Church Polity

The point: Consider applying for membership in Trinity Baptist Church with good conscience, understanding its distinctives.

The class pretends everyone is applying for membership to create a practical context for learning about the church's distinctives and requirements.

We are pretending that everyone sitting here is considering applying for membership in Trinity Baptist Church. And we are conducting a pre-membership class in which we are considering those things which a person needs to know if he or she is to join the church with good conscience. We have considered, first of all, the subject. The subject of true conversion.

0:34 - 1:06 Read in full sermon

Driving home: So it is both a religious organization and a spiritual organism indwelt by the living Christ, by the Holy Spirit.

Martin uses the visual aid of circles on a board to represent individual local churches, which collectively form the universal church, illustrating the 'one in many' concept.

Can you see that? Even if you can't see, you say, what is it? I've tried to leave enough room to do this. Each one of these little circles is a church.

23:13 - 23:29 Read in full sermon

Driving home: So it is both a religious organization and a spiritual organism indwelt by the living Christ, by the Holy Spirit.

He compares understanding the church's identity from 110 New Testament references to assembling a puzzle, where many small pieces are needed to form the complete picture.

And really the only way that you can identify what the church really is, is to go through each one of those subtle little passages and eventually, like all the pieces, you need all the pieces. There are no big pieces that define it all by themselves. You need all those little pieces put together and you get the general idea. And you say, you don't really go through all 110 of those passages.

24:41 - 25:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Conduct church affairs with realism, but also with optimism and hope, believing the church is not a failure and cannot be a failure.

The church is described as an offensive, besieging army, not a besieged city, to convey its assured victory and active role in spreading the gospel, countering pessimistic views.

shall not prevail against it. The church is seen as on the offensive, a besieging army, a besieged city, and the church of Christ shall have victory. It shall conquer and prevail.

38:28 - 38:47 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin outlines Trinity Baptist Church's local polity, starting with membership. He argues for the biblical necessity of membership based on concepts like 'members one of…

Martin critiques the modern mindset of 'easy believism' and 'me-ism' as twisting understanding of church membership, where individual experience overshadows communal commitment.

First of all, our policy of membership. Now here I told you I was going to say something about it. But someone might say, well, how can you even say that there isn't, there isn't such a thing as a right to have church membership? See, we live in a day when the thinking of many has been twisted by easy believism and by me-ism.

47:26 - 47:49 Read in full sermon