|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
Mission Statement
Our mission statement says simply: “That we may know Christ, and make him known to the world.”
This refects our desire to learn as much as we can about Jesus and the salvation he came to bring, and to teach others to know Christ also.
Jesus said: “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” John 14:5.
This means that Jesus is the only way to eternal salvation. The religions of the world are not all alike, nor are they just different ways to find the same God. There are many false gods (idols) in the world today which do not lead to Christ nor to salvation. Therefore our mission is to lead people to a correct understanding of what God has done in Christ to bring us to heaven.
In the December, 1993 edition of the Trinity Review, Anglican minister John Charles Ryle, wrote an article called: “Only One Way of Salvation.” There he correctly speaks to the false spirit of our times as he comments on Acts 4:12 (“Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”). His commentary follows:
Relativism
I feel it a duty to bear my solemn testimony against the spirit of the day we live in, to warn men against its infection. It is not Atheism I fear so much, in the present times, as Pantheism. It is not the system which says nothing is true, so much as the system which says everything is true. It is not the system which says there is no Saviour, so much as the system which says there are many saviours, and many ways to peace! - It is the system which is so liberal, that it dares not say anything is false. It is the system which is so charitable, that it will allow everything to be true. It is the system which seems ready to honour others as well as our Lord Jesus Christ, to class them all together, and to think well of all. Confucius and Zoroaster, Socrates and Mahomet, the Indian Brahmins and the African devil-worshippers, Arius and Pelagius, Ignatius Loyola and Socinus - all are to be treated respectfully; none is to be condemned. It is the system which bids us smile complacently on all creeds and systems of religion. The Bible and the Koran, the Hindu Vedas and the Persian Zendavesta, the old wives’ fables of Rabbinical writers and the rubbish of Patristic traditions, the Racovian catechism and the Thirty-nine Articles, the revelations of Emanuel Swedenborg and the Book of Mormon of Joseph Smith - all, all are to be listened to: None is to be denounced as lies. It is the system which is so scrupulous about the feelings of others, that we are never to say they are wrong. It is the system which is so liberal that it calls a man a bigot, if he dares to say, "I know my views are right." This is the system, this is the tone of feeling which I fear in this day, and this is the system which I desire emphatically to testify against and denounce....
No Other Name
If there is no salvation excepting in Christ, let us try to do good to the souls of all who do not know Him as a Saviour. There are millions in this miserable condition - millions in foreign lands, millions in our own country, millions who are not trusting in Christ. We ought to feel for them if we are true Christians; we ought to pray for them; we ought to work for them, while there is yet time. Do we really believe that Christ is the only way to Heaven? Then let us live as if we believed it.
Let us look round the circle of our own relatives and friends, count them up one by one, and think how many of them are not yet in Christ. Let us try to do good to them in some way or other, and act as a man should act who believes his friends to be in danger. Let us not be content with their being kind and amiable, gentle and good-tempered, moral and courteous. Let us rather be miserable about them till they come to Christ, and trust in Him. I know all this may sound like enthusiasm and fanaticism. I wish there were more of it in the world. Anything, I am sure, is better than a quiet indifference about the souls of others, as if everybody was on the way to Heaven. Nothing, to my mind, so proves our little faith, as our little feeling about the spiritual condition of those around us....
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All content on this entire site, including images and graphics, are © Copyright 2000-2003 by St. John’s Ev. Lutheran Church and its licensors. All rights reserved. |
|
|
|
Email, Telephone and Mailing Address for St. John’s
Calendar of Events at St. John’s
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Driving Directions to help you find St. John’s
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Worship Service Times and Our Style of Worship
Click here to register or adopt a military member to pray for.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Return to the Home Page of St. John’s