Statement of Faith

We believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of the Scriptures (Old and New Testaments). By verbal, we mean that the original writers were guided by the Holy Spirit in the exact choice of words yet respecting and using the personality characteristics, style and vocabulary of each writer. By the word plenary, we believe that this divine verbal inspiration extends equally and fully to all parts of the original manuscripts — historical, poetical, doctrinal, and prophetical — so that every word is both infallible as to truth and final as to divine authority (2 Timothy 3:16-17; John 10:35; 2 Peter 1:21; 3:16).
We believe in the literal method of interpretation; which gives to each word the same exact meaning it would have in normal, ordinary, customary usage, whether employed in writing, speaking or thinking. We believe that the greater part of the Bible makes sense when interpreted literally; that it is the only sane and safe check on the imaginations of man; that it grounds interpretation in fact; delivers us from both reason and mysticism; and that this approach does not blindly rule out figures of speech, symbols, allegories and types; but if the nature of the sentence so demands, it readily yields to the second sense; we should seek no other sense; we must take every word at its primary, ordinary, literal, usual meaning unless the context indicates clearly otherwise.
However, we believe that the following principles are prerequisites to a proper interpretation of the Scriptures; these are: one must be born again and have an utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit to guide and direct (John 16:7-14; 1 Corinthians 2:7-16).
We also believe one must interpret according to the immediate context; according to the larger context, such as the scope or the design of the book itself, and by comparing Scripture with Scripture.
The eastern Greek Byzantine Church has preserved more than 5,000 Greek copies of our Bible. The Old Testament was translated from Hebrew to Greek and is called the Septuagint. The New Testament scriptures were originally written in Greek and required no translation. They are referred to as the Byzantine Text. There are a few slight differences among these 5,000 copies. Desiderius Erasmus used approximately six copies of the Greek Byzantine manuscripts as his source for a new Bible and rejected copies of the Alexandrian text available in the Roman Catholic Church. The first printing of the new Greek Bible was in February 1516 and contained Greek text parallel to his own Latin version. This Bible became known as the Textus Receptus, meaning Received Text.
The Authorized King James Version of the Bible was prepared from the Textus Receptus as well as many of the other 5,000 Greek manuscripts in 1611. We believe the New Kings James Version is equally sound being translated from the same source text. We believe all other versions are less reliable due to the source of their text near Alexandria, Egypt. See the following page for further information: