Taking a look at the Statement of Faith

[Groovy]

The link he provided works...

Hmm. I just tried it again and got the same notification: Oops! You do not have permission to access that thread or perform that operation or something, so what do you think is the problem? Thanks for your help.

 

[Groovy]

Hi Groovy and welcome to CF

I can agree that with each statement made should have written scripture to back up each one made. Those of us who are seasoned in the word of God already know and agree with that which has been written as we have read the scriptures. Below is a website that includes many scriptures from which the Christian statement of faith derives from. Hope it helps.

Statement of Faith

Statement of Faith Samaritan's Purse bases its ministry on the following statement of faith: 1. We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God revealing the love of God to the world. 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; John 3:16. 2. We believe...

www.samaritanspurse.org

Glad to meet you forhisglory and thanks for the welcome. I appreciate your reply, but my understanding is that a creed attempts to state only the bare essentials of the content of faith that is necessary to believe at least implicitly in order to be saved, whereas a SOF includes secondary doctrines, such as biblical inspiration, that I'm sure you agree is complicated and not understood by many young Christians. My interest is to weed out the secondary stuff but compile a comprehensive elaboration of what is implied by Paul's answer to the jailer, and this is what I have pulled together for your evaluation, if you care to share it:

The normative way of stating the kerygma/GRFS in the NT is “Accept Christ Jesus as Lord” (as in 2Cor. 4:5 & Col. 2:6). The main points of Christian orthodoxy implicit in this statement can be explained or elaborated as follows:

1. There is a/one all-loving and just Lord or God (Deut. 6:4, John 3:16, 2Thes. 1:6), who is both able (2Tim. 1:12) and willing (1Tim. 2:3-4, Ezek. 33:11) to provide all morally accountable human beings salvation or heaven—a wonderful life full of love, joy and peace forever.
2. Human beings are selfish or sinful (Rom. 3:23, 2Tim. 3:2-4, Col. 3:5), miserable (Gal. 5:19-21), and hopeless (Eph. 2:12) or hell-bound at the judgment (Matt. 23:33 & 25:46) when they reject God’s salvation (John 3:18, Rom. 2:5-11).
3. Jesus is God’s Messiah/Christ and incarnate Son, the way that God has chosen (John 3:16, Acts 16:30-31, Phil. 2:9-11) of providing salvation by means of his atoning death on the cross for the payment of the penalty for the sins of humanity (Rom. 3:22-25 & 5:9-11), followed by his resurrection to reign in heaven (1Cor. 15:14-28).
4. Thus, every person who hears the NT Gospel needs to repent and accept God’s grace or justification in Jesus as Christ/Messiah the Lord or Supreme Commander (Luke 2:11, John 14:6, Acts 16:31), which means trying to obey His commandment to love one another (Matt. 22:37-40, John 13:35, Rom. 13:9)—forever (Matt. 10:22, Psa. 113:2).
5. Then God’s Holy Spirit will establish a saving relationship with all who truly accept/love Him (Rev. 3:20) that will eventually achieve heaven after Christ returns when by means of persevering in learning Truth/God’s Word/sanctification everyone cooperates fully with His will (John 14:6, 17&26, Rom. 8:6-17, Gal. 6:7-9, Eph. 1:13-14, Heb. 10:36, 12:1, Jam. 1:2-4).

 

[Groovy]

Topical Studies.
Soteriology



View attachment 21833

Huh! I found it but when I clicked on it I got the same error message, so I still need admin's help.
(Computers and I don't get along sometimes--usually my fault; if there is a wrong way to do it, I will find it!

 

[JLB]

Huh! I found it but when I clicked on it I got the same error message, so I still need admin's help.
(Computers and I don't get along sometimes--usually my fault; if there is a wrong way to do it, I will find it!

Ok. Look forward to a good discussion.

Hopefully we can agree more than we disagree.

 

[for_his_glory]

Glad to meet you forhisglory and thanks for the welcome. I appreciate your reply, but my understanding is that a creed attempts to state only the bare essentials of the content of faith that is necessary to believe at least implicitly in order to be saved, whereas a SOF includes secondary doctrines, such as biblical inspiration, that I'm sure you agree is complicated and not understood by many young Christians. My interest is to weed out the secondary stuff but compile a comprehensive elaboration of what is implied by Paul's answer to the jailer, and this is what I have pulled together for your evaluation, if you care to share it:

The normative way of stating the kerygma/GRFS in the NT is “Accept Christ Jesus as Lord” (as in 2Cor. 4:5 & Col. 2:6). The main points of Christian orthodoxy implicit in this statement can be explained or elaborated as follows:

1. There is a/one all-loving and just Lord or God (Deut. 6:4, John 3:16, 2Thes. 1:6), who is both able (2Tim. 1:12) and willing (1Tim. 2:3-4, Ezek. 33:11) to provide all morally accountable human beings salvation or heaven—a wonderful life full of love, joy and peace forever.
2. Human beings are selfish or sinful (Rom. 3:23, 2Tim. 3:2-4, Col. 3:5), miserable (Gal. 5:19-21), and hopeless (Eph. 2:12) or hell-bound at the judgment (Matt. 23:33 & 25:46) when they reject God’s salvation (John 3:18, Rom. 2:5-11).
3. Jesus is God’s Messiah/Christ and incarnate Son, the way that God has chosen (John 3:16, Acts 16:30-31, Phil. 2:9-11) of providing salvation by means of his atoning death on the cross for the payment of the penalty for the sins of humanity (Rom. 3:22-25 & 5:9-11), followed by his resurrection to reign in heaven (1Cor. 15:14-28).
4. Thus, every person who hears the NT Gospel needs to repent and accept God’s grace or justification in Jesus as Christ/Messiah the Lord or Supreme Commander (Luke 2:11, John 14:6, Acts 16:31), which means trying to obey His commandment to love one another (Matt. 22:37-40, John 13:35, Rom. 13:9)—forever (Matt. 10:22, Psa. 113:2).
5. Then God’s Holy Spirit will establish a saving relationship with all who truly accept/love Him (Rev. 3:20) that will eventually achieve heaven after Christ returns when by means of persevering in learning Truth/God’s Word/sanctification everyone cooperates fully with His will (John 14:6, 17&26, Rom. 8:6-17, Gal. 6:7-9, Eph. 1:13-14, Heb. 10:36, 12:1, Jam. 1:2-4).

What might help you is to take each statement that is written and search scripture for that statement as it will give you a better understanding of the full context of each statement made. It's more about what Christians believe as in faith and salvation.

 

[Groovy]

What might help you is to take each statement that is written and search scripture for that statement as it will give you a better understanding of the full context of each statement made. It's more about what Christians believe as in faith and salvation.

What might help you is to take each statement that is written and search scripture for that statement as it will give you a better understanding of the full context of each statement made. It's more about what Christians believe as in faith and salvation.

Not sure you understood my saying that my interest is in a minimal creed rather than in a broad statement of faith,
and I also am more interested in what you believe about each point of the 5-point creed I shared. If some
part of your book on Revelation is relevant to this creed, please share and discuss it here. Thanks.

 

[JLB]

Not sure you understood my saying that my interest is in a minimal creed rather than in a broad statement of faith,
and I also am more interested in what you believe about each point of the 5-point creed I shared. If some
part of your book on Revelation is relevant to this creed, please share and discuss it here. Thanks.

Can you go to the “Topical Studies” area of “Forums”.

Then click on it.

From there go to Soteriology.

There you will find the thread.

 

[Free]

Hmm. I just tried it again and got the same notification: Oops! You do not have permission to access that thread or perform that operation or something, so what do you think is the problem? Thanks for your help.

Try again.

 

[Free]

Can you go to the “Topical Studies” area of “Forums”.

Then click on it.

From there go to Soteriology.

There you will find the thread.

Members need permission to access that forum, for some reason. lol

 

[JLB]

Try again.

In preferences you may have to allow him to access.

 

[JLB]

Members need permission to access that forum, for some reason. lol

It was set up that way back in the day.

 

[Free]

In preferences you may have to allow him to access.

Yeah, I did that. He should have access.

 

[Free]

I just joined this CF, and I have been concerned about the Christian creed for about fifty years, so please allow me to comment on your post about CF's official Statement of Faith without reading the rest of this thread.

1. "We believe that the Bible is inspired by God in its entirety, and is without error in the original autographs, a complete and final written revelation from God." We should note that this statement is self-contradictory. What it might say is "We believe that the original Scriptural autographs are authoritative for Christian doctrine." It would also be nice to cite some Scripture regarding this tenet.

There are three clauses. What is self-contradictory?

3. "The Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person." Yes, and these persons are distinguished in the Bible by the roles they play in relating to humanity. (I can explain this later and cite Scripture if requested.)

We should be careful in using words like "roles," as that is what is used in Modalism. The Trinity is that the three persons are eternally distinct, being coequal and coeternal; "one in essence and three in person." There has never been a time when all three did not exist.

4. "We support the biblical teaching that all people are born with inherited sin and are lost eternally. They can be saved through repentance, forgiveness and faith in Jesus Christ's death (atonement) and resurrection. No human merit or performance earns salvation." This is Scriptural, which should be cited, but the spiritual status of children is not part of the creed.

What creed? It's a statement of faith.

6. "We believe in a personal devil, Satan, who, along with all his angels, called demons or evil spirits, are destined to spend eternity in hell (the Lake of Fire). They seek to deceive people, defeat believers, and destroy the work of God. They can be resisted by believers, who are protected by God and the intercession of Jesus Christ our Lord."
Scripture does not state that belief in the Devil is part of GRFS, so this topic should not be part of the creed.

Again, it's just a statement of faith, a statement of beliefs.

7. "We believe that heaven is a real place where the saved will dwell forever, and that hell is a literal place of conscious torment where unbelievers will dwell." Desire for heaven is the biblical reason for faith in God, but it is not described in detail beyond saying that it will be eternally joyful.

I wouldn't say that "desire for heaven is the biblical reason for faith God," but what detail should be added, and why? These aren't meant to be exhaustive.

9. "We believe that all believers need to be filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live a godly life and to be bold in our witness for the Lord." Okay, but needs elaboration and Scripture.

Why elaboration?

10. "We believe in the spiritual unity of all genuine believers in the Lord Jesus Christ by way of the baptism of the Holy Spirit." Yes, but this needs to be clarified and certified with Scripture.

Why the need for clarification if its biblical?

1Co 12:13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. (ESV)

 

[Groovy]

There are three clauses. What is self-contradictory?

We should be careful in using words like "roles," as that is what is used in Modalism. The Trinity is that the three persons are eternally distinct, being coequal and coeternal; "one in essence and three in person." There has never been a time when all three did not exist.

What creed? It's a statement of faith.

Again, it's just a statement of faith, a statement of beliefs.



I wouldn't say that "desire for heaven is the biblical reason for faith God," but what detail should be added, and why? These aren't meant to be exhaustive.


Why elaboration?


Why the need for clarification if its biblical?

1Co 12:13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. (ESV)

Greetings in the Lord, Free, and thanks for your trouble-shooting help.
I will answer your questions, numbering them for easier reference.

1. There are three clauses. What is self-contradictory? [["in the original autographs" and "a complete and final written revelation from God", because we do not have the originals--which would be the finals.

2. We should be careful in using words like "roles," [[True, and I am, which I can share with you if desired]]

3. What creed? It's a statement of faith. [[Yes, but IMU one which attempts to state God's minimum requirement, (which I attempt to do in the 5-point creed I will share if desired), whereas a SOF is broader and includes some secondary doctrines]]

4. I wouldn't say that "desire for heaven is the biblical reason for faith God," but what detail should be added, and why? These aren't meant to be exhaustive. [[heaven = salvation from hell, and mention of eternal love, joy and peace could be added]]

5. Why elaboration? (re the Holy Spirit) [[Because "filled and empowered" is too vague and could be clarified by citing Scripture teaching that the purpose of the HS is to teach GW, and the presence of the HS is manifested by the fruit of the Spirit summarized as love (cf. Rom. 5;5, Gal. 5:22-23, John 13:35).

6. Why the need for clarification if its biblical? [[ My comment refers to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but was this added by the poster? I did not discover the official CF SOF until later, and wish I had used that as the basis for my reply, but if 1Cor. 12:13 is what you have in mind, then it could be cited for clarity.]]

Hope this helps us become oner.