We Believe. This is an intentional time to grow in our faith and to grow in relationship with one another across generations. We will explore the Christian creeds and confessions, where they originated, and why they’re central to our faith.
The incarnation is not a mere metaphor or moral example, but a truth claim: Jesus took on real human flesh, entering the morphe (form) of a servant for our sake. In this final session, we will see how Paul’s affirmation of Christ’s true humanity stands against competing philosophical distortions. Moreover, how His humanity is not only crucial to our salvation, but also grounds the call for Christian humility and unity. Christian behavior flows from Christian belief, and this passage shows how right doctrine leads to right living.
At the heart of Paul’s letter to the Colossians is the clear, non-negotiable truth that Jesus is fully God. This session will explore how Paul affirms Christ’s deity against the competing Gnostic and philosophical claims of his day and why this proposition is essential for our salvation. And, as this claim is situated in Paul’s letter as he expresses his confidence in the Colossian church and their perseverance, we will examine how these truths shape both our faith and our worship today.
Paul’s letters often engage with the philosophical assumptions of his time—ideas rooted in Platonic metaphysics, Gnosticism, and proto-Arianism. This session offers a brief primer on terms like logos, morphe, telos, and hypostasis, which appear both in Greek philosophy and in the New Testament. These ancient distortions are not relics of the past; they persist in modern forms, making Scripture as vital as ever in guiding believers toward sound doctrine and away from persuasive error.
Christianity is not simply a way of life or a set of spiritual practices—it is grounded in objective, propositional truths that shape life and practices. In this opening session, we will explore the biblical priority of truth claims and why salvation depends on believing the truth, not merely practicing Christian virtues or following religious traditions.