How is CCC a Baptist Church? Part 1 - Biblical Authority

Pastor Nick

Elder, Minister of Preaching

I was recently scrolling the Christ Community website and doing an impromptu “visitor” audit (as is my wont from time to time). I do this simply for the sake of getting a feel for what a visitor might happen to come across on our website if they were curious about us and I realized a couple of things:

1. There has not been an update to the “blog” in 3 years. Now, I’m not in the position to “wag the finger” very much since I do such a poor job of keeping up my personal blog. Even still, considering that I have the ability to do so, I thought it might be good to rectify this issue and begin working on a few articles.
2. While I greatly appreciate Patrick’s article, Why Christ Community Church is a Baptist Church, I realized that his article is more of a history of how Christ Community evolved to adopt the Baptist denomination as well as how we began associating with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). His is a necessary article and well worth the read for either a visitor or a member of CCC in order to get a feel for who we are and why we practice the faith the way in which we do.

Those two points made, and even though Patrick does address a few reasons why we are a Baptist church (and a Southern Baptist Church at that!), I felt that it might be helpful to elaborate more on how we are a Baptist church. Each denomination within Christianity has its own … shall we say … “flavors”. Speaking frankly, each Baptist denomination has its own flavors and nuances. Southern Baptists are not “Free-Will Baptists” or “American Baptists” or even “Missionary Baptists.” Each of those denominations have their own rich histories and their own theological leanings. So, how is Christ Community Church a Baptist Church? If the reader will permit me, I will work to address this question over the course of multiple articles. Hopefully this will be limited to two, but I’m a wild card, so one can never know what will happen.

First, then, any discussion on Baptist life and polity (i.e., church governance) must begin with Biblical Authority. While we at Christ Community Church appreciate and are influenced by authors and theologies that come from our brothers and sisters from the West as well as the East, from the ancient and the modern, we firmly rest in the Bible as the final authority in all matters of faith and practice. We believe, as the Apostle Paul writes to Timothy, that “all scripture is breathed out by God…” (2 Tim 3:16) and as the Apostle Peter notes “no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God, as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” This means, to put it simply, that we believe that the Bible is fully trustworthy and true and is the standard by which our creeds, practices, and conduct should be tried.

But note specifically the word “final” in that last paragraph. Final does not mean only. Final also does not mean that other sources of “authority” are not beneficial or trustworthy. There is a major difference between capital “A” authority and lowercase “a” authority. To illustrate: Think of a King and a noble. The king is the final authority in all manners within his kingdom, even over the nobles. But a noble does have authority within his territory to guide his citizens in such a way as they are honoring the king and the kingdom. So, when we use the term “final” authority, we understand that Scripture is the final authority over which all of our practices and beliefs are governed and the standard to which they are held, while also holding to the “authority” of traditions and theology that are grounded in the source of “Authority.”  

Allow me to give an example directly from our regular church life: Why does Christ Community Church adhere to weekly Eucharist/Communion/The Lord’s Supper? Because, we have looked at the Scriptures and noted that the church in Acts had a habit of “the breaking of bread” every time they gathered. But, we have also seen in other early church documents, (such as the Didache, the letters of Justin Martyr and Tertullian) that they too had the habit of coming to the Table to partake of the bread and the wine every time they gathered for worship. Under this principle of Biblical Authority, we understand that it is absolutely right that when we gather for teaching, preaching, singing, prayer, and fellowship, that we also make a habit of coming to the Table and to give thanks for the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. We see it taught in Scripture and we see it continued to be practiced by those who were taught by the Apostles. We rest in the capital “A” authority of Scripture that our practice is biblical, but we also can see through these lowercase “a” works that the practice of weekly communion was continued throughout the early centuries of the church.

Interestingly, Biblical Authority leads into another area of how Christ Community Church is a Baptist Church: Autonomy. It is this subject that we will consider in a future article.