Presbyterian Doctrine

  Someone recently asked me to email them Presbyterian Doctrine and the Scripture to support it.  I tried to resist the urge to write a small novella, but I might have been a bit wordy.  As I spent a large chunk of time working on it, I thought I'd post it here as well.  

  As for Presbyterian doctrine, we are part of the Reformed tradition, which dates back to John Calvin in the 16th century.  The primary emphasis of the Reformed tradition is God's sovereignty over all of creation and human sinfulness.  We believe that God's overall mission is to gather all of the world to himself through God's Son, Jesus Christ.  (Philippians 2:5-11, Hebrews 1:1-4) We believe that Christ alone is the way to salvation.  (John 14:6)  As for forgiveness, we believe that God reaches out to us while we are sinners, offering us forgiveness, to which we are called to respond in gratitude and repentance.  (John 3:16-18, Romans 5:8)

  We focus strongly on how all of life is lived in response to God's initiating grace--from the very beginning, in Genesis 1, it is God who acted first in creation.  In the same way, Scripture gives witness time and time again, from Abraham (Gen. 12:1) to Moses (Exodus 3) to Samuel (1 Samuel 3) to Peter (Luke 5:1-11) to Paul (Acts 9:1-19), that God calls us, and our life, our discipleship is a response to God's call.  We believe that faith is a gift of God, not something that we ourselves can create.  (Romans 3:21-28)

  We believe that Scripture is an authoritative and unique witness, a guide that reveals to us how God has acted throughout the ages, and that continues to guide us today.  (2 Timothy 1:11-14)  We believe that our gratitude should compel us to live our discipleship in everything that we do, so that we share the Good News of the Gospel with the whole world.  (2 Corinthians 1:12, Matthew 28:18-20)  Our good works do not save us, but are evidence of the faith within us.  (Romans 3:21-26)