Ecclesiocentricity’s Universal Appeal

I am grateful for the kind and appreciative comments I have received, concerning the contents of this Ecclesiocentricity blog site. Folks from near and far, both of the clergy and the laity, have been educated and influenced through these posts—and, for this, I am thankful to God, and give Him all the glory.

Some people have expressed initial concern about what they perceived to be areas of disagreement about some of the blog entries. But, when these things have actually been discussed and talked-about, it was clear that there was no real substantial difference between our positions after all.

With this in mind, I will lay-out some of the basic tenets of Ecclesiocentricity; and let us all glory in God’s goodness, in that we all agree on them.

1) That Jesus Christ is our only hope—the only redemptive Mediator between God and man.

2) That the church is important to God. He values it as the highest object of His love. God established the church first; and it is His only permanent society.

3) That the church has priority over the other good, God-given institutions, (namely, the family and the state)—and that the church is to serve them, by bringing Christ’s virtue into their realms.

4) That there are clear boundaries for these three institutions, (church, state, and family)—and that these borders are not to be trespassed. None of these three entities are to be “united,” organically.

5) That an example of “4” above would be education. This is a family’s prerogative. No church (or state) court has authority to dictate how education is to be done. No system: public, private, or homeschool, is to be set up as absolute.

6) That the Lord’s Day is important, and that the church’s officers are to call the people of God to worship, in corporate covenant community, on that day.

7) That discipleship begins in the church, and is to be taken everywhere else—wherever believers live and work.

8) That the church officers are to bring to the people of God His “ordinances,” or means of grace, viz. preaching, the sacraments, and discipline. These cannot be administered, except through the church.

There are certainly many other areas of agreement—but this is a good start.

Let us all learn to make our life-decisions, not on the basis of emotion, fear, or man-pleasing—but on the God-honoring ground of faith and love, as we all mature more and more into the image of Christ.