What used to be the most basic difference between a Protestant church and the Roman Catholic Church was the relationship between the people of God and the Word of God (the Bible). The Roman Catholic Church regards the Bible to be under church authority. Back at the time of the Protestant Reformation the reformers believed that the Bible has authority over the church. In large measure, this relationship between the Bible and the church accounts for nearly all of the other differences between Protestantism and Catholicism. 

Tragically, it cannot be said today that all of Protestantism regards the Bible to be the supreme authority of God over all of creation. Part of the church’s mission is to show in practice that we do indeed hold the Bible to be the highest authority on earth. But many (if not most) Protestant denominations do not conduct life with a clear attestation of the supreme authority of the Bible.

Twin Branch Bible Church holds to the most basic principles of the Protestant Reformation, one of which is the supreme authority of Scripture (conveyed by the Latin phrase Sola Scriptura–Scripture alone). Our convictions are formed by what the Bible actually teaches. We believe what Jesus Christ believes. He believes that true faith leads invariably to a commitment to follow Him faithfully. He alone is the Lord, the holy King, the one to whom we belong because He “purchased” us with His own blood (i.e., His death). He and no other is the Head over the church.

Not every church is the same. Not every church operates according to the same principles of the same faith. Many churches in many places in the world have abandoned the Bible as having even a modicum of authority over what they believe and how they live. It breeds a very harmful assumption: that churches are basically all the same; that the only differences have to do with the name rather than the statements of mutually exclusive beliefs.

What we believe is very different from what many other churches believe. For example, we believe in the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ. He alone is the Head of the church. We are not ruled over by any man–be he the preacher or the one with all the power that money can buy. And the Christ who rules over us is the Christ of the Bible, not the shameful counterfeit christs that have been like a plague across church history even up to this present hour.

Our position on biblical authority answers most of the questions anyone might ask about the church. We believe what the Bible teaches us to believe. We find the rationale for doing otherwise to be quite shortsighted and profoundly foolish. The wisdom of mankind is a proven incubator of destruction. Man would place the biblical account of creation in the category of mythology. We would put human wisdom in the category of foolishness because that is exactly where the Bible puts human wisdom. We are not pitted against any true science. But alternative theories of material existence strike us as being entirely anti-empirical science. The “scientist” who is certain of the claims of evolution is and extremely religious person.  We put no stock in religion per se. We simply believe what the Bible teaches. We have very good reasons for this. And we have no reasons whatsoever to believe otherwise.

Yet our belief in the Bible as the word of God raises additional questions. For example, how do we handle the Bible in the corporate and personal life of the church? How do we interpret it? There is nothing more telling of the character of any church than how that church handles the Bible. How is the Bible preached? How is it taught? How is it to be responded to by people who believe that its authority is above all earthly powers? This is a subject to be treated in other posts on our website. And they are coming soon.