What do you do with people who live their entire lives, bound (in reality or illusion) to the sins of others? For instance, let's take a common example: people who were brought up in an "alcoholic" family. Many professing Christians act as if they believe that this reality, viz. being raised in an "alcoholic" family, must govern their entire earthly existence, from this point, until they are dead. And it might be argued that this condition would have this effect, except for one thing: the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
When God applies the blood of Christ to the souls of sinners, and the water of baptism to the head of churchmen, something very new, liberating, and life-changing occurs: these people are no longer the slaves of the deterministic notions and teachings of the world. These false doctrines, believed by many professing Christians, teach that sinners can never be *really* fundamentally changed; and even if they are (superficially) amended, that they are always inextricably chained to the sins of others, (for instance, in their families).
But something dramatically alters, when a person now understands his or her new relationship to God, signified by the church's sacraments, of baptism and the Lord's Supper. This person is now no longer a prisoner to the old ways, of their familial and physical lineage. They are free, in the line of their spiritual father, Abraham, by faith in Jesus.
All people are looking to be liberated from sins. Some of them seek it in AA, others in secular and religious counseling, others in false religions and philosophies. But true freedom is found in Jesus only, as you now are a member of a great community of the redeemed, in the church, and possess privileges and honors that you could never have outside of it.
To insist on bondage to the world's strictures, while at the same time claiming the name of Christ and His church, is paramount to blasphemous unbelief.
The Forum for Ecclesiocentricity is designed to educate Christians and non-Christians alike to understand the Biblical teaching concerning the Church (the "Puritan" church in particular), with regard to its principal role on the earth. When this is achieved, it is hoped that the Church would then be in a better position to convey Christ's redemptive virtues to the civil government (state), and the family. (You may email me at: markjhenninger@gmail.com)
