Braintrim Baptist church

Our Sunday evening services are at 6:30 PM.

Although I enjoy a good theological discussion, this is not the forum for it. This is for questions about Braintrim Church. I am not dodging your question, but I am questioning your purpose. Do you wish to find a church and perhaps attend ours? Are you seeking real answers to these questions? Are you testing me or our church doctrine? Or are you even trying to cast doubts on the Bible and/or God? Our church website contains our statement of beliefs and contact info. Why not contact us and why the anonymity? I have been and will be praying for you. I hope you find what you seek and I hope it is found in the person of Jesus.

Wow, you are really raising some interesting and deep questions. I am not the pastor of the church and would love to continue these discussions you privately and with someone with more Bible knowledge, but I have one question for you. Do you understand what the Bible means by salvation or being saved? Do you know how the Bible (not me) says that happens to a person. Do you consider yourself saved? No offense, but if those aren't answered, all these other questions are red herrings.

I can't answer for anyone else but we believe it is done in obedience to Jesus's command. Not for salvation but after salvation to demonstrate publicly what has already happened in salvation. It shows Jesus death burial and resurrection and that is why we believe baptism should always be by immersion. It is not the water that is the symbol, it is the covering by water that is the symbol.

Bible scholars actually do study Greek and Hebrew and read the original versions and that's how we know which is which. Maybe paraphrase would have been a better word than transliteration. When translators try to "sum it up" and simplify the language or concepts they often get into trouble. All this is academic unless you accept that God shared his characteristics and plan through the Bible -- that the book is reliable and has something to offer us. Is there a particular passage that you are struggling to understand?

That's a great question. We believe that God provided His word to us through the scriptures and he has preserved the message. Unfortunately, we don't read Greek and Hebrew so we are forced to translate. Some translations attempt to overly simplify the scriptures to make it "easy" for the layman. Some try to modernize it for the culture, and some actually have agendas and are trying to twist God's word to prove some pet idea of theirs. We accept true translations not transliterations of original scriptures. While we can obsess over a handful of passages we don't understand, the real challenge is to apply the bulk of scripture we do.

Jesus said this to the Pharisees who had tried a "gocha" question to trap him. They were not concerned about the woman in the story and were feeling very smug in their self-righteousness. He is saying that none of us are without sin and a good self examination of our motives are always in order before we can address sin in others. It is much the same as the verse in Matthew 7:5. Good advice. What do you think of the passage?

While our Pastor teaches from the King James, we are not a KJV only church. We insist that it be a literal translation not a paraphrase. You would be welcome to worship and study with us.