As leaders in Christ’s church, we don’t get to establish our own guiding principles. But rather, we must do exactly what Christ commands. In this series, we will discover several hallmarks that Scripture defines are essentially to be a biblical church.

Unfortunately, many churches have abandoned the core tenets of the Christian faith, and consequently, they have wholesale abandoned the gospel. But for us, as Christians, not only must we boldly proclaim and hold fast to good news of Jesus Christ, we must attend churches that embrace and proclaim the same message.

It’s common today for churches to profess a high view of God but completely disregard His clear commands for Christ’s church. On today’s program, Tom Pennington demonstrates from Scripture that all biblical churches must have a high view of God—and their philosophy of ministry must flow from that commitment.

Many professing Christians and the local churches they attend proclaim that Scripture is their ultimate authority—but deny it in practice. For a church to be a biblical church, they must affirm that the Bible is God-breathed, it is sufficient, and that it speaks authoritatively for all of life, including how churches should conduct themselves.

In order for a church to be both biblical and spiritually healthy, it’s essential they have a high view of God’s Word. In other words, they must treat the Bible with the utmost respect as they would God Himself.

A biblical church understands and embraces what the Bible teaches about man: his nature, problems, and their solutions. While the culture continues to understand man through psychology and other philosophies, we, as Christians, must be committed to what the Bible says about man.

A biblical understanding of man puts into perspective man’s condition before a holy God: He is a wretched sinner, one who has rebelled and sinned against a holy God and is thus unable to save himself.

In today's message, we come to the fourth hallmark, and it’s that a biblical church must intentionally structure church life to reflect what the Bible teaches.

According to the New Testament, it starts by regularly coming together for corporate worship on the Lord’s day, as well as regularly observing the ordinances of believer’s baptism and the Lord’s table, two ordinances that Scripture commands faithful churches to administer.