What Makes a Church Scriptural?

Well, I would say there needs to be several things...

1. Proper baptism (already been discussed here)

2. Proper authority (the Bible as the final rule for faith and practice, the pastor as the leader of the church, and the members as the voting decision makers)

3. Proper doctrine (this encompasses a wide area, but every potential member would be wise to have a meeting with the pastor and discuss the doctrinal stance of the church. No good pastor that I know of would have a problem with this.)

4. Proper church membership and discipline policies (no unrepentant members living in open sin and no membership for usaved or unbaptized)

5. Proper focus on edification of the believer and evangelism to the lost (not overly skewed in the good works department to the exclusion of mandated church activities)

6. Proper view of pastoral authority and member responsibility (people unafraid to search the Scriptures to see whether the preaching is correct, and pastor who does not try to run all areas of people's lives)

7. Proper attitude (people not fake, fearful, or pharisaical)

Oh, and it sure would help if you let the Lord lead you to where He wants. When I left the dictatorial church I was in, I was not really looking for another church. I was mad and just about to give up. But, when I walked into the church I later joined, I knew it was the right one for me in the first service I attended. I am a fundamental Baptist, but the label does not always tell you what to expect. I will pray for you, Brother Tony.

 

TCassidy

Who said I have fragile faith? It is unshakeable. I live in a town of 150 people -- churches are very limited here. I don't know about whether the people in the congregation where we were baptised are "saved" or not, but I suspect that they are. What I do know is that Scripture said "Repent and be baptized", so we repented and were baptized. Jesus said "A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit" and "Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them." (Matt chapter 7). Looking at the description of the fruits of the Spirit in Galations chapter 5, and looking at the words and deeds of the congregation that baptized us, there was no question that they did, indeed, exhibit fruits of the Spirit. Wanting to be closer to the truth, we went to the current SBC congregation, and again, seeing their words and deeds, they do NOT exhibit anything close to the fruits of the Spirit as, again, described in Galations chapter 5. I'm not a moron, I can see the difference between good fruit and bad fruit. Draw your own conclusions.

I did not blame all Baptists. I merely stated that this particular congregation seemed spiritually dead. We complied with Scripture, but it seems like every congregation of MEN pulls this way and that. Men with attitudes like yours. Who art thou to judge? I think I agree with TexasSky -- we will not be re-baptized.

 

What makes a Chuch scriptural?
Why, adherence to the scriptures of course?

 

I started in a nondenom church, which I left over doctrinal differences, I.E. regenerational baptism. I joined a SB church with my parents, but we all left it because they expelled a member for a sin which he confessed, a sin which would not have been known to man had he not confessed it. I then joined another nondenom church which seemed Baptist in every way but name. A few months back, I quietly left it(I held no office there; I was just another face in the crowd) and joined a Baptist church pastored by a long-time friend. I most likely won't leave there long as he pastors, as he preaches straight from the Bible, holding the Bible as THE final written authority in all matters of worship and Christian living.

Almost from the beginning of my life under Christ, I have been sola scriptura, not believing any man-made doctrines that aren't suupported fully by Scripture(That's why I utterly reject the KJVO myth) and the Baptist faith best represents that view to me.

My views on baptism? Scripture teaches us it's by immersion(The Greek word 'baptismo' means'to immerse' and is an everyday word for immerse.) is for believers, is a command of Jesus to be done if at all possible, and is a public proclamation of faith in and submission to JESUS. It is NOT necessary for salvation, as Jesus Himself shows us by saving the thief on the cross.

I was baptized in the Ohio River by the late evangelist R.A.West.(Dr. Charles Meadows, you're prolly familiar with him, right?) I see no need to be re-baptized, since I was saved when baptized, was immersed, and was baptized in public by a veteran Christian. No church to which I've belonged has asked me to be baptized again.

 

What makes a church Scriptural? Why, following the Scriptures, of course!

 

I was just making a pithy response to your title.
I went back and read your post and see that you had some specifics in there. I think AndyT pretty much nailed it.

 

You know it's kinda funny, a couple of months ago in this thread, http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/10/5119.html? ,I asked a distinct question about valid baptism and was basically told that having an unsaved person baptize me(unknowingly) would have no effect on whether or not I was truely baptized. That baptism was MY symbol of repentance not that of the baptiser.

Now here we are on another thread saying exactly the opposite! It can't be both ways, folks. Either baptism is a symbol of individual obedience and our own attitude is the important thing or we had all better be careful of who does the baptizing. Those of us who were baptized as children might better be baptized again cause we might not have been baptized by the proper person!

Or perhaps we better take our example from Christ Himself, who allowed John to baptize Him even though by John's own admission he wasn't worthy. The priority is obedience to the Father, not who does the baptizing.

The only exception I would make would be the case of someone coming out of Oneness Pentacoltalism. In that case they were never properly baptized in the name of the Father, Son AND Holy Spirit, but only in the name of Jesus. Here also I follow the example of Christ who commanded it be the first.

 

In my case, the issue is now moot. We discussed all of this in church yesterday; the congregation accepted our baptisms as valid, and voted us into the congregation. It was an answer to my prayers! The pastor said that some of the positions advocated here were overly legalistic, and that it was a good thing that our salvation was dependant upon God, not men. He said too many people were quick to judge who is saved, and who is lost.

My earlier discussion about fruits of the spirit was not meant to denigrate Baptists in general, but was meant to refute the assertion that members of the Church of Christ could not have them, since they were not saved in the first place. I've attended perhaps half a dozen CC congregations over the years, and each one was different from the others, being independent.

There's going to be a lot of people in heaven that we didn't expect to be there, so maybe we should start getting along with them down here!