Featured Theological Differences in the Local Church

A confessional family moves into an area where most churches are not confessional. They make friends with the people and in home bible study they make use of the biblical confession, commentary, or sermons....people who are believers respond positively to the sheep food....others in the church find out, and resist...not for biblical reasons but rather ignorance, and emotional defects......now what?

 

now suppose....the confessional persons find out if they travel an hour or more...they could find a group that is closer to their beliefs, however..the distance would present difficulties.

Do they continue in the local assembly and be used to bring biblical reformation? Or do they abandon the local assembly?

If the local church needs help ....should they throw in the towel drive the extra hour or two, to sit in a church that does not need help, so they would just sit and rubber stamp things?

 

:Which do you see as worst situation[humanly speaking],and why?
Which do you see as most promising?

:

1 ]Covenant theology.....finds himself in a dispensational church...

2]A 1689 person in an Arminian church

3] An Arminian wanders into a 1689 church

4] A dispensational person wanders into Ken Gentry's local assembly

5] An Amillienial person in a dispensational church...

6] antinomian in a confessional church...

 

two people meeting in Jesus name...is not a Church. It is two Kingdom members meeting.

 

Yes...Reformed.....it can get dicey.....you do not want to harm a true assembly on one hand....but ;
9 I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not.

10 Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.

even the apostles came across some hard to call situations...much prayer indeed...

 

Yes...it is always proper to note that distinction and we do not have that authority.....however I find it instructive that Diotrephes existed....and I think we have perhaps seen that personality in many a place in our day.
We cannot see the heart...but their actions and words sometimes give them away.

Yes...lol...these days it says one thing on the outside...then you wander in and its up for grabs what is going on in there.
It is quite a relief when you find an assembly following the scriptural model of a NT. Assembly.
I am still traveling often....sometimes it is shock and awe when you get inside..

 

Our situation - the Gospel church is 10 miles - 20 minutes drive away. The local church is Anglican. We are making friends in the church & seek to attend suitable services & occasions.

 

From a post soon after we moved -

 

If the kingdom of God is with you, how can two or more gathering in Jesus' name for prayer at McDonald's not be a church?

 

You know, if we are seeing any Christian assembly as different, then we are not paying attention to the myriad commandments to love... to love our God, to love our neighbor as ourselves, to love our enemies yada yada. I mean, have we become so jaded that we cannot live without negative energy, who cannot live in the realm of peace that Jesus announces, because the price of peace is non domination.

 

That’s right....1689 LBC 22.8..... just in case ya care

Going to have to look up what John Owen of the Puritan Divines said about it.

 

What if both meeting at McDonald's for prayer in Jesus' name are pastors? Doesn't a pastor, or teacher emerge no matter how small the church?

 

Jesus abolished the visible institutional church when he replaced the Old Covenant with the new. The visible institutional church came about with the rise of the monarchical bishops AD 100+. And remains responsible for the innocent bloodshed of non conformist Christians. Since that time continuing through the Reformation era.