If you've never hosted your small group in your home, I highly recommend it. Even if you live in a tiny efficiency apartment and your fellow small-group members will have to sit on the floor or bring a folding chair with them, it will be great. I've sat on hardwood floors many times during small group, and have seen God move powerfully in our midst.
There are a few things you need to know about hosting a meeting in your home. Some are practical considerations; others are spiritual.
To read more, click here.
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6 Roman Catholicism declares, because it holds to the early ecumenical creeds, that it is an orthodox church and should be viewed as such by all. The problem here is that these early creeds (Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, Definition of Chalcedon, and Athanasian Creed) are not evangelical creeds, that is, creeds that explicate soteric matters. They were all framed in the context of the Trinitarian debates in the fourth and fifth centuries and are underdeveloped respecting and virtually silent on matters of soteriology. Herman Bavinck in The Doctrine of God, (Baker, 1951), 285, notes: "...the Reformation has brought to light that not the mere historical belief in the doctrine of the Trinity, no matter how pure, is sufficient unto salvation, but only the true heart-born confidence that rests in God himself, who in Christ has revealed himself as the triune God." That is to say, there is no saving value in holding to an orthodox view of God as Trinity if one is at the same time also holding to an unorthodox view of the saving work of the Trinity.
Consequently, when the counter-Reformation Council of Trent by its Decrees and Canons rejected the doctrine of justification by faith alone and anathematized those who believe this doctrine, Rome in effect formally declared its own apostasy from the apostolic Gospel. Rome has never to this day repudiated Trent; to the contrary, it has time and again reaffirmed Trent. So by no stretch of the imagination are the core beliefs of Roman Catholicism and Reformation theology on the Gospel, that is, on the doctrine of justification by faith alone, the same today. They differ radically on the Gospel itself with Roman Catholicism teaching the heresy of justification by faith plus works and Reformation theology teaching the Biblical truth of justification by faith alone in Christ’s perfect obedience, which justifying faith will be accompanied, as James 2:14-26 teach, by good works that form no part of the ground of justification but are "the fruits and evidence of a true and lively faith" (Westminster Confession of Faith, XVI.2).
Robert L. Reymond Responds to Chris Larimer
"Roman Catholicism declares, because it holds to the early ecumenical creeds, that it is an orthodox church and should be viewed as such by all...." Good point, Charlie. Could you repost this comment under "The New Ecumenism" since they are particularly relevant to that topic.
And thanks for the link to the essay, "Calvin on the 'Pernicious Hypocrisy' of Justification by Faith and Works."
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