“Our statement of faith is the Bible.” Recently my wife showed me an advertisement in our homeschool group for a Bible study that is starting in Elkhorn, and this was one of the descriptions of the study. It is being led by a pastor from a church in another county, and I suspect that his intention is to start another campus of his church here in Walworth county. When I saw the ad, my immediate reaction was concern, and my concerns only increased when I researched the church that is behind this study. Let me explain why the simple description, “Our statement of faith is the Bible” caused me to react this way.
First of all, this statement is false. It is true that the church which is sponsoring this study does not list any official statement of faith on their website, but it is not true that therefore they have no statement of faith other than the Bible. A statement of faith is simply a summary of the beliefs of an individual, church, or other ministry. The Bible, by definition, is not a summary of anything, it is the sum and substance of God’s revelation of himself to mankind. Let me try to illustrate with an imaginary conversation:
Them: “Our statement of faith is the Bible.”
Me: “Ok. So what exactly do you believe?”
Them: “We believe the Bible?”
Me: “Got it, but what exactly do you believe about, say, who God is?”
Them: “We believe what the Bible says about who God is.”
Me: “But what exactly does the Bible say?”
Them: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without…”
Me: “Are you just going to read the whole thing, cause that might take a while?”
If the Bible is truly their statement of faith, then the only way they can answer questions about specific beliefs is to simply recite the entire Bible, but that’s not usually how it happens. Instead, the conversation might go something like this:
Me: “But what exactly does the Bible say?”
Them: “God is the eternal Creator and ruler of the universe. He is holy, just, and righteous.”
Me: “What you just said is actually your statement of faith, then, not the Bible itself.”
Them: “Grrrrrrr.”
So the first problem that I have with the claim, “Our statement of faith is the Bible,” is that it’s simply not true. We all believe certain things, whether we put them in writing or not, and our beliefs are either derived from the Bible or they’re not. The second problem with the claim is that it may be an attempt to hide a person or church’s true beliefs. This could be intentional deception or simply a desire to avoid controversy. In either case, we ought to be concerned. Consider this imaginary conversation:
Me: “But what exactly does the Bible say?”
Them: “Well, we don’t like to talk about doctrine that much, because it makes people uncomfortable and ends up in disagreements. Besides, it’s not up to us to tell others what to believe.”
Me: “So you don’t have any specific beliefs about God?”
Them: “We just believe what the Bible says.”
Me: “Grrrrrrr.”
At some point, this conversation turns into a bad version of Who’s on First? But we must ask why exactly they do not want to talk about what they believe. Is it possible that their beliefs are outside of Biblical orthodoxy? Yes, this is often the case with, for example, unitarians who reject the deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit and force the Bible to fit their preconceived ideas about God. In many cases, they reject the use of statements of faith as tests for doctrinal faithfulness. This is also true of churches in the Stone-Campbell movement such as the Churches of Christ or the Disciples of Christ who claim that the Bible is their only creed, yet they believe that adult baptism is necessary for salvation based on their understanding of the Bible. The point of these examples is that the rejection of creeds and statements of faith is, at least in some cases, done to hide the clear differences between that church and the historic Christian faith.
Still others may claim no statement of faith other than the Bible simply because they want to appeal to the greatest number of people, and they believe that doctrine is inherently divisive. But unless they really don’t care about what anyone believes and are willing to accept and “anything goes” mentality, they are just delaying the inevitable conflict that will come when someone pushes too far past the boundary of what that person or church will accept. It really is best if we are open and up front with our beliefs, rather than make people have to guess about what we teach and practice or find out after they have become closely attached to our fellowship and the separation becomes difficult and painful.
Whatever their reasons, when you hear someone say, “Our statement of faith is the Bible,” or something similar, you ought to be concerned. At the very least, you should ask some pointed questions about what they believe and why they are hiding behind this false claim. Practice biblical discernment by comparing their answers to Scripture, then you will not be taken in by nice-sounding and friendly people who nevertheless believe and teach wrong doctrine.
Wow, I am actually the publisher of that post, and I am on your site because we have been considering coming to your church. You have assumed a lot here. The reason I posted about the Bible study is because in most churches today they no longer have Bible Study and many people are ignorant about what the Bible says about many different things. Most of the “Bible” studies are simply studies based on a different book about the Bible, or topical studies written by a denomination that only include verses they want to include about a subject. Before we moved here we used to have very close fellowship with believers from different denominations. We may have disagreed on a few things, be we very much encouraged one another to follow Jesus with all our hearts and to seek out the truth of what Scripture says on different matters- we were like the Bereans, not coming to conclusions based upon the denomination we were in, but based upon the Bible, and careful study of it. In advertising for the study I wanted to include anyone who had a desire to study God’s word, and I believe that as those who desire to know the truth study His word together we can all come to the knowledge of the truth. Every denomination has its flaws and false teachings, and the fact that you are troubled by the “Bible” being our statement of faith, worries me. If you believe God’s Word, and I believe God’s word, should we not be able to have fellowship? The problem the statement of faith is that it is something that was written by man. You can decide to pick 10 verses and create a very unbiblical doctrine because you’ve ignored 30 others that are on the same topic. I believe doctrine to be very important, I also know that Satan used scripture to deceive, and that we can only overcome that by having a knowledge of the scriptures, because Jesus said “It is also written”. I believe the way to life is narrow and difficult and few find it. I also believe that many who call Jesus “Lord” are not going to be accepted by Him, because they do not do the things He says. I am very surprised at the fact that my desire to find and fellowship with other believers outside of all the denominational divisions is worrying to you. My pastor offered to come and lead the study because we have not been able to find a church in this area. Many pastors would not do that, and I can testify to the fact that this pastor does not seek his own gain. If a church is formed it will not be “his” church, it will be the Lord’s church. Jesus said that whoever does not gather with me scatters abroad. I am trying to reach out to people with the gospel through Bible study and you are on here criticizing me? Unbelievable- and that’s the very reason we are having a hard time finding a church. Pastors today are more worried about running their own businesses than spreading the gospel.
Stephanie,
Thanks for coming by our site and reading the blog. I’d like to encourage you to take a closer look at the post on which you are commenting. It was not a criticism of you or your pastor, as neither of you were identified in the post. When my wife sent me the invitation to the Bible study, it gave me cause to evaluate the advisability of having an unwritten creed or if it is even possible to have no creed at all. Thus the conclusion of my post is not a personal attack but a call for discernment. I hope that you will read it in that light.
As a church, we readily admit that our articles of faith are man-made and can in no way take the place of God’s word. This does not mean that they are necessarily false, but that they must be judged by the Scriptures. In this light, they have been examined by generations of believers over the course of this church’s history and found to be biblically orthodox. Anyone who so desires may bring an objection against them, and they may be re-examined in light of Scripture. When a church has no written statement of faith, this kind of biblical evaluation is practically impossible. Historically, where this kind of biblical discernment is absent, doctrinal orthodoxy is not long maintained. In the interest of remaining steadfast in the truth, we will continue to use our statement of faith as a means of communication and teaching and will encourage others to do the same.
Pastor Paul
Thank you for responding and posting my comment. The Apostles did not have a “statement of faith” and neither did Jesus. We have only started them because there has been much division in the churches, but I still do not think that it’s a good idea because I think that instead of allowing for discussion, and in my experience, most pastors just revert back to their denomination’s statement of faith, and if you do not agree with something in it, you cannot become a member of the church, even if you are a born again believer in Christ. The funny thing about your stance here, is that when I look at your statement of faith- if that is what you have there under your “beliefs” tab, I do not see any mention of Jesus, therefore I do not know what you believe about Him, or even about how one is saved. Your statement of faith is very vague, unless of course I take the time to listen to all the messages maybe. But wouldn’t it be better than to say we believe every word of God? And if someone says “who is God” I will show them what the Bible says about God, and if someone says “who is Jesus” I will show them what the Bible says about Jesus. And if someone disagrees with me on something they can show me some verses, and we can look together at all the verses and come to the knowledge of the truth, because our statement of faith is the Bible, and we can say Yes, I believe what those verses say about Jesus, and I believe what these verses say about Jesus, so when we believe all of them, what does it teach us? Instead what happens when you have a statement of faith you are inclined to keep pointing to the same verses over and over saying this is what the Bible says- and when someone wants to show you (or another pastor) what the Bible says elsewhere, they just keep going back to their statement of faith. I have had this problem and can assure you that most pastors are not willing to deviate from their statement of faith, even if someone points out an error. So with all that being said, we could agree with everything in your church’s statement of faith. Your wife is very kind and it is what keeps drawing me back to look at your church. We are very much desiring to find fellowship with a church that loves Jesus and is not going the way of the world.
Stephanie,
Thanks again for your reply. I will try to address the issues you brought up in the same order as your comments.
I would respectfully disagree with your assertion that neither the apostles nor Jesus had a statement of faith. When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment of the law he answered with a statement of faith. He said in Mark 12:29-31, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” And if you read carefully the NT epistles, you will see numerous places where the apostles gave summary statements of doctrine such as in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 1 Timothy 3:16, and Philippians 2:6-11. It was not merely the presence of division within the church that caused them to formulate doctrinal statements, they also used them as teaching tools. But even if creeds and confessions were written in response to disagreements within the church, that does not invalidate them in any way. In fact, the historic creeds of the church reveal very clearly the development of understanding about the great doctrines of the Bible. That these were often the result of conflict within the church is not a reason to reject them as false.
As to whether you may join a church without being in agreement with their doctrine, I suppose it would depend on the nature of the disagreement. There may be some minor points of disagreement that would not prevent fellowship, such as those things Paul talks about in Romans 14, but he classifies them as mere opinions. If you disagree with a church on some fundamental point of doctrine, why on earth you would want to join them? If you believe the church’s teaching is in error, then it is hard to imagine that you could covenant with them in membership.
Our statement of faith is not posted on our website. Under the “beliefs” tab you find both our purpose statement and our core values. While we may post our articles of faith to the website at some point in the future, we have currently chosen to include only those brief points that deal more with our philosophy of ministry.
You ask, “But wouldn’t it be better than [sic] to say we believe every word of God?” Of course we believe every word of God. Where have I suggested otherwise? The fact that we have a confession of faith does not in any way affect our faith in the inspiration and authority of Scripture. As I have tried to argue here, the very fact that we have a statement of faith is because we believe every word of God to be true. We have written down what we believe God’s word means when it speaks on key areas of doctrine in part so that our beliefs can be examined according to Scripture.
To answer your question about the best way to answer “Who is God?” or “Who is Jesus?” I wonder if you would really show them everything the Bible says about God, or just a sample of the statements in Scripture. And what would you do with those statements which appear to be contradictory or at least difficult to reconcile? Surely those must be explained if you are going to answer the question. How would that be different from a statement of faith? The Bible generally does not address theology in a systematic way, yet these questions demand more than simply a series of proof-texts. These are some of the functions of a statement of faith, and it is why I have written in the original post that no one can truly operate without a statement of faith, even if yours happens to be unwritten.
You say that most pastors are not willing to deviate from their statement of faith, even if an error is pointed out to them. I would simply ask you to consider whether you yourself will deviate from your own convictions simply because someone else points out some area in which they think you are wrong. My guess is that you are not readily moved from positions which you believe are found in God’s word, and my guess is also that most pastors would respond the same way.
I do love my wife, and she is very kind. If you would like to examine our statement of faith, I will be glad to email a copy for you to consider and to answer any questions that you may have.
Sincerely,
Pastor Paul