{"id":3322,"date":"2018-11-05T13:36:01","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T02:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/?p=3322"},"modified":"2018-11-09T17:58:50","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T06:58:50","slug":"in-essentials-unity-in-non-essentials-liberty-and-in-all-things-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/?p=3322","title":{"rendered":"In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3323\" src=\"http:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/photo-1524785281156-c3c68d1e03c5-300x189.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"189\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Church bulletin:<\/p>\n<p>Does the Bible present the concept of primary and secondary truth, or essential and non-essential truth? While all truth is truth and necessary, belief in some doctrines is essential to salvation.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 <strong>The Bible<\/strong>: If faith comes through the teaching \/ reading of scripture, it must involve the belief that scripture is God\u2019s Word and thus infallible.<br \/>\n\u2022 <strong>The human condition<\/strong>: No-one will be saved unless they are convinced they need to be saved.<br \/>\n\u2022 <strong>The person and work of Christ<\/strong>: Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. If this was not the case He could not redeem us. He lived a perfect life, died as a penal substitute and rose from the dead on our behalf. If this was not the case He could not redeem us.<br \/>\n\u2022 <strong>Grace and faith<\/strong>: We will not be converted if we think we contribute in any way to Christ\u2019s work. Salvation is ours only on the basis of grace alone through faith alone.<\/p>\n<p>Then there are doctrines, should we get them wrong, we will not fall short of God\u2019s kingdom. For example:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 <strong>Baptism<\/strong>: The Biblical expectation is that believers will be baptized; baptism however is only a sign of salvation not a prerequisite to it. We are saved irrespective of the sign.<br \/>\n\u2022 <strong>Corporate worship<\/strong>: from unaccompanied psalm singing to big bands and choirs; we may feel that some practices are not overly helpful, nevertheless sincere Christians differ in their approach.<br \/>\n\u2022 <strong>Eschatology<\/strong>: all Christians believe in the literal physical return of Christ, but there are different views as to the circumstances of His return and what follows.<\/p>\n<p>Every doctrine in the Bible is important. This does not mean that every doctrine carries the same degree of importance. There are two extremes we must avoid: firstly, denigrating doctrines to irrelevancy if they are not necessary for salvation (this is particularly seen today in relation to baptism and the Lord\u2019s Supper); secondly, making every doctrine a test orthodoxy as though there is no room to move. Augustine said, &#8220;in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; and in all things, charity&#8221;. A helpful rule to follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Church bulletin: Does the Bible present the concept of primary and secondary truth, or essential and non-essential truth? While all truth is truth and necessary, belief in some doctrines is &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3322"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3333,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3322\/revisions\/3333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdreformedbaptist.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}