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dmathew1 / Open Heart & Mind cont.

Hello David,

dmathew1 writes: “Jesus and the apostles visited synagogues. This is a custom which, sadly, modern Christians fail to follow.”

Where else would Jesus have gone? There were no Christian churches yet, it was still the time of the Mosaic Law. But now that you mention it, what was He teaching at the synagogues? Was He teaching tolerance for religious error? As Paul might say, God forbid!

Was He teaching Islam? Hinduism? Buddhism? Was Jesus’ message “Have it your way”? Was he teaching that “All Roads Lead to Heaven”?

God forbid, indeed.


dmathew1 writes: “Okay. Could you provide a list of exactly what your church teaches so that I might determine whether it teaches the truth about every subject?”

The Lord’s church teaches that the Bible is the only source of Authority, so the church I attend teaches Genesis 1:1 through Revelation 22:21, of course. There is no creed book or man-made doctrines taught. There is no “list” as you put it though, how could there be, unless by “list” you mean the Bible itself?

It might be easier to try to explain “how” the church teaches. If you have a question on a specific subject, you might try first setting aside whatever your preconceived notions might be (at least temporarily) in order to best approach the subject with an open mind. Then see what God has to say about the subject in His book. Not just a verse or two carefully lifted out of context in order to prove a point of view you may already hold, but consider every verse that touches on the subject, in order to give yourself the best opportunity to understand the whole counsel of God.

If the Bible is the inerrant and inspired word of God, as it claims itself to be (and as I contend that it is), all scripture is given by inspiration of God, one Divine author, He does not contradict Himself. That is one of the keys to understanding the scriptures. If two people have two different teachings on a subject, “baptism”, for example, they cannot both be right. They could certainly both be wrong as far as the scriptures are concerned, but if the teachings are in conflict, simple logic tells us they cannot both be right. Both teachings need to be tested against the whole counsel of God’s word, as found in the Bible, in context. It is entirely possible that both teachings, upon careful examination, will end up being in conflict with the scriptures. Certainly at least one of them will be.

I recognize that there are certainly instances where the scriptures appear to contradict themselves at first glance. If you accept the premise that God is perfect, all-knowing and without error, there can be no contradiction in His teaching. If there appears to be a contradiction in the scriptures, that indicates we have not understood something properly, and we need to dig deeper. In the final analysis, if a teaching or belief cannot be harmonized with ALL of the scriptures on that subject, that teaching or belief is not of God, and it must be rejected.

Granted, such an analysis is not always easy to do, particularly if one is not thoroughly familiar with the Scriptures forwards and backwards (as I am not, I am very much still learning). Online or computerized Bibles with “search engines” can be very helpful in this regard. It is quite easy to locate every single passage in the Bible containing the words “baptize” and “baptized”, for example. You can then examine each verse in context. Context will also help us to determine whether a passage is literal or figurative. It is also invaluable to have guidance from a person or persons who are more experienced than oneself. Not to be “indoctrinated”, but to point you to the passages that answer your questions and to provide guidance, just as one would hope to have in any other endeavor. After all, some scripture is hard to understand:

2 Peter 3:16 - As also in all [his] epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as [they do] also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

And we certainly have authoritative examples of the need for guidance and the offering of the same:

Acts 8:26-38 And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. [27] And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, [28] Was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the prophet. [29] Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. [30] And Philip ran thither to [him], and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? [31] And he said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. [32] The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: [33] In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth. [34] And the eunuch answered Philip, and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man? [35] Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. [36] And as they went on [their] way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, [here is] water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? [37] And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. [38] And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.

[Please notice the verse: “Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.” Notice the very next verse: “And as they went on [their] way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, [here is] water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?”. How could the eunuch possibly know that he needed to be baptized, unless it was told to him by Philip, when he was preaching Jesus? That is a necessary inference; there is no other way the eunuch could have known about the necessity of baptism. How was the baptism performed? Was he sprinkled (Greek: rhantizo), poured over (Greek: cheo) or immersed (Greek: baptizo)? I trust the answer is self-evident. If we were to be “sprinkled” for the remission of sins, we would have a “rhantism”. If we were to be poured over, we would have a “cheoism”. We have neither of those things, although both words were certainly available to the Author of the plan of salvation. The Lord chose the word “baptizo”, from which we get the English word “baptize”, which is why we have a “baptism”. What did Philip and the eunuch do? “And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.”]


dmathew1 writes: “How could you possibly perform the investigation successfully if your knowledge of the Bible was limited? The technique that you described would require the wisdom of a scholar and the investigative skills of a journalist. Uninformed people could never accomplish the task.”

Ye of little faith ;-) I don’t have the wisdom of a scholar, but it wasn’t necessary. Anyone with a computer and the desire to learn possesses the skills to accomplish just what I did. You are making the process out to be much more complicated than it actually is/was. I didn’t have a “deadline” to meet, I just started out exploring and searching. My search technique of looking for error developed as my knowledge grew.

This all happened a couple of years ago, but I have given it more thought since you raised your questions. If it had occurred to me at the time, I would have kept a diary or a log of some sort, but I didn’t. I can only tell you that I did it, and try to explain how I did it to the best of my ability.

Your obvious disbelief prompted me to go back and read my previous posts, to see if I had misspoken about something. This may have caused some confusion:

Scott writes (previously): “I investigated every ‘Christian’ church I could find”. That was misleading, and I apologize. Certainly I tried to target my Google searches for churches that met my search criteria. You have to remember also that I wasn’t interested in an in-depth understanding of the teaching of every “Christian” website on the Internet, nothing of the sort. I was looking for a church that believed and taught the Bible just as it was written. The guiding principle of my search was that “the Bible is the inerrant and inspired word of God”. I originally picked up the “phrase” from a Daily Devotional email I had been receiving. That “phrase”, or variations of it (along with variations of “the Bible is our only source of authority”), is featured on many “Christian” websites that want to distinguish themselves in that way. It doesn’t guarantee they adhere to the principle by any means, but it was something I looked for.

So after giving it more thought, it was a little more complicated than my previous post might have sounded. I decided on the authorized King James version of the Bible after reading some rather serious debates on the Internet between “King James Only” people and those who defend the use of any number of other English translations. Both sides made good points. Many of the arguments were over my head from a historical and Bible knowledge standpoint, so I decided to err on the side of caution and go with the authorized KJV. I understood it was not a perfect translation, but I couldn’t see that it was a bad one, either. I learned about a few Bible topics that interested me to find out what was actually in the Bible and what was not, regarding those specific subjects. I used the authorized King James Bible search engine at http://www.blueletterbible.org to look up words like “baptize” and “baptized” to pick out all the verses on any particular subject of interest.

Given the knowledge base I had acquired (such as it was), I looked for error when I investigated a potential website, because it was much faster to spot what was wrong than to confirm everything that was right. That’s just common sense, and as your knowledge grows, you will get very good at it. Importantly, to the best of my ability, I tried to limit the scope of the search results by using search terms like “Bible infallible inerrant inspired”. In fact, if I had tried to search for that specific combination of words, I would have saved myself a lot of trouble, because one of the websites I could not “crack” turns up on the first page of Google search results if you search using those four words (at least it does today, on 11/9/06).


dmathew1 writes: “You did not do this. Come on, now. There are thousands of denominations. It would take decades to investigate them all. So you did not do this.”

I certainly didn’t investigate them all, not even close, that wasn’t my objective. I searched until I found one I couldn’t “crack”. Once I was as sure as I could be that I had found what I was looking for, it didn’t make much sense to keep investigating more websites. I did anyway though, briefly, because I hadn’t thought all the way through what I was going to do if I actually found what I was looking for. So when I found it, I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do about it. Besides weddings and funerals, I didn’t have much experience going to church. It turned out that finding the information, and acting upon it, were two different things. I thought about it for a couple of days, then I contacted the people who ran the website. They got back to me the following day, and a couple of days after that, I contacted the preacher I was referred to. One step at a time.


dmathew1 writes: “Okay. Could you provide me with a concise list of everything your denomination teaches?”

As I stated before, the Lord’s church is not a “denomination”, but I appreciate the opportunity to explain it more thoroughly. Try this, go to http://www.blueletterbible.org, and type “denomination” in the search box. You won’t find “denomination” in there, but don’t take my word for it.

The Lord’s church was established in Jerusalem, on the first Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection (Acts 2:1 - And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.)

On that day, the apostles preached the Gospel, and many believed and were baptized (Acts 2:41- Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added [unto them] about three thousand souls.)

Thereafter, everyone who obeyed the Gospel was added to the Lord’s church (Acts 2:47 - Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.)

As for a concise list of everything the Lord’s church teaches, how could I compose such a list? It is all God’s word; the Lord’s church teaches Genesis to Revelation. There is an emphasis on the New Testament, but that in no way diminishes the value or importance of the Old Testament.


dmathew1 writes: “These two were absolutely identical in every respect?”

Of course the two websites were not identical, in hardly any respect, except that they both taught the same Bible doctrine on any given subject. One church was in Illinois, and I think the other was in Canada. I didn’t realize it at the time, but they were both independent congregations of the Lord’s church, which in hindsight explains why they were teaching the same thing on every subject, because they were both teaching the Bible. It also helped to confirm that I had indeed found what I was looking for. What are the chances of finding two independent churches in two different countries, both having a scripturally approved name, and both teaching the same doctrine, unless they were both teaching from the same Book and adhering to it properly? I found out later that there are many such churches across the United States (and the rest of the world), each independently organized according to scripture (e.g., the Lord’s churches mentioned in scripture had no human “governing body” overseeing all of the churches, the church at Philadelphia, the church at Corinth, the church at Ephesus, etc., each had their own elders and deacons and were independent from each other).


dmathew1 writes: “I live in St. Petersburg, Fl. Where are the true churches in this vicinity?”

I don’t know, I couldn’t vouch for the scriptural soundness of any individual congregation that I’m not personally familiar with, and as is always the case, you shouldn’t take my word for it anyway, you would need to satisfy yourself that they were scripturally sound. I’m sure there are people at our church who have relatives or friends in Florida, and I’m sure our preacher knows several other preachers in Florida, so I’m reasonably confident I could put you in contact with a scripturally sound congregation of the Lord’s church in your area. I realize this whole “independent” organizational structure seems odd to most people at first, but it is the scriptural pattern. If you were serious, I would help you find one.


dmathew1 writes: “I will lead you to the truth, I will convert you to Islam.”

Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. (Matthew 4:10)