Welcome to our Church Blog

I am no stranger to blogging although it has been quite a while (a year to be exact) since I last posted anything at my old live journal. This being our Sovereign Joy website I am planning to write about things that will directly relate to our church life and growth as a body. This seems to be the most God glorifying way to write. Sometimes this will mean critiquing a book or ministry, discussing a theological topic, exegete a passage of scripture, talking about events in our body, making prayer requests known, giving my thoughts on a current event, even giving a word of exhortation or rebuke. My prayer is that this would be a great asset to our website and to our fellowship. If you are not a member of Sovereign Joy that does not mean that this is not for you. I think that what ever gets posted here will benefit any true believer in Jesus Christ and bring Him glory.

As a side note please feel free to comment on anything that you see here. Aaron has set up a moderating system so that if there are any comments made that are inappropriate we will not post them. We did have a problem with this once before so it seems wise to watch what gets said on our site. Having said that though, we love a good discussion and even debate from time to time, so even if you are in disagreement with me I would encourage you to comment. I will not be able to respond to everything I am sure but I will do my best.

With that all said here is my first real post. I have been thoroughly reading the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith lately. This is for two reasons. First, I would like us as a church to adopt this confession as our requirements of belief for anyone who would be in a position of leadership here. This would mean Deacons and Elders. We ought to expect our leaders to have a deeper level of understanding about the scriptures and this should be expressed confessionally for all to see. There is a shallow and weak leadership in the church in this country. We do not want to follow this path. We want depth and strength where the church needs it the most, in it’s theology! We find such resolve from a careful study of the scriptures and laid out in a confessional manner.

Secondly, in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 Paul lays out a confession of faith. He says “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” Notice what Paul does. First he takes the theological truths of the gospel message and summarizes them. Second he adds scriptural basis for what he has asserted. This is an early, Biblical, apostolic, confession of faith. This is theology. This is, and passages like this (1 Thess. 2:13, 2 Thess. 2:15, 1 Timothy 4:13-16) are our basis for standing on the solid ground of such a historical document as the 1689.

Finally, let me close with the word of the confession Chapter 1, Paragraph 10. “All religious controversies are to be settled by Scripture, and by Scripture alone. All decrees of Councils, opinions of ancient writers, and doctrines of men collectively or individually, are similarly to be accepted or rejected according to the verdict of the Scripture given to us by the Holy Spirit. In that verdict faith finds its final rest.”
— 1689 A Faith to Confess