live in our heart, and we belong to JESUS for Eternity. Further, we will spend eternity together with JESUS, and all of our differences will be gone after this short life on earth. Brothers and Sisters, please think about this for a moment:  Doesn't God really give us a way to many times discern that simple, childlike faith in another person before we ask them what denomination they belong to or what the name of their church is??  I know that ONLY GOD knows the heart of man, but haven't you noticed the simple, childlike faith of others and simply recognized them as being in CHRIST? I have, but I'm not claiming any special gift or revelation. It's just something that you can feel many times about another person.

There won't be any denominations or differences in Heaven for Eternity. AND, NOW - there are no denominations or differences in members of the CHURCH WHICH IS THE BODY OF CHRIST! If we are still living in this short life, we might think there are differences - BUT THERE ARE NONE!! The members of the BODY OF CHRIST all have the same Holy Spirit living in their hearts and the SAME JESUS CHRIST as Lord and Saviour, THE LORD OVER THEIR LIVES! This is the only way to enter through the door into this CHURCH not made with human hands. This is a CHURCH not made with brick and mortar, and it is THE ONLY TRUE CHURCH!! There are NO men's names or men's doctrines associated with this ONE AND ONLY TRUE CHURCH! NOW, we are back to the very basics: MEMBERSHIP in this ONE TRUE CHURCH requires a simple, childlike faith in JESUS CHRIST and JESUS CHRIST as THE LORD of our lives.

Let's try something every chance we get and see what happens:


Love in Christ,
Tom

1 Corinthians 1:9-10 NASB  God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.