Distinctives

While this site and its featured studies are always concerned with the full range of biblical studies and theology, there are two areas of doctrine and practice that we often emphasize because of their frequent neglect in the evangelical community. These are 1) the extensive teaching in the New Testament about the organization and meetings of the local church and 2) the Doctrines of Grace, also spoken of as “Sovereign Grace.”

The New Testament Local Church: We hold that the New Testament provides a raft of teaching on God’s purpose for Christians in the local church. The biblical text emphasizes God’s concern with establishing local churches and enabling them to thrive but it also provides his unique directions for the organization and functioning of local churches, including how Christians should meet. We emphasize relying on the teaching of the Apostles of the first century to tell us how God wanted believers to meet and organize in the first century and, by extension, how he wants us to meet and organize today.

The Doctrines of Grace: The term Doctrines of Grace is often used as an alternate name for Calvinism. However, we stress a Calvinisn that modifies the usual TULIP acronym: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement (Definite Atonement and Particular Redemption), Irresistible Grace, Perseverance of the Saints. In addition, we hold that there is no universal love of God for all humanity and that God’s treatment of the non-elect in his eternal plan is equal in emphasis to his treatment of the elect (equal ultimacy). These positions equate roughly to what some would call High Calvinism (which is not Hyper Calvinism).

Hermeneutics/Interpretation

We approach the Bible with a face-value interpretation of the text as it was originally written. In biblical interpretation the reader should always ask, “What information did the first readers of this text take from it?” and “What was their reaction to what they read?” This enables us to get as close as possible to the information value of what the authors wanted to put across. We cannot get into the mind of the writer to find out what he intended, but we do have information about what the first readers—whether during the Old Testament period or the first century.