The One True Church

Friends,

I call out to all who might read this letter as my friends. Because if you are reading this, then God has led you here, and we have much in common.

Jesus Christ established a Church. He didn't establish thousands of fellowships, competing churches, or ministries, all teaching different doctrines and following different traditions. He established His One True Church.

Jesus said:

Jesus called it my church. The Church belongs to Him. The True Church follows only Him. Our authority belongs to Him. Our ordinances, our organization, and our standards must come from Him.

When people ask, “What is the true Church?”, there are some very practical ways to recognize it.

The True Church Is Led by Servants

The True Church is not run by creepy old billionaires who have hidden agendas, and live in a different world from the families they claim to lead.

Jesus did not establish a religious corporation governed by celebrities, professional executives, or enormously wealthy men protected by layers of bureaucracy. He called humble servants, willing to risk everything for Him.

Church leaders are stewards. Members are disciples. Jesus Christ is our Lord.

Priesthood authority is not permission to become powerful. It is a responsibility to serve God and His people.

A priest should be perfect in how he follows Jesus Christ. He should work, he should be married, have children, and understand suffering and poverty. He should be disciplined, exercise forgiveness and responsibility, and understand the difficulties of normal life.

Jesus taught His apostles:

The true Church does not exist by the hands of the rich, famous, insulated, or important. We are servants, and we are called by God.

The Scriptures Are Our Standard

The True Church must also be governed by the word of God.

Not by popular ideas. Not by institutional talking points. Not by endless canned speeches that gradually become more important to members than Scripture itself.

Paul wrote:

Scripture is not something we quote occasionally to support whatever we already wanted to say. It is the standard. We read it. We study it. We believe it. We obey it.

And if a church claims revelation, then it must have the guts and the courage to call it new scripture. If God gives new revelation to His Church, we should take it seriously enough to preserve it, test it, record it, and canonize it as Scripture.

We should not claim that God continually speaks while filling our shelves with decades of speeches that nobody is willing to canonize.

The true Church must have the courage to distinguish between human counsel and revelation from God.

The True Church Is for Families

God established the family before He established any earthly institution.

The Church should strengthen families, not compete with them. Its priests should understand family life because they live it themselves.

Paul gave this standard for Church leadership:

That standard still holds, but has been forgotten by many.

The normal leadership of the Church should consist of responsible, faithful men who are husbands and fathers, men who understand the weight of providing for a household and raising children in the Lord.

They should love their wives. They should know their children. They should teach the Gospel in their own homes first.

A priesthood separated from ordinary family responsibility can easily become a professional religious class. That is not what we are building.

The true Church is for families. It should help husbands become better husbands, wives become better wives, fathers become better fathers, mothers become better mothers, and children grow up knowing Jesus Christ.

Truth Does Not Change With the World

The One True Church cannot change its doctrine every time the world changes its mind.

God does not need us to modernize Him.

Scripture teaches that God created mankind:

We believe Him.

Scripture teaches that God created the heavens, the earth, mankind, animals, plants, and every living thing. We believe Him.

We do not abandon the scriptural account of creation because modern institutions tell us that evolution must be accepted instead.

Scripture teaches that good and evil are real. We believe that too.

Isaiah warned:

The true Church cannot take teachings that God called evil and declare them good because the culture has changed.

Every person is a child of God. Every person deserves patience, honesty, charity, and an opportunity to repent and come to Jesus Christ.

But love does not require us to pretend that God never spoke. Compassion does not require us to rewrite Scripture.

And Christianity does not work by surrendering one doctrine after another until there is nothing left but a familiar name.

There Is One True Church - The True Church of Jesus Christ

None of this means that the people in the true Church will be perfect.

The true Church is not true because its members say it is.

It is not true because of its name, its size, its money, its buildings, or the confidence of its leaders.

The True Church of God is in the published and official name.

We preserve His Scriptures instead of replacing them with human tradition.

We raise faithful families.

We are willing to call good good and evil evil.

And we remember that Jesus Christ, not any man, is the Head of the Church.

That is the One True Church.