Ecclesiology
Christ builds His church, and His churches have never ceased from the earth. Ecclesiology studies the local church, its perpetuity, believer's baptism by immersion, the Lord's Supper, church government, and the priesthood of believers.
Recommended Order
Study in any order. This path builds each topic on the one before it.
The local church, a congregation of saved and baptized believers voluntarily united under Christ, is God's institution to carry out His work today.
Christ's churches of saved and baptized believers have existed in every age since He founded them, distinct from the institutional church of Rome.
Baptism is for those who have believed, by immersion, picturing the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. It follows salvation; it does not cause it. Infant baptism is a later departure from the New Testament.
An ordinance of remembrance and proclamation of the Lord's death until He comes, observed by believers in the local church.
Every believer has direct access to God through Christ, the one Mediator, and serves Him as a priest without the need of any human priest.
Each local church is self-governing under Christ, its Head, led by its pastor and served by its deacons, and accountable to Christ and His Word rather than to any outside hierarchy.
Related Study
Historical errors and comparisons that sharpen this area of doctrine.