Articles from David Berg and the Family International - www.deeptruths.com
The "Church of Christ" sect
Webmaster's note: This is one of the Bible classes given by a teacher in the very early days of the Children of God. I believe this one is from Amos Old Test and was given at the Texas Soul Clinic.
After the Civil War, a group of members of a well known sect, Disciples of Christ, asserted that there was no place found in the New Testament for the playing of instrumental music or for missionary societies and the like. This extremely conservative body usually speaks of its congregations as Churches of Christ. Today, they maintain headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. The Church of Christ does not conform to Mark 16:15, but they do invite and they extend offering to any adult to come to the "Cross of the risen Savior" and have fellowship with the members of this well-favored self-righteous sect.
The Church of Christ does not emphasize too much in theological doctrines such as the original sin, the manifestation of the Holy Spirit (only for the Apostles of that time when they laid hands their hands upon the disciples and they received it. When the apostles died, the manifestations died with them.). By this we can assume that there are no apostles, or disciples today, only Christians -- Acts 11:26; 19:1-6 -- to have a clear concise study of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, Acts 19:1 - Paul an apostle (Greek. Apostolos - messenger, commissioned of Christ, he that is sent) finds certain disciples (Greek, Mathetes - learned, pupil, one who follows his master's teaching) and verse 2, he inquired if they have received the Holy Ghost, and they make the distinction that they have just been baptized in water (verses 3-5), and in verse 6 they received the Holy Ghost and spake with tongues and prophesied. Now this happened to disciples, not apostles (for anyone who strains at gnats and swallows camels (Matthew 23:24). In I Cor.12, Paul exhorts on the gifts of the Holy Spirit which he is apparently making known to the disciples that the Holy Spirit is at their disposal to use the gifts. (I Cor.14:32) Now this was to the disciples which according to Acts 11:25, were called Christians (just like any long-hair is called a hippie). To this extent, no one is a Christian unless he is a disciple and the disciples received the Holy Spirit and the manifestations thereof, and Hebrews l3:8 still prevails, and the Comforter will abide with us forever -- John 14:16. The manifestation of the Holy Spirit is to EVERYMAN (not just apostles) --I Cor.12:7).
The Church of Christ believes in immersion of water to be saved or as a condition for salvation -- I Cor. 1:14-17. They'll always hit you with "he that believeth and is BAPTISED is saved" (Mk.16:16). If they recognize that as part of being the conditions of salvation, then why don't they recognize the follow-up of what that condition will do? (Mark l6:l7,18). If you're on a desert plain and you asked Christ to save you and there was no water, then He wouldn't save you and then what's the sense of His dying on the cross and all those scriptures by grace? Baptism is a ceremonial righteous work (testimony symbolic of an inward happening used of all ages to openly confess Jesus' changing of you to the kingdom)- and Romans 11:6, Titus 1:5 are good scriptures for this work. They also accept the New Testament as being the only Christian Dispensation of the Bible and the Old Testament as two other dispensations: the patriarchal age before Hoses and the other is the age from Moses to Christ. They do believe in the Comforter but they show no concern or little thought as to the manifestations and thus the above explained doctrine has arised along with some other sanctimonious attitudes. They hold back from going into the doctrine of predestination and though they baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, they make little mention or discussion of the Trinity as it is so called.
On dealing with these, you usually have to be a theological brump-butter to get anything across to them, but usually the above scriptures will get their heads buzzing. Tell them if they can show you by scriptures without partiality or private interpretation you might recognize what they say. Matthew 7:20 - By their fruit ye shall know them and their fruit is self-righteousness, prejudice, self-centered (they talk more about their religious righteousness and activities more than Jesus), unscriptural precedents (they are liberal as far as evolution, not preaching, etc. and are letting you independently investigate the truth), no fruitfulness and they are probably a part of the plot to kill any Christian reflection in the U.S.A ., thus helping the Anti-Christ set up his dominion. Love convicts them, because they shed so little.
Disclaimer: This article is not and was never an official publication of the Family International. It's from a typewritten class given in the very early days of the Children of God. I scanned it and converted it into digital format using OCR software. I tried my best to proofread it, but there still may be errors.
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