What We Believe
We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. We believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; On the third day He rose again; He ascended into heaven, He is seated at the right hand of the Father, and He will come to judge the living and the dead.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic* Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
*meaning the universal Christian church—all believers in Jesus Christ
Regarding The Scripture
The Bible is true and infallible (Psalm 119:160; John 17:17; 2 Timothy 3:16). In other words, it “is completely trustworthy as a guide to salvation and the life of faith and will not fail to accomplish its purpose.” 1 This is why we use the Bible as our study source, because our faith is entirely based on the beautifully mysterious power of the Holy Spirit to instruct each of us in the most intimate and personal ways through the inspired Word of God. We don’t always know exactly how, but we know He will.
1 McKim, DK, Westminster dictionary of theological terms, Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.
Regarding The Gospel
We are all a broken people, drawn to sin since the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden (Romans 3:23). And yet, regardless of our rejection of Him, the story that God has written from even before time illustrates how deeply God loves us and the length to which He goes to have a relationship with us.
The law was given to reveal our inability to live a holy life. We can’t do it. But God. God made a way; He sent His Son. Righteous God in the form of man; Jesus—perfect, holy, God with us (Romans 3:21). Jesus’ ability to perfectly fulfill every portion of the law is what qualifies Him to be the gateway for us to walk with God once again.
His perfection is His deity in the flesh of a man, and the gruesome death of His perfect life on the cross fulfilled the debt we owe to God for our sins. All of them—past, present, and future. This alone is what allows us to have a relationship with God—that the One who knew no sin took on sin for us and in return, clothed us in His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Now when we approach God, we can come before Him blameless and holy because and only because He sent His Son to pay our ransom and bring us back to Himself. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and through Him and only Him we have access to the Father (John 14:6).
And to top it off, He left us His Holy Spirit so that our finite minds could somehow grasp this infinite, incomprehensible love, so that we would overflow with hope by the power of that Spirit (Romans 15:13) as He reveals Himself to us (1 Corinthians 2:10).
And so we study.
Regarding Formation:
As Christ followers, we are all being transformed into the likeness of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18). We trust the Spirit is doing this perfect work and our work is to reflect Christ’s face to one another as we submit ourselves to this—often difficult—formational process. For a perfect illustration of how we do this, we look to Genesis 22-23.
Immediately after Jacob sees God’s face and declares, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been spared,” Jacob meets Esau. Jacob knows he deserves to die at the hand of Esau. Yet, having seen the worst of Jacob, Esau accepts Jacob—fully accepts him. Therefore Jacob says, “Seeing your face is like seeing the face of God because you have accepted me.” Jacob knows exactly what God’s face looks like—he just saw God’s face!—and yet Jacob declares that Esau’s face was just like the face of God because of Esau’s full acceptance.
We reflect God’s face to one another as we provide gracious, accepting space through directed conversation and listening to reflect, recognize, and respond to God’s incredible—and often difficult—work and invitations. This is sacred and marvel-ous work.
