How To Use a Confession of Faith

Print Article From Your Browser
How To Use a Confession of Faith
By Jim Elliff

Our church uses the 1689 London Baptist Confession, modern edition, along with some adaptations. However, this article may be adapted for use with other confessions as needed.
________________________________
Baptists have used confessions since their beginning in order to state clearly what they believe. Our church has adopted (with some modifications) A Faith to Confess: The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 as that which most represents our beliefs. We affirm that it is the right of any congregation to adopt a corpus of beliefs according to their conscience and understanding of the Scriptures. There are some excellent uses for such a confession:

Upon admission of new members into the church the confession is a good introduction to the doctrine which will be taught, giving the new member assurances that we will remain orthodox in our convictions. We do not expect anyone joining our church to be prepared to adopt personally all that the confession states. Most will be unprepared for that. All we require of new members is a credible profession of faith and water baptism. A copy of the confession will be given to every new member of the church for a ready reference on doctrine. Those considering membership may borrow a copy to look over before joining.
We do not require that the guest speakers we invite hold to the confession. There are many fine believers who are serving God faithfully, yet may not hold to the exact expression of our convictions. We open our arms to these faithful ministers of the Word, and may invite them, at times, to address our people. Though our confession will guide us in selecting those we choose for guest speaking, it will not preclude those who are in the most basic areas soundly orthodox, but differ on some specific point with the confession.
We do expect conformity to the confession for pastors, pastoral assistants, interns, home group leaders, and teachers, as those most associated with the pastoral duty of teaching the truth. This conformity does not imply that each person will have a thoroughly formulated understanding and acceptance of every aspect of the confession; it does mean, however, that they are willing not to knowingly teach contrary to the established doctrine of the church while working out these finer points. Certain doctrines are so clear and so necessary that a potential leader would have no reason to be in confusion over them i.e., the inerrancy of Scripture, the deity of the Christ, the nature of saving faith, the coming of the Lord, the sovereignty of God in electing, etc. However, more difficult points of doctrine may take even good students some time to work out i.e. the extent of the atonement, etc. Since teaching is a direct pastoral extension, it is up to the pastors to decide which points of theology, on a case by case basis, may remain suspended in a potential leader's thinking. Pains should be taken, however, to remove the confusion and to come to a solid conviction.
If a pastor, pastoral assistant, home group leader, intern, etc., comes to a conclusion contrary to the confession, he is required to come to the pastoral leadership for counsel about his or her beliefs. The pastors will work with the concerns of the leader until there is a unity in doctrine. If an issue in the confession is found to be in error when compared to the Word of God, a correction can be made to the confession with the proper congregational involvement. The confession is subservient to the Scriptures. If unity among the pastors and the individual is unattainable, then the pastors and individual must fall back on the confession as a correct expression of truth until proven otherwise. The teacher will be asked to discontinue teaching until there is a better resolve. It is admissible that some teacher may completely apostatize and disbelieve many truths once held true. In that special case, church discipline is in order and all teaching responsibilities will be terminated.