EPIC's Statement of Faith
EPIC – ETERNAL PRAISE IN CHRIST
CONSTITUTION
Identity EPIC is a Christian home school support group.
Purpose The purpose of EPIC is to serve, encourage, and support Christian homeschooling families. This includes families who are anticipating homeschooling, families who are currently homeschooling one or more of their children, and families who may no longer be homeschooling but are still interested in ministering to homeschooling families.
Core Values (These form the basis of our beliefs about home education) As Christian parents:
· It is our God-given right and privilege to home school our children.
· It is our responsibility to provide excellence in home school education.
· It is our desire for our children to know, love, obey and glorify God.
Core Beliefs
CONSTITUTION
Identity EPIC is a Christian home school support group.
Purpose The purpose of EPIC is to serve, encourage, and support Christian homeschooling families. This includes families who are anticipating homeschooling, families who are currently homeschooling one or more of their children, and families who may no longer be homeschooling but are still interested in ministering to homeschooling families.
Core Values (These form the basis of our beliefs about home education) As Christian parents:
· It is our God-given right and privilege to home school our children.
· It is our responsibility to provide excellence in home school education.
· It is our desire for our children to know, love, obey and glorify God.
Core Beliefs
- We affirm that the Holy Scriptures, comprised of the Old and New Testaments, are fully inspired by God and are therefore without error and infallible in the original writings and completely trustworthy in all areas in which they speak. They are therefore the supreme, unmediated, and final authority of faith and practice for every believer. (2 Tim. 3:16-17). We deny all modern liberal notions that the Bible contains errors or contradictions. We deny that human insight or illumination has the authority to override Biblical truth, properly understood. While we understand that we may differ as to the interpretation of a particular text of Scripture, we deny that any text may be ignored or supplanted merely to accommodate contemporary notions of morality that contradict and exclude Biblical truth.
- We affirm there is only one eternal, almighty, and perfect God. Within the Being of this one true God exist three eternally distinct and coequal Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three Persons are the one true God, which is historically understood to be the doctrine of the Trinity (Matt. 28:19, Eph. 4:4-6, 2 Cor. 13:14). While we understand that there may be confusion about how to understand and explain this doctrine, we deny unbiblical concepts such as Unitarianism, oneness, modalism, partialism, and other anti- or non-trinitarian understandings of the Godhead.
- We affirm that Christ is the eternal Son of God. By Him, all things were created that were created. He is in full unity and equality with the Trinity, but is a separate personality from the Father and the Holy Spirit. In His incarnation He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God, taking upon Himself human nature with its demands and necessities and identifying Himself completely with mankind yet without sin. He honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and in His substitutionary death on the cross He made provision for the redemption of men from sin. He was raised from the dead with a glorified body and appeared to His disciples as the person who was with them before His crucifixion. He ascended into heaven and is now exalted at the right hand of God where He is the One Mediator, fully God, fully man, in whose Person is effected the reconciliation between God and man. He will return in power and glory to judge the world and to consummate His redemptive mission. He now dwells in all believers as the living and ever-present Lord. (Gen. 18:1ff.; Psalms 2:7ff.; 110:1ff.; Isaiah 7:14, 53:1-12; Daniel 7:13-14; Matt. 1:18-23; 3:17; 8:29; 11:27; 14:33; 16:16,27; 17:5; 27; 28:1-6,19; Mark 1:1; 3:11; Luke 1:35; 4:41; 22:70; 24:46; John 1:1-18,29; 10:30,38; 11:25-27; 12:44-50; 14:7-11; 16:15-16,28; 17:1-5, 21-22; 20:1-20,28; Acts 1:9; 2:22-24; 7:55-56; 9:4-5,20; Rom. 1:3-4; 3:23-26; 5:6-21; 8:1-3,34; 10:4; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2:2; 8:6; 15:1-8,24-28; 2 Cor. 5:19-21; 8:9; Gal. 4:4-5; Eph 1:20; 3:11; 4:7-10; Phil. 2:5-11; Col 1:13-22; 2:9; 1 Thess. 4:14-18; 1 Tim. 2:5-6; 3:16; Titus 2:13-14; Heb. 1:1-3; 4:14-15; 7:14-28; 9:12-15,24-28; 12:2; 13:8; 1 Peter 2:21-25; 3:22; 1 John 1:7-9; 3:2; 4:14-15; 5:9; 2 John 7-9; Rev. 1:13-16; 5:9-14; 12:10-11; 13:8; 19:16). We deny that Jesus was a created being in any sense, and in no sense was He merely a good or wise human being. We deny that He was less than fully human in his incarnation. We deny that the crucifixion was an accident or interruption to his ministry, but rather that it was in fact His reason for coming in the flesh, and part of the Eternal Plan of God for the redemption of any human being that repents of their sin.
- We affirm the ministry of the Holy Spirit by whose indwelling the Christian is enabled to live a godly life, and by whom the Church, the Body of Christ, is gifted and equipped to serve and glorify God. The Holy Spirit’s teaching is always consistent with the teaching of the Bible. (Gal. 5:16-18; Rom. 8:9; 2 Tim. 3:16-17). We deny that the Holy Spirit will guide anyone in a way that is contrary to a clear teaching of Scripture.
- We affirm that Humanity is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation. In the beginning man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence whereby his posterity inherited a nature and an environment inclined toward sin. As a consequence, all persons, male and female without exception, are born under the curse of sin, and are deserving of eternal damnation. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love. (Gen. 1:26-30; 2:5,7,18-22; 3; 9:6; Psalms 1; 8:3-6; 32:1-5; 51:5; Isaiah 6:5; Jer. 17:5; Matt. 16:26; Acts 17:26-31; Rom. 1:19-32; 3:10-18,23; 5:6,12,19; 6:6; 7:14-25; 8:14-18,29; 1 Cor. 1:21-31; 15:19,21-22; Eph. 2:1-22; Col. 1:21-22; 3:9-11.) We deny that sex and gender are fluid, and that any person has the authority to deny their God-given sex and gender identity. We deny that any person is born in a state of innocence before a Holy God. We deny that any human being, regardless of age, skin color, nationality, genealogy, physical disability, mental disability, or deformity, is anything less than an image bearer of God – worthy of dignity and respect from conception to extreme old age. We deny that any human being, apart from repentance of their sin and belief in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is capable of escaping from the damnation of Hell by their own ingenuity or good works.
- We affirm Jesus’ death on the cross provided penal substitutionary atonement for the sins of humanity. In salvation we are rescued from God’s wrath by His unmerited grace through faith alone in Christ. (2 Cor. 5:21, Eph. 2:8-10). We deny the Roman Catholic teaching that human beings contribute any merit that earns their salvation, and we deny the teaching that the merit of departed “saints” can contribute anything toward the salvation of any person.
- We affirm the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; the saved unto the resurrection of eternal life and the lost unto the resurrection of damnation and eternal punishment. (Rev 20:11-15; 1 Cor. 15:51-57). We deny the concept of “universalism” (that all will be saved) as contrary to the clear teaching of Jesus Christ throughout the Gospels and the rest of Scripture. We deny that Hell is anything less but an eternal punishment without end for those who face the Final Judgment uncovered by the blood of Christ.
- We affirm the Christian church, which is the body and bride of Christ, is composed of all persons who only through saving faith in Jesus Christ have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. Corporately and individually, its members strive to worship, serve, and glorify God through prayer and praise, diligent study and application of the Scriptures, evangelism, sanctified living, good works, and observance of the rites of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The ultimate mission of the church is the discipleship of all nations – not only the sharing of the salvation message (which is primary), but also bringing the gospel to bear on every aspect of life and thought – until the Lord returns. (Gal. 3:28, I Peter 2:5, II Peter 2:5-8, I Cor. 11:23, Matt. 28:19-20, Rom. 12:1-2). We deny that mere baptism, or membership in a visible church, can save a person from the damnation of Hell apart from true acknowledgement and repentance of their sin and total reliance on Jesus Christ. We deny that a saved person can continue to live in open, unrepentant sin. Also, while a person may become estranged from a church for a variety of reasons (which may or may not be their fault) we deny that a saved person can indefinitely abstain from worship and support of a local church. We deny that a saved person can oppose the spread of the Gospel message to the lost. We deny that a saved person can support or affirm clearly sinful and anti-Biblical behavior when it is clearly understood to be so.
- We affirm that God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption. Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to Biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race. Parents are to demonstrate to their children God’s pattern for marriage. (Gen. 1:26-28; Gen. 2:15-25; Gen. 3:1-20; Pro. 5:15-20; Pro. 6:20-22; Matt. 5:31-32; Matt. 19:1-9; Mark 10:1-12; Luke 16:18; Rom. 1:24-26; 1 Cor. 6:9-10; 1 Cor. 7:1-40; 1 Tim. 1:10). We deny the legitimacy of bigamy and polygamy. We deny the legitimacy of sexual activity outside of, or prior to, marriage. We deny the legitimacy of homosexual relationships because they are contrary to the clear teaching of Scripture. We deny the legitimacy of divorce on unbiblical grounds. We deny that the aforementioned sins can be understood as anything less than sins. But we also deny that any person, who may have committed any of these aforementioned sins, is far from the saving Grace of Jesus Christ if they repent of their sins and believe in the Gospel – and once they have truly repented, are no longer to be considered under the stigma of any of these sins, and are in a state of Grace the same as any other believer.
- We affirm that children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. We affirm the abortion of a viable fetus is infant homicide. Therefore, to perform, submit to, support, or encourage the practice is at best manslaughter, and at worst, murder. (Exo. 20:13, 21:22-24; Psalm 51:5; Psalm 139:13-16; Deut. 5:17; 2; Isaiah 44:2, 44:24, 46:3, 49:1; Jer. 1:5; Jer. 20:17; Luke 1:15, 1:41-44). We deny that a saved person can condone the perpetuation of infant homicide otherwise known as abortion. We deny the validity of “pro-choice” arguments as they promote the legitimacy of infant homicide. We also deny that any person, who may have performed, submitted to, supported, or encouraged the practice of abortion is far from the saving Grace of Jesus Christ if they repent of their sins and believe in the Gospel – and once they have truly repented, are no longer to be considered under the stigma of this sin, and is in a state of Grace the same as any other believer.
- We affirm that parents are to teach their children spiritual and moral values and to lead them, through consistent lifestyle example and loving discipline, to make choices based on Biblical truth. Children are to honor and obey their parents. (Exo. 20:12; Joshua 24:15; 1 Sam. 1:26-28; Psalm 78:1-8; Pro. 13:24, 17:6, 22:6, 22:15, 23:13-14; Eph. 6:1-4; Col. 3:18=25; 1 Tim. 3:4; Titus 1:6). We deny that children can thrive in an undisciplined environment, or are capable of making major life altering choices. We deny that parents can abdicate their responsibility to teach Biblical truth to the church or Sunday school, and certainly not to the culture at large. We deny that the so-called morality of the popular culture can always be reconciled with Biblical truth.