Staying on the Biblical Track

I stopped to think about yesterday's post, and it occurred to me just how often I have other people try to convince me of what they believe. This happens frequently in online chat, but also quite frequently in my everyday life. When I thought back over just the last few weeks or so, I've had different people try to persuade me that I've been misled about different things. Two have tried to convince me that the Roman Catholic Church is probably the one true church. One has even tried to convince me that the Doctrine of the Trinity is a false teaching, a machination of modern theologians who subverted the meaning of Hebrew words in the Bible to obscure the true nature of the Godhood, no doubt for some cryptic reasons of their own. I thought for a moment that his reasoning would be springing out of his having read 'The Da Vinci Code,' but instead he came up with some stuff that I had never heard of before, but just as ridiculous.

The thing is, these people are all self-proclaimed Christians who have indicated (some by implication) that they attend protestant church denominations, even the two who are becoming convinced of the spiritual superiority of the Catholic Church.

I wonder what is happening at these people's home churches. How often do they attend worship? How closely do they fellowship there? How is the Word of God approached and taught? Churches can be weak or strong on doctrine, they can be totally misguided or have very solid leadership, but the members of a church also have responsibilities to their local church and the authority it has in their life. I don't believe that belonging to a local church body is important, rather I believe it is vital to the life and walk of the believer.

People need to be involved with their local church. How else will they have a sense of belonging? How else will they be engaged with their own sense of responsibility? That has to be an outgrowth of their walk with Jesus, their submission to the Holy Spirit. It shouldn't come from any outward demonstration such as the 'action' of 'joining a church.' I can't escape the thought of how so many cultists I have talked with have justified their behavior simply because they had joined their cult church.

People who are involved in a Bible believing church where God's Word is expositorially taught every week and where Jesus is praised and worshiped can gain sound knowledge and be able to easily spot unsound doctrine that runs contrary to the Gospel. That in itself is one way in which the Church can be protected from false interpretations and trendy, misleading concepts.

Taking a close look at God's Word together as a body of believers each week provides a oneness of mind in the Word and helps believers to be in submission to the teaching and will hopefully instill a hunger to pursue the study of it on their own time, at home. They should be encouraged to do so. One thing I appreciate at my own church is a sharing time after Sunday evening worship, and before the study. All overseen by the pastor who is teaching that evening, those in the body are afforded the opportunity to share praise reports, ask for prayer or seek answers to Bible questions. We've been doing this since the church was established, and there have even been occasions when the chapter of a book study we have been doing has been postponed to the next week in order to pursue deeper answers to such questions.