I would not say that. I do believe what I think to be biblical right now and im sure over time God will show me more and more truth and some things I thought to be Biblical truth will be possibly missread but it would be ignorant to simply say other faiths are wrong and not BIble based because they will say the same about you and me. it is better to simply be open minded and humble and teachable by the Holy Spirit rather than say I know what I know because it biblical and you guys are wrong cause you don't believe the same thing. for they will say the same thing about you and me. its in the eye of the beholder. there is only one truth but we should not just assume that we have it and otheres don't cause they teach differently. Be humble and teachable. and if we are truly open GOd will lead us into all truth of His Word. this line of thought will close us off to further development we must simply search and study and most of all pray for light from GOd. blessings all

I hear what you are trying to say, but think about it. If we didn't believe that we knew the one truth then what we believed would be fake. Obviously if what we believe to be truth is different from others then we would assume that what we know is right. Otherwise it would be a hypocritical.

The contemporary church isn't necessarily unbiblical, but they are lacking in many areas which are misleading millions of people. They choose to teach the doctrines that suit them and leave out the most vital parts. It has become more man-centered and less Biblical. Therefore what they are teaching is wrong and I know this because I believe I know the truth, I believe it has been revealed to me through the Holy Spirit and if I don't believe it is so then I would (in my mind) be calling God a liar.

It sounds complicated because it is complicated to explain so I hope you got that. In short, if we didn't believe what we believed in then in essence we never really believed it in the first place. Make sense?

i've been to many a churches in my time on this earth. i've found that for the most part churches serve the purpose of providing a family atmosphere. being a member of a church is more like being a member of a family which is definately a good thing but i think that has superseded, not eliminated the teaching and learning experience from the bible. most people only go to church once a week and those who go more are involved in in other activites. i think for the church to be focused on the bible you don't have to cut out all the other things but you just have to devote as much time to the bible as you do to those other things. i can't speak for most churches i've mostly been to black southern baptist and holynist churches in my lifetime.

Fellowship with other believers can also be done outside a church building. It is a nice place to meet Christians, but most of the contemporary churches today are filled with non-believers. If we managed to keep the church free from non-believers and taught and practiced biblical truths then the contemporary church would be the ideal place to go.

The contemporary church uses their building to "evangelize" and that is not what the church is meant to be.

My question remains: Is the church a necessary part of our Christian walk? Society makes us feel guilty if we don't attend one. Why?

i disagree with the part about the non believers. i think they should be welcomed if they want to be there. i honestly don't think it is but that is my opinion. i think society does what it do becuase of the believers in the church. like you said many churches are filled with non believers. but how many of them actually admit to that. most people who go to church display themselves as believers for whatever reason but may not be. what this does is it makes going to church a norm for everyone who is a christrian. so if you don't like it you are separating yourselves from christians and that not a good way to be. from my personal experience i don't like being around so many people cuz im really more of an introvert and thats the way i've been all of my life. i prefer having priase and study time in my own home or either with a handful of poeple than being in a packed church.

now that i think about it, was this a retorical question?

Were there any non-believers in the church of Acts? All I am saying is that they are not a part of the Body of Christ which is the real Church.

The purpose of the contemporary church should be the same as that in the Bible - to equip the believers to go out for the rest of the week and preach the gospel, to worship together, fellowship, encourage each other etc. I don't get that from the people I meet in the church building, I get that from the Christians I know that I fellowship with outside the church and that is not limited to a specific day and time. We are there for each other at any given time. That is how it should be.

I'm not trying to run the contemporary churches down, but there is a serious lack of biblical truth in them today. The church is not meant for non-believers - it is meant for believers. And I can assure you that if a non-believer walked into the church in Acts, they would feel so uneasy and they would feel out, why? Because the church wouldn't be welcoming them with open arms telling them that they've come to the right place. No, they would point out their sin and by doing so either chase them away or make a true conversion out of them. Non-believers wouldn't dare attend the church though, because they knew they would be convicted, they knew they didn't fit in.

The church should be equipping us to go out into the world and preach the gospel. To seek and save the lost like Jesus did. Jesus, Paul and the Christians in those days did not wait for the non-believers to walk into their church buildings or knock on their doors. The church was their meeting place, the world was their working ground!

I am by no means implying that we should tell the non-believers to their face to get out of our churches, but if we preach biblical truth I can guarantee you there won't be many non-believers in our churches today.

And if the churches stop advertising for any Tom, **** and Harry to join their churches then it would certainly sift our churches clean of non-believers. Why are they inviting them in? For money? Popularity? To take a short cut for evangelism? Are the churches so desperate for money that they are willing to sacrifice biblical truth to get it?

What happened to relying on God?

Fact is I too have a teachable spirit, problem is thus far no one has offered any credible Scriptural evidence to make me want to accept the doctrinal lies that they propose to be sound Biblically.

The Apostle Pual said ALL scripture is profitable for doctrine, this means if even ONE scripture anywhere in Gods word in anyway disagrees with ANY point of doctrine, that doctrine immediately becomes a false doctrine.

I do not pretend to know everything there is to know about all of Gods word, but I do know that my personal beliefs and Christian practices are at the present time firmly and very confidently established on what is to the best of my knowledge sound Scriptural truths.

The first and most important any minister is requried of God to do is speak ONLY Gods everlasting unchanging truth and nothing else.

If the doctrine has no possible eternal effect on the hearer it is not a doctrine to be overly concerned about, but when the doctrine makes a false promise which eventually results in the one who has placed their confidence in it ending up spending eternity in hell, THEN it is a doctrine of extreme danger.

It is therefore very important that we warn the wicked false teachers of false doctrines to repent from the teaching of the horrible lies that they teach.

By the way, these aren't things I am making up. I have been studying this issue for some time now because God led me to do so and I honestly believe the Holy Spirit has a lot more to teach me so I am merely just sharing what I know so far.

I have no doubt that if any of you ask for the truth that God will reveal it to you.

I agree with you Pentecostal. Have you been to check out the site called The Way of the Master? They have some very good lessons about evangelism and biblical truth.

The Way of the Master

I have no doubt that we all believe that what we know is truth and given of GOd but we must be weary that it is totally possible that we are wrong thats all im saying. Yes we can only rely on what we have studied in prayer and what we know to be true from our own studies and we should but we should always be open to the fact that we in our human state can make incorrect judgments. I know a lady who has started comming to our church and she used to be penticostal and GOd showed her in dreams some errores. yet she had a relationship with GOd for years before that. sometimes GOd does not show us our errors because we at that time may not be able to take it.

I agree we should hold to what we know and have studied but always be mindful that even our most sacredly held truths can sometimes be corrected by our Father in heaven. this is why we must be humble and teachable before the Lord.

My whole point is even though we believe that we are right in what we teach does not mean we go around denouncing all othere faiths because in truth we no not if we are denouncing GOds truth in some form and GOd has His people in all walks of life and they will be lead to truth by GOd and we hinder that process by putting every other faith in a bad light. although its one thing to say everyone els is wrong full stop. than to say I believe I have found GOd and His truth. blessings I hope this was clear.