We
are a 21st Century Church dedicated to teaching the truth, as we
believe Jesus’ disciples taught it.
((Act 2:46) And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple,
and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and
singleness of heart,
(Act
2:47)
Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to
the church daily such as should be saved.)
What we believe
We
believe in house Churches and smaller congregations. Being the 21st
Century, we are an Internet Church as well. What you will learn here is teaching
straight from the Bible.
Many modern Churches have set up their methods of teaching and preaching to be more like a classroom. After a careful study of the early Church, we believe that they taught a different way.
We
understand that they didn’t have a Bible of 66 books as we have today. In fact
they didn’t have the New Testament at all, their teaching was strictly from
the Old Testament and what the disciples were taught by Jesus. The Old Testament
in that day had 22 books to correspond to the number of letters in the Hebrew
alphabet.
Much of the teaching at that time was done in the Temple, because manuscripts were few and far between and the Temple had scrolls, not books. Memorization was a common practice and it was necessary to learn the beginning words of what we call chapter and verse today. If you were the one chosen to read from the scroll you would scroll through it until you found the verse for that day. These scrolls were very delicate and scrolling back and forth would cause them to wear out quickly, so this made it more necessary to know exactly what you were looking for.
((Luk
4:16)
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom
was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
(Luk
4:17)
And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when
he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
The word used above was translated from the Greek word βιβλιον,
which really means scroll.
Today
we each have our own copy of the Bible, so we have one person to read and the
rest can follow along. In the Temple, after the reading, they discussed what the
meaning of that verse or verses was. They would bring up the teachings of
previous Rabbi’s to try to better understand how they might apply it to their
lives.
We
believe the Church also carried out this practice. In those days writings of the
teachings of Jesus were very scarce, so when someone showed up with new
information, they would ask them to stand and tell everyone what they had
learned. Sometimes they would even bring a copy of the writing and read it out
loud to them.
In
the book of Acts we have a description of how the early Church met.
((Act
2:46) And they,
continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to
house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,
(Act
2:47)
Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to
the church daily such as should be saved.)
We
see that they met “from house to house” and with “singleness of heart”,
we also see that there were a large number of people in some of these
gatherings.
(Act
1:15)
And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said,
(the number of names together were about a hundred and twenty,)
However,
we see that Jesus only chose 12 to instruct and teach. We believe the size of
the congregation should be based on the accommodations, not the number of
people. In our experience, people tend to participate more readily in smaller
groups.
We
believe that when someone is saved, the Holy Spirit comes and dwells within that
person. Scripture tells us:
(Eph
1:13)
In whom ye also trusted, after
that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also
after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,
(1Jo
2:27)
But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye
need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all
things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall
abide in him.
Also
we see that acts (2:46)
tells us that they “continued
daily with one accord”.
We understand
this to mean that they were in agreement on their purpose.
If the Holy
Spirit indwells everyone who is saved, then how can they be in disagreement?
Surely, the Holy Spirit doesn’t quarrel with Himself!
We believe
that Scripture interprets Scripture. If there is an apparent contradiction or
disagreement it is our understanding that is wrong, not the word of God. We
believe that we must reconcile all Scripture on a subject.
In areas
where we find no way to reconcile the difference, we must accept the teaching
that seems to be a common theme throughout the whole Bible.
