{"id":5214,"date":"2014-02-27T11:05:56","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T16:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/?p=5214"},"modified":"2014-02-27T11:05:56","modified_gmt":"2014-02-27T16:05:56","slug":"i-believe-in-the-holy-catholic-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/27\/i-believe-in-the-holy-catholic-church\/","title":{"rendered":"I believe in the Holy Catholic Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sunday in worship we&#8217;ll profess our faith using the historic Apostles&#8217; Creed. <\/p>\n<p>Let me focus your attention on the phrase about the Church. <\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.\u201d<\/em><br \/>\nRevelation 5:9\u201310<\/p>\n<p>Although we find ourselves in a world filled with many Christian denominations and individual congregations, we believe in a church that is much bigger than any one of these entities. There is a universal church that is not defined by geographical boundaries, ethnicity, social class, manuals of church order, or any other such factor. Instead, the church universal \u2014 the catholic church \u2014 includes everyone who trusts in Christ alone for salvation, no matter who they are or where they live. Ultimately, there is but one church, and it includes everyone who is united to Christ Jesus by faith alone. As the Apostle Paul reveals in Ephesians 4:4\u20136, \u201cThere is one body and one Spirit \u2026 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Revelation 5:9\u201310 is a key proof text for our belief in the church universal, for it tells us that Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, has with His blood \u201cransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.\u201d God\u2019s kingdom excludes no nationality but welcomes all who repent of their sins and trust in the King of this kingdom. In fact, since today\u2019s passage tells us Christ has already purchased people from every nation and ethnicity, we know that our mission is not complete until the Christian community includes every tribe and tongue in its \u201cmembership roster.\u201d The church\u2019s task is to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:18\u201320).<\/p>\n<p>The catholic, or universal, church is the realization of our Lord\u2019s plan for His creation. Through His old covenant prophets, the Holy Spirit foretold a day when the nations would worship the God of Israel (Ps. 22:27; Isa. 19:16\u201325; Zech. 14:16\u201319). As the church grows to include all peoples, this prophecy is being fulfilled.<\/p>\n<p>This affirmation is not one of allegiance to the pope or Roman Catholic theology. The term catholic simply means \u201cuniversal.\u201d    &#8211;Ligonier Ministries<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/m.youtube.com\/watch?v=LZhndDQkKkU\"> Richard Horner 4 minute teaching on the church<\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/27\/i-believe-in-the-holy-catholic-church\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"25\" show_faces=\"true\" font=\"arial\" action=\"recommend\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sunday in worship we&#8217;ll profess our faith using the historic Apostles&#8217; Creed. <\/p>\n<p>Let me focus your attention on the phrase about the Church. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-pastor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1FrAa-1m6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5215,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5214\/revisions\/5215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christcommunitychurch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}