"Establishment of the Church: How Did They Decide" by Paul Shirk | KFW 2025

Well, good evening and greetings in our our Lord's worthy name. As I was thinking about how to introduce this subject of uh how did they decide, my mind went back to my school days and uh one of my school teachers was an individual who introduced me and one of the things that would sort of clash between me and school teachers uh through my time in school was when I thought I could arrive at the answer without showing my work especially in math. Uh my father was good at doing math in his head and I thought to be like that would be I should uh start in school and practice by not showing my homework and just trying to do it in my head and get to the answer. Well, I got some bad grades in school as a result of taking that approach until I was able to be reformed. And it felt like a radical reformation. But why was why did the teachers insist on me showing my work rather than just making sure I had the right answer? Because as I would learn more about math, there would eventually come a time in which these things could not just all be done in the head. And having the right process whereby we got the right answer was just as important as getting the right answer. And so as we look at this subject tonight, I use that sort of as an analogy. Sometimes I think we as Anabaptist people tend to look at what we ask the question what does it mean to be an Anabaptist and so we try to arrive at the right answer and if we can give the right answers now we have proven that we're Anabaptists and I would like to if that is your thinking tonight I would like to suggest a radical reformation to your thinking and I would like you to think about what the the scenario that these people were being called into and they would go about deciding a church. It was a time as we've seen uh from today that of great unrest and upheaval. The medieval traditions were being challenged. The established church was being challenged by many voices. There was a lot of different ideas. How should the scriptures be interpreted and applied? And how would we know that we are following the right direction? How do we know that we've been that we are arriving at the right interpretation? And so I I would like to review some of the voices that were speaking. we got some of the the cultural background and context, but I would also like to go a little deeper in that and give you some of the the basic ideas that were supporting the church models at their time and then understanding how the Anabaptist approached scripture and arrived at a different church model. So first we have Roman Catholicism that was the established church for centuries by this time and the Roman Catholics claimed to be the apostolic church and physically they could they could trace a lineage back to the times of the apostles. And so in that sense their church was very similar to the scenario when the kingdom of heaven was being preached to the Jews and the Jews could say well we have Abraham as our father and we can trace our lineage back to Abraham so who are you to tell us that we need to repent and so there was somewhat of that lineage and that ecclesiastical heritage and mindset among the Catholics. In fact, it was a very dogmatic argument on on the behalf of the Catholics is that we are the true church and even if we are wrong in some areas, we are still the right church. That was basically the the Catholic approach. And if you upset the establishment of the church that now is, you are going to bring anarchy to the society and to the nations of this world. So that the anarchy in itself will be far worse than the corruption that you now see. That was the basic argument of Roman Catholicism. And so as the Protestant reformers looked at this and said, "Well, if the church itself has the power to excuse itself or to absolve itself of its own sins and of its own corruption, we need to appeal to a higher authority in order to bring the church into accountability." And so as they heard that Catholic argument, the higher authority than the organization of the structure of the church, they felt that well that has to be the authority of the scriptures because there's no way of reforming false doctrines such as transubstantiation, purgatory, indulgences, and receiving salvation just by partaking of the sacraments. Unless we can prove from the scriptures that these are false doctrine. And if we prove from the scriptures that these are false doctrine, if we hold up the word of God as the final authority, then we have every right to bring reformation. And they would ask the question, how can a church be a true church when it has departed from true doctrine as contained in the scriptures? And so they were challenging Roman Catholicism. uh on the one hand we have a Roman Catholicism claiming to be the one and only true church in spite of all its errors and we have now the reformers saying that your errors are proving that you are no longer the true church of Christ and so you can see there that there's a clash of ideas not one that can be very easily reconciled so the reformers saw that the only way to advance any significant change was going to to be to appeal to the scriptures as that ultimate authority. And so they came up with the Latin phrase that we're familiar with solos scriptor or the scriptures alone or our rule of faith and practice. And so from this platform they would challenge the Roman Catholic Church. Now, the Catholics would charge the reformers with initiating a schism in the one true church. And by challenging the Roman Catholic authority, you're opening that door to ecclesiastical anarchy. And what's going to happen as soon as we allow one other version, soon there's going to be five and then 10 other versions. And then nobody will know what is right. And so you see the argument and the counterargument. And so as as both of these groups who are approaching the Bible and then we have what we now call the Anabaptists as they are also studying and approaching the Bible. There's something that needs to guide the interpretation because we're having differences in outcomes here. So what is going to guide the interpretation? Well, as we begin to study scripture, most of us as we be embark on a building project, we have a vision in our mind of what this building is going to look like when it's done. As someone who comes from a building background, I do not feel comfortable launching a building project unless in my mind I can build this project and see what it looks like and feel comfortable so that I'm not building blindly. And so the Roman Catholics had a model and the reformers had a model. The question is now what will the model be? Because as we interpret scripture and we are have a model in our mind, we're going to tend to interpret scripture to fulfill the model that is in our mind. And so it's very important what is that model in our mind. And in a sense we have a presupposition or a preconception when we come to the scripture of what that model should be. So as we come to the scripture, what is that model? And the question should al also be will the scriptures create that model or will we create that model and then try to harness the scriptures to agree with our model. And so as the Protestants looked at the New Testament and looked at the New Testament churches, they saw that there's a problem in trying to advance a reformed church that uses the assistance of civil government and is still trying to create or maintain a Christian society, a Christian nation and a Christian society and a Christian church. Sort of like all one and the same. When we look at the New Testament, we don't see that in a New Testament model of churches. In other words, we cannot go to the New Testament and look at New Testament churches and see a New Testament church working with the state and with society to create one monolithic model of the church. And so they had to come up with another idea on how to create this model. And so they went back to the times of Augustine that would have been around the 400s and they built their model basically on the Augustinian model. They look back in time and they would have looked to a passage such as this. This is a passage that was very often quoted by the reformers in justification of their church model. These are the words of Augustine written against the Donatists of his time back at the 400s. We have this group of Donatists who does not want to conform to the state church. And so Augustine is writing about these Donatists. And so the reformers looked at these this writing of Augustine and said, "Well, this is what we're dealing with with the Anabaptists. So this is our answer. This is the model that we want to build." And now I'm going to read from the words of Augustine. I hear that you have remarked often and quote the fact recorded in the gospels that the 70 disciples went back from the Lord and that they had been left to their own choice in this wicked and impious desertion and to the 12 who alone remained the Lord said will you also go away. So what the Donatus are saying to Augustine is Jesus never forced anyone to follow him and when he said unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you. Some of them turned around and walked away saying, "How can this man give us his flesh and his blood to eat? We can't understand this. We're leaving." And the Donatus were saying, "Jesus left them go. Jesus did not force them to be one of his disciples." And so Augustine's trying to answer this. And this is how he responds. But you have neglected to remark that at that time the church was only beginning to burst into life from the recently planted seed and that there was not yet fulfilled in her the prophecy. All kings shall fall down before him. Yay, all nations shall shall serve him. And it is in proportion to the more enlarged accomplishment of this prophecy that the church wields greater power so that she may not only invite but even compel men to embrace what is good. So what Augustine was saying is you can't look at the New Testament church and just get your model completely from that because the church was in its infancy. Why would you want to build a model after a church that's still a little baby? But the church has now grown up. And when the church grew up, it became influential and it influenced the state. It influenced all of society. So when we're building a church model, we need to build it after a mature model if we want to have a mature church. That was the argument. Well, in the mature model, they're now going to Old Testament prophecy. prophecy that talks about the future reign of Christ where Christ is ruling nations with a rod of iron and they're trying to apply that to Christian government in the present that Christ will rule through the state and that will be the rule of the kingdom of Christ on earth. That's a brief summary of the argument. I could go into it a lot deeper, but that that stands that's still classic Protestant Reformation theology. Any true classic reformed person would desire for that to be the case today in America. That America would have Christian leaders and all of society would be working with Christian government. The church, the society and the state working together to make one Christian entity. We heard that today as the name given to to that as being Christendom. So following in the same line of thought, I'm now going to quote from a reformer and you can see I'm just going to quote it in brief, but you can see how they follow the Austinian model. So this is Urbanius Regius and you probably never heard of him, but Luther said, Martin Luther said, "We need somebody to answer the Anabaptist. I'm commissioning you, Arbanius Regis, to respond to the Anabaptist argument about the church." And so here's what he said. The truth leaves you no choice. You must agree that the magistr is the local authorities has the authority to coersse its subjects to the gospel. So now we have a picture of the reformers as they're trying to purify the church. The model that they have in their mind in purifying the church is to create a better church state model than what Roman Catholicism has done. So we're going to get rid of some of the unscriptural practices, but the model that we're going to try to build is still going to be a state church model where all of society will be Christian. And that's why they also held on to infant baptism because it's it's very difficult to up uphold a state church if you let it optional to be baptized. But if you baptize everyone into it before they can exercise conscious faith now you hold them accountable to a decision that was made made for them before they even reach the age of accountability. You were baptized. You are a Christian. and now you have an obligation to follow the Christian magistrate. So those were two of the voices that the Anabaptists would have heard and we saw how Martin Luther in his infancy was very or I should say in his earlier days had some thoughts that were very similar to Anabaptism. Uric Zwingley in his earlier days had some thoughts that were very similar to anabaptism. But when they began to deal with the state and the state said we will only go so far then they adjusted their doctrine to the point where the state says we'll go this far but we won't go any further and so they now that model has been created. So how we interpret scripture now has to support what we've already agreed will be the model. And so now the scripture has stopped creating the model because the model's already been created through negotiation with the state. Now we need to go to the scripture and try to use the scripture to support the model that we've already agreed upon. But there were other voices. There were some self-declared prophets. They became known as the Zikal prophets. and they were not in harmony with the reformed approach because they said in the reformed approach all that's doing is turning the clock back in time but you're still maintaining a state church model and so it's just simply going to you're going to dial it back and then it's going to pro progress again to the point where it is now with corruption with Roman Catholicism and in everything that's being done the common people and unless unless you're invited to the council meeting. We saw the picture of the council meeting. Council of Zurich sitting there with the theologians and they're deciding what the state church model is going to be. Well, if you're not invited to that council meeting, you have no input. And so the prophets said, "No, we will not accept the church model where we have no input. We want input into the church model." And then as they began to think this through, they said, 'Well, every time there is an organized church, and we look at history, every organized church eventually corrupts. So the answer to that is is not to organize. And everyone can have the Holy Spirit so everyone can follow the revelation that God gives them. And as we all follow our own revelation, we get together for fellowship. this will be our church. One historian has put it this way. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Zikal prophets was their spiritualism which was that direct revelations were their ultimate authority in theological matters. And the same could be said of Thomas Müster. As one historian says, even though he did not necessarily join them in his theology or in his teaching, he was of them. And so ultimately this would lead to what became known as the peasants rebellion. And it took place at the city of Müster. And you probably heard what some of what took place at the city of Müster. But these prophets declared that Monster was now the new Jerusalem. And for all those who were getting direct revelation from the Lord, you could gather at Monster and there there would be a degree of freedom that was not experienced elsewhere. But that ended up being a tremendous failure and that did become anarchy. And so now the Roman Catholics and the reformers said, "We can see what will happen when you do not include the state in the negotiations with the church because if you don't have the state supporting the church, the church is going to create chaos in society." And by the way, we can prove it right there. It is there's a case of monster. But then we have another voice at this time. They were the Renaissance scholars. It was mentioned earlier today that the the Constantinople, which was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, that fell to the Turks in 1453. And as the Turks were moving in on Constantinople, the scholars were fleeing and they were fleeing into Western Europe. And a lot of them went into Italy and took a lot of uh Greek documents with them into Italy. And so as we was we were told earlier today, now we have people studying original sources. And so the the thought among a lot of the Renaissance scholars is we don't we don't want any filter between us and the original source. We don't need the church telling us what we should believe because they've studied the documents and this is the this is what you should get out of the documents and now this is what you should believe. We want to study on our own. We want to arrive at our own conclusions on the basis of our own study. And so there was a lot of emphasis on reason and study and academic achievement and intellect. And as this movement began to have a voice, there was also a shift away from the broad power of Roman Catholicism because they saw Roman Catholicism as a a force that dictated what people could believe. In other words, there couldn't be free study if someone's telling us before we even do our study, what are the conclusions that you need to draw from your study? And so, they push back on Roman Catholicism, but they also pushed back on reformation theology because they didn't want anyone telling them what their educational conclusion should be. And so, they became known as the freethinkers. and Conrad Grabble and Felix Mons would come out of that movement of free thinkers studying on our own and arriving at our own conclusions and not allowing anyone else to force us to believe what they want us to believe. And so that was a voice in the culture at that time in which the Anabaptism was birthed. And then we have civil governments and the civil governments had a vested interest in what happens here with the church. The civil governments of Western Europe were in great fear of the continued expansion of the Turkish Empire. The Turkish Empire was growing in power and Eastern Europe was falling area by area to eventually some of the countries of Eastern Europe fell under the Ottoman Empire. And so the Christian western of Europe realized that the only way they could hold back the Turks is if they stayed united in some fashion to fight the common enemy of the Turks. And so when the Anabaptists came along and wanted to had this idea of a separation of church and state, not only was it going against state and church ideals, people were fearful of what this is going to do when the Turks come into our land and overrun our land. And if we're divided among ourselves and our churches are divided and we're not all fighting against a common enemy, we're all going to fall under Islam. So I asked the question, was there any pressure? We tend to think of things in our time frame and think we have a lot of pressure and a lot of complexity to deal with when we make our decisions, but back then things were simpler. They didn't have things to deal with that we have today. You're right. But they had the same amount of pressure and maybe perhaps even more because the decisions that they made they would have to live and perhaps die for. So how would the Anabaptists work through this? Were the scriptures the ultimate authority? If so, how are we going to interpret them? The state is requiring infant baptism and automatic church membership. If we follow that path, what does it mean to be born again and to follow Christ? Do we follow the spirit and individual revelation and have no organized church structure? What about studying academic studies? Are we against academic studies or where does that fall in relation to finding truth within the church? What about all the church tradition? What about all the church fathers? What about all the ecumenical church councils? What about the papal magisterium and their ability to invoke infallibility? We reject the pope's infallibility. But then they're going to ask us, well, where's our infallibility? And how do we know that we are right when we reject the infallibility of the pope? Is it really bad if the civil government wants to be Christian? Wouldn't that be a good thing? But how does that fit in our model of pursuing a pure New Testament church? And then finally they had to answer the question is it possible that we can work within the existing locally established church whatever that is Roman Catholic or reformed or must we break from the state churches all decisions that needed to be made and the question is how did they go about making that decision. and believing that they arrived at a right conclusion and they were ready to die for what they believed in. Fortunately, the Anabaptists have shown us their work. So, we want to go through some of that. They were not like me and just tried to run to the answer at the end when I was a student of math. But they showed their work and that's what we want to do is show some of their work. They recognized that in order to accurately interpret scripture, we need to agree that we are not building a state church because a state church does not exist within the New Testament. And therefore, our model for our church is the church that we see in the New Testament. In the New Testament, we see house churches. In the New Testament, we see churches in their infancy. In the New Testament, we see church, a church at Jerusalem where James says there's thousands of of men that believe. And so, we see in the New Testament, churches at various stages of growth. And in fact, we have a lot of instruction within the New Testament that tells us how the church is to grow up and how the church is to mature. And so they looked at the New Testament and said the New Testament is our model for the church. If we do not find it in the New Testament, then we know that is not the model. And if we interpret scripture in a way that makes us depart from the New Testament model of the church, we know we are not interpreting the scripture correctly. We can see the New Testament model, what those churches look like. We need to interpret the Bible in a way that is consistent with that. But now we need to bring it down into even a more personal level. Because how can we build a New Testament church unless it first begins at the individual level where I personally and consciously make a decision to follow Jesus Christ, whatever that cost may be. So, it's only until I have made a personal decision to follow Jesus Christ and have been born again am I qualified to look at the scriptures and interpret them to understand what a church might look like that is made up of born again believers who all want to follow Jesus Christ. You know the reformers had a number of alones scriptor solid or faith only solaria only grace solar Christos only Christ there's one they didn't have so I coined this noam testamentum eklesia solola or solom testamentum eklesia only the New Testament church. They did not have that in their list of alones. And so as they built their model on their alones, they left one very important one out. Menos Simons would write this as an instruction to preachers. So apply the word and truth of the Lord that they dare not teach or practice a word otherwise than Jesus Christ himself has taught, practiced and commanded, namely the pure unadulterated biblical word in the true sense and meaning of Christ and his holy apostles. What Menos Simons was saying is that not only are we just looking at the scriptures as our final authority, but we have to interpret the scriptures in a manner that is consistent with the pattern of Christ and his apostles. And we may only practice what they practice. Because otherwise we will not have the church that Jesus built unless we follow the same example that Christ set for us. And his apostles, he said, were faithful followers of Christ. So you cannot follow the apostles and arrive at a different conclusion than if you just follow Christ. The apostles followed Christ. And so we need the example of both. We need the example of Christ. We need the example of the apostles and we need to recognize that that model is the same. There's no conflict in that model. Jesus promised to the apostles that he would guide them into all truth and on that basis they established churches. Men would write also, "True evangelical faith looks upon and has respect to the doctrine, ceremonies, commands, prohibitions, and unblameable examples of Christ alone." There's the men of Simons alone that when it comes to an example, the only example that we can follow as we obey, interpret, and apply the scriptures is the example of Christ alone. or as he said at another place, Christ and the apostles alone. That is one alone that was missing in the state churches. What are some other distinct areas between the Anabaptists and how they they uh made their decisions with and arrive at different outcomes? So the one that we've identified first is the model. The model or the vision that they had of a church was solely based on a model that was set by the example of Christ and the apostles. So all their interpretation of scripture needs to feed into that model and that model needs to back feed into the interpretation of scripture. When you divorce interpretation of scripture from the example of Christ or the model of Christ, no matter how many exoggetical backflips you do, you will arrive at a wrong conclusion. And this made a big difference in interpretation of scripture. Whereas the Anabaptists in their interpreting scripture, their first approach was to take scripture in its simplest form and simply obey it. and you use the simple scriptures to help you interpret the more complex scriptures. Whereas often the reformers or I'll just say the state church model would use some very intricate interpretations and applications of scriptural parables of the kingdom and then try to use them to cancel out the very plain and simple teachings of Christ. One of the things that they would go on to say is that whereas the the state churches said that in the parable of the wheat and tears, they looked at the parable of the wheat and tears as a complete parable of the kingdom. And in the parable of the kingdom, there's both wheat and tears. That's what they would argue. And the Anabaptist would respond, "Well, you're not following the example that Jesus gave in the interpretation and application of that parable where he said, "The field is the world." That's where the wheat and tears are in. They're in the world. And the wheat are the children of the kingdom. Because in the one model you're trying to prop up a state church model and in the other model you're following the New Testament pattern. And so it makes a difference and how you interpret that parable based on the model that we are trying to build. So on the one hand both the Protestants and the Catholics believe the church in their time should look different from the apostolic church. And you know what? They accomplished their goal. It did look different from the apostolic church. The Anabaptists believe that unless you were born again, unless you had the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and unless you were following Christ, you were not qualified to interpret scripture, even if you had a lot of academic training. Leonard Shimemer in 1528 right before he was beheaded he wrote only through the spirit can we hope to understand the gospels. Lewig hater in 1529 before he was beheaded understand that these statements are made before someone is ready to give their life for their statement. No man, no matter how learned he may be, can understand the holy writings until he comes to know them and learns them in the most inward part of his soul. So what is being said here? The only way that we become a qualified interpreter of scripture is if we take scripture within ourselves and the scripture is written on our law on the on our minds and on our hearts and we are living out the scripture. as as we live out the scripture, we learn to properly interpret the scripture. And the only way that we can understand the scripture to live it out is if the Holy Spirit is living within us. It can only happen if we've been born again. If we had a conscious decision of faith and so they would refer to this sometimes as the inner word. The inner word is simply the word that we have received with meekness which is which God has engrafted to us which is able to save our souls. Being born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the word of God which lives and abides forever. So as we've been born again of the incorruptible seed, now we are qualified to interpret the outer word because the inner word and the outer word are already in agreement. Repentance means coming to an agreement with God. That's literally what repentance means. I'm turning my I'm going in one direction. I'm turning in another direction and I'm turning in another direction because I am now agreeing with God. It is impossible to accurately interpret scripture. Unless you've consciously repented. Because unless you've consciously repented, your mind does not agree with God. When your mind does not agree with God, the inner word and the outer word are in conflict. When the inner word and the outer word are in conflict, it will affect your biblical interpretation. And so the Anabaptists stressed conscious repentance, conscious faith, not proxy faith. And the verse that the reformers like to quote, "The just shall live by faith." Go back to the original source. The just shall live by his faith, personal faith. Abraham was justified by his faith, not a proxy faith. And see, the whole reformed and state church theology and Roman Catholic theology was based on bringing people into the church as infants based on proxy faith of sponsors and proxy faith of parents. In other words, believing for the child. That's the best way to fill a church with unregenerate people is to bring them in before they are regenerated. Along with their interpretation and their steadfastness was also humility. They were careful not to have intricate creeds that would assume that they would know everything. They were careful to to set aside a personal pope and replace it with a paper pope. Recognizing that we need to be always open to receive more truth and open enough to allow error to get out. They taught that regeneration is always evidenced by godly character and obedience. Now listen to the words of men of Simons as he talked about justification by faith. The Anabaptists were often accused that they did they did not believe in justification by faith because they stressed a regenerated life after faith was exercised. And so Men of Simon said this, "We plainly teach that we cannot be saved by outward works, however great and glorious they may appear, or that we can thus entirely please God, for they are ever mixed with imperfection and weakness. And therefore through the corruption of the flesh we cannot acquire the righteousness required in the commandments. Therefore we point alone to Jesus Christ who is our only eternal righteousness reconciliation and propitiator with the father and do not at all trust in our works. But then he would go on to say but we abhore the carnal works and desire to suit ourselves to his word and commandment. According to our own weakness we do because he has so taught and commanded us. For whosoever does not walk according to his doctrine proves in fact that he does not believe on him nor knows him and that he is not in the communion of the saints. So in very simple form men Simons was saying we trust Jesus completely for our salvation and when we trust Jesus completely for our salvation he makes us into followers of Jesus Christ. That's I'm saying it as simple as I can say it. Faith is never in conflict with works. It is not an argument about how much. It's a matter of trusting in Jesus alone in order that Jesus himself would create us in him unto good works. Not only did they believe the only way of salvation was by a conscious and personal response to the gospel, they also believe that those responses that we give to the gospel would decide our eternal fate, our eternal destiny. No priest could undo what we decided after we have died. In death, everyone's destiny was final. Men of Simon would write this concerning their persecutors. The whole scriptures testify that they shall forever bear the intolerable curse and malediction of the righteous judgment of God in the devour devouring flames of hell. and their lot shall be like that of the angel of the bottomless pit with the unbearable wrath of God, death and hell, which shall last forever. One of the ways in which the Roman Catholics would get people to be executioners is that the Roman Catholics had the power and the state had the power to tell them to be the executioner, but then they also had the power to absolve them of the sin of execution, especially if they executed someone who may have been innocent. But when the Anabaptists looked at this and said, "No, you are responsible before God and and your choice, whether you're following the orders of a state or not, your choice to either follow Christ or choose not to do so has eternal and irrevocable consequences." And so we ask the question, what does it mean to be an Anabaptist today? How should we decide on the issues that face us? Do we just try to carbon copy the Anabaptists and say, "Well, we're Anabaptists because the best that we can tell, we're carboncopying them." And so I asked the question, who did they carbon copy? If you were among the first, who did you carbon copy? We know who they carboncopied. They did not try to carbon copy themselves or anyone else that they respected. I read it to you. They tried to carbon copy Jesus Christ and his apostles. So if you want to be an Anabaptist today, who do you need to carbon copy? The same ones that they did. You know, it makes a radical difference in your life whether you choose to become an Anabaptist or whether you choose to follow Christ. You realize that makes a tremendous difference. If you choose to follow Christ in the way that we describe, someone might call you an Anabaptist and that's okay. But if you choose to be an Anabaptist, we don't know if you're following Christ unless you first choose to follow him. You see, we're all infected with the same thing that I'm infected with. We want to quickly get to the bottom line. And if we think we know what the right answers are, we can memorize the right answers. And if we can memorize the right answers, we can repeat the right answers. And we can tell everybody we're an Anabaptist because we can repeat the Anabaptist answers. The history of Anabaptism shows us today that sometimes how we make decisions is even more important than the decisions that we make. And I would quote my father at this point who said, "Often it is not so much what a man does that is most important, but it is what moves him to do it. Those who have been called Anabaptists in the past, it was their desire to pattern their lives and their churches after the pattern of Christ and the apostles as is modeled in the New Testament. But how you arrive at your conclusions is just as important as what you have concluded. Because how we decide makes a significant difference in how we communicate the message. Just as the teacher wanted me to show my my work because it wasn't just important that I got the right answer one time, I needed to understand the process whereby I might continue to get right answers. It's very easy for us to memorize an answer and then to try to carbon copy that answer. But when we don't understand the process of following Christ and modeling a church after the New Testament pattern as we're applying the stereotypical carbon copy, we're going to make a mistake that's going to put us at variance with the New Testament. How we communicate the message has a significant impact on the response of the listener. In closing, I would simply say it this way. We desire to follow Jesus path to Jesus truth. [Music]