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Church of Christ West End......
Members of
churches of Christ are a people of
restoration spirit- wanting to restore
in our time the original New Testament
church. Many sincere and honest people
have lamented the fact that the church
has lost its way, has become burdened
with tradition, has failed to be what
Christ planned for it to be. The only
answer to this problem is to go back to
the scriptures to see what the church
was in its beginning, and then to
recover today the essence of the
original church. This is what churches
of Christ are asking all people to
consider. In the last part of the
eighteenth century, men of different
denominations studying independently of
each other, in various parts of the
world. began to ask:
Why not go
back beyond denominationalism to the
simplicity and purity of the
first-century church?
(Matt 16:18)
Why Not Take
the Bible alone and once again continue
“steadfastly in the apostle’ doctrine?”
(Acts 2:42)
Why not
plant the same seed
(the word of God
Luke 8:11), that first-century
Christians
planted, and be Christians only, as they
were?
They were
pleading with everyone to throw off
denominationalism, to throw away human
creeds, and to follow only the Bible.
They taught that nothing should be
required of people as acts of faith
except that which is evident in the
scriptures. They emphasized that going
back to the Bible does not mean the
establishment of another denomination,
but rather a return to the original
church plan. With the Bible only as our
guide let us seek to find what the
original church was like and restore it
exactly. We are saying that we do not
have the right to ask for man’s
allegiance to a human organization - but
the right to call upon men to follow
God’s blueprint. We do not conceive of
ourselves as being a denomination - nor
as Catholic, Protestant, or Jew - but
simply as members of the church, which
Jesus established and for which He died.
That is why we wear His name. The term
church of Christ is not used as a
denomination, but rather as a
descriptive term indicating that the
church belongs to Christ. We desire to
follow carefully the all - sufficient
and perfect plan God has for the church.
(2Tim 3:16-17)
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