Straightway Baptist Church Lawrenceville NJ

About Straightway Baptist Church

I came across an interesting passage in Mark 8 today. JESUS was in a boat on the lake telling his disciples to ‘beware of the leaven of the Pharisees’ (vs 15b) because the Pharisees had just tempted JESUS ‘seeking of him a sign from heaven’ (vs11c). He was telling them to steer clear of their teaching because it was corrupt.

Unfortunately the disciples didn’t have a clue as to what JESUS was teaching them, because they were thinking about bread to eat. You see, they forgot to bring bread with them when they left shore (vs 14). So they thought JESUS was telling them not to buy bread from the Pharisees and therefore missed the message.

Ironically, the previous passage in Mark, which occurs earlier that same day, was the multiplication of the loaves and the feeding of the multitude. They were worried about bread in the presence of the creator of the universe who had multiplied 7 loaves and a few small fishes to feed about 4000 earlier that day. They were so needlessly worried about physical bread that they missed the real bread; the Word of God. Don’t make the same mistake.

We have 4 services a week and each one is different. Our people are friendly and want to be a blessing to you. Don’t be so consumed with physical bread that you miss the spiritual bread that can satisfy your soul. Come and enjoy fellowship around His wonderful Word as often as you can. We look forward to meeting you.

Doctrinal Statement

We believe in one God having three Persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

We believe in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ (God manifested in the flesh), His bodily resurrection, and His bodily ascension into heaven where He now intercedes for believers.

We believe in six, literal physical days of creation.

We believe in the pretribulational rapture of all believers, the premillennial return, and the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We believe in two judgments- the Judgment Seat of Christ and the Great White Throne Judgment.

We believe in the existence of a literal Heaven and a literal Hell.

We believe the Scripture (all sixty-six books of the Bible) to be our authority for faith and practice and that it is God's holy, inerrant, infallible, inspired Word and that the King James Bible is God's Word preserved in the English language.

We believe in the priesthood of individual believers, soul liberty, and the freedom to interpret the Bible individually.

The Local Church:

We believe in the local church as God's autonomous institution of regenerate, baptized believers practicing the two Scriptural ordinances: baptism by immersion and the Lord's Supper; and having the two Scriptural offices: Pastor and Deacon. The local church is the major emphasis of the New Testament and is the practical manifestation of the Body of Christ. It is God's ordained program for witnessing to the world by carrying out the Great Commission (Matt 28: 18-20; Acts 1:8; 2 Cor. 5:18-20), for edifying the saints through the preaching and teaching of God's Word (Eph. 4:11-13; 2 Tim 4:2; Jam. 1:27), and corporately worshipping and glorifying God (Acts 2:4; 1 Cor. 6:20; Phil 4:18). We believe that the Scriptural form of church government is a congregational one, meaning that the church is governed by the vote of the membership (Matt 18:15-17; Acts 6:1-6, 1 Corinthians 5:4,5). The local church exists for the purpose of teaching the Word of God, worship, fellowship, spiritual growth, service, evangelism, and administration of the ordinances.

Ecclesiastical & Personal Separation:

The commandment "Be ye holy" (Lev. 11:44) carries tremendous weight. With this precept, we believe that it is the local church's responsibility to separate from any affiliation or fellowship that denies the historic doctrines of the Christian faith. This would also include the separation from those who compromise the doctrine and practice of Scripture (2 Thessalonians 3:6; 1 Cor. 5:1-11; 1 Tim. 1:18-20).

Regarding personal holiness, it is stated in 2 Cor. 5:17, "if any man be in Christ he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." With the new birth, every child of God has the desire to be holy like His Saviour. However, the sin nature (or "flesh") still resides and will remain until death. The presence of the flesh causes warfare within the believer's life - "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh (Gal 5:17). Regardless, Scripture plainly teaches that personal holiness is possible for anyone who is saved even if that person has had addictive behaviors or a perverse lifestyle (i.e. alcoholism, drugs, pornography, or homosexuality) before becoming a Christian. The believer can be holy by walking in the Spirit (Gal 5:16) and thereby not fulfill the lusts and desires of his flesh; and by "reckoning" himself dead to the power of sin (Romans 6). To those who would insist that the implementation of standards are legalistic and do not belong in this dispensation of grace, we believe Paul would counter that when he wrote in Titus 2:11-12, "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness, and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in the present world."

Worldly ‘Christian’ Music (aka Contemporary Christian Music):

The issue of worldly music in the church has become a much debated topic, and can best be illustrated, I believe, by an account that is recorded in Acts 16:16-18. There it speaks of a young woman who followed Paul and Silas around the city of Philippi proclaiming to those who came to hear them preach that these men had a message from God. However, Paul was grieved by the woman doing this in spite of her message being truthful ("these men are servants of the Most High God"), and totally accurate ("...which show unto us the way of salvation.). The reason for his grief was because this woman was possessed with a spirit of divination (v.16). While the message was solid, the messenger was corrupt - a salvation message preached by a demon! Similarly, worldly ‘Christian’ music, while making a claim, however sincere, to reach the lost in a way to which they can relate is a corrupt messenger because of its rock emphasis. Interestingly, the late conductor of renown, Robert Shaw, spoke of the merging of sacred lyrics with rock music as confusion, since rock in its nature is, as he called it, "perverse". Worldly ‘Christian’ music, while keeping young people hooked on their favorite bands, also acts as a catalyst to bring Christian young people into secular rock. It is unfortunate that so many churches have replaced the great hymns of the faith with worldly ‘Christian’ music. Consequently, many young people will never experience the power of these old, yet empowering hymns rich with theology but will instead have to settle for the trite, redundant songs with superficial lyrics of worldly artists.

7-19-13

 

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