belief

 

Many Christian churches feel the need to publish statements of faith, clarifying beliefs held in common. Such documents have both advantages and disadvantages. I often find them stuffy, full of unfamiliar code words, jargon, and obstacles to understanding. Honestly, I also often find these statements to go beyond what I have found to be the essentials of Christianity, and to claim things about the Bible that the Bible does not claim about itself. 

What would I write if I could rephrase a statement of faith? 

Below I show a typical example statement in italics and follow each element with my own version in yellow.

How about you – what would you write?

The Word of God

We believe the Bible is the Word of God, fully inspired and without error in the original manuscripts, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and that it has supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.

 

The Bible

We believe that the fascinating scrapbook collection of ancient documents called the Bible is worth studying because it is unique in the light it sheds on God’s purposes and character.

 

The Trinity

We believe there is one living and true God, eternally existing in three persons, that these are equal in every divine perfection, and that they execute distinct but harmonious offices in the work of creation, providence, and redemption.

 

The Trinity

We believe that the God revealed in the Bible is mysterious, at once a single being but revealed in the following three ways, conveying coexistence and relationship.

 

God the Father 

We believe in God the Father, an infinite, personal spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, power, and love. We believe that He concerns Himself mercifully in the affairs of people, He hears and answers prayer, and He saves from sin and death all who come to Him through Jesus Christ. 

 

God the Father

We believe in God the Father as an all-powerful, personal, perfect being, who exists outside of time yet delights to engage time in a story of rescue, having provided a sacrifice to restore relationship with the human race otherwise separated from God by pride and independence. This God rescues all who accept the sacrifice offered, not because those who accept are good, but because God is good.

 

Jesus Christ

We believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit. We believe in His virgin birth, sinless life, miracles, and teachings. We believe in His substitutionary atoning death, bodily resurrection, and ascension into heaven, perpetual intercession for His people, and personal visible return to Earth.

 

Jesus Christ

We believe in Jesus Christ as the unique God-human, who was born miraculously without a human father, who lived and taught so as to reveal God’s character, and who willingly allowed himself to be killed and miraculously resurrected to life as the ultimate self-sacrifice, sufficient to pay the debt of imperfection accumulated by every human who will ever live.

 

The Holy Spirit

We believe in the Holy Spirit, who came forth from the Father and Son to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and to regenerate, sanctify, and empower all who believe in Jesus Christ. We believe the Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Christ, and He is an abiding helper, teacher, and guide.

 

The Holy Spirit

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the tangible and personal presence of God interacting with people to overcome pride, motivating acceptance of God’s rescuing sacrifice, and residing lovingly in rescued lives.

 

Regeneration

We believe all are sinners by nature and by choice, and are therefore, under condemnation. We believe those who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ as Savior are regenerated by the Holy Spirit.

 

New life

We believe that intrinsic human selfishness and pride separate each of us from God, necessitating a rescuing sacrifice offered by God to us, though we are undeserving. A new life, beginning now and lasting into the timelessness beyond death, comes by belief that God’s own sacrifice through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ accomplishes this rescue.

 

The Church

We believe in the universal church, a living spiritual body of which Christ is the head and all regenerated persons are members. We believe in the local church, consisting of a company of believers in Jesus Christ, baptized on a credible profession of faith, and associated for worship, work, and fellowship. We believe God has laid upon the members of the local church the primary task of giving the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost world.

 

The Church

We believe that all who have been rescued constitute a global church of believers, living in gratitude for God’s grace. Local groups of believers have the opportunity to organize to explain the availability of God’s rescue and to display Christ-like selflessness in their mutual interactions and in their service to others.

 

Christian Conduct

We believe all Christians should live for the glory of God and the wellbeing of others, their conduct should be blameless before the world, they should be faithful stewards of their possessions, and they should seek to realize for themselves and others the full stature of maturity in Christ.

 

Christian conduct

We believe that the purpose of the Christian life is to exemplify gratitude, imitating Jesus Christ, living in an attractive manner, and influencing the whole earth for good.

 

The last things

We believe in the personal and visible return of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth and the establishment of His Kingdom. We believe in the resurrection of the body, the final judgment, the eternal happiness of the righteous, and the endless suffering of the wicked.

 

The end of time

We believe that, just as there was a beginning to time, there will be an end to time for the human race. Beyond that singularity, we believe that Jesus Christ will again make himself known, consciousness will continue for all who have ever lived, and we rely only on grace for the hope of undeserved joy in eternal timelessness with God.

 

The Ordinances

We believe our Lord Jesus Christ has committed two ordinances to the local church: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We believe Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water into the name of the triune God. We believe the Lord’s Supper was instituted by Christ for commemoration of His death. We believe these two ordinances should be observed and administered until the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Symbolic ceremonies

We believe that Jesus Christ urged his followers to participate in two special symbolic ceremonies – baptism in water as evidence of acceptance of the sacrifice of Jesus, and eating communion food together to remember Jesus’ last meal with his closest followers.

 

10.15.20 

distraction

 

 

One of my former students is returning to my institution for a medical fellowship in pain management. Such trainees are called "pain fellows." Upon learning of this exciting career development, I sent the following note and memory...

"I may have shared with you during your years in my lab that it was a pain fellow who made a big impact on my life during my first year at Mayo in 1995-1996. As you will recall, though I was asymptomatic, my Mayo employment physical revealed the recurrence of retroperitoneal paraganglioma and bone metastases in my skull and pelvis. We were terrified, of course. After skull radiation in the fall on 1995, I had a complex open abdominal operation in the early spring of 1996. I ended up in the hospital for more than three weeks due to adhesions and the need for a second operation. I lost a ton of weight. It was a frustrating and discouraging and scary experience.

The bright spot was a pain fellow who got to know me at Methodist Hospital during those long weeks. I wish I remembered his name. As I was not recovering after the first surgery and feeling very sorry for myself, he asked me about my career and why I felt so frustrated and hopeless. I pointed out the window of my hospital room toward the Guggenheim Building a few blocks away and said that my lab was there, and my students, and my science career, and I missed them. He asked me why I wasn’t still working. I looked at him blankly, me with my IV pole and catheter and NG tube and huge surgical incision.
 
He told me to get back to work.
 
What he meant was that I should start spending time again with my students and thinking about my projects and stop sitting in a puddle of self-pity focused on my pain and fear. Of course, what he really was prescribing was distraction. I had learned about the power of distraction back in Lamaze class, but had not really understood. The pain fellow told me to get out of my hospital room and meet with my PhD students (Nicole had just joined my lab at the time) in the Lips Atrium, in my wheelchair, with a robe, IV pole, NG tube, urine bag, and as much stamina as I could muster, and talk about their experiments and next steps.

So I started doing it each day. Laura or a nurse would help or I would stagger down on my own, and the students would come over at assigned times and we would meet in the atrium. I’m sure I looked absolutely tragic. My students were very good sports about it. The experience was so therapeutic because it distracted me from my self-pity and reminded me of my career and my love for my students.

No pain meds.
No prescriptions.
A kick in the butt to remind me that being in the hospital should not define me as a patient.
 
That was 25 years ago. This coming Sunday is the two-year anniversary of a 7-hour open abdominal surgery for resection of a section of small bowel due to obstruction following multiple episodes of radiation and the prior surgeries. The 12 hospital nights were no picnic, but I found myself remembering that counsel of a pain fellow 23 years earlier, who taught me not to define myself as a patient, but as a man of faith, husband, father, and molecular biologist who just happened to be in the hospital. I even arranged for my whole lab group to come over to a conference room at St Marys for a group meeting while I was there. Fortunately I had my NG tube removed earlier that morning (and I had a shower).

So pain fellows can change lives, even without drugs.
 
You’ll be a great one."


10.15.20