Can You Find Your Denomination

In the New Testament?

by Bryan Gibson

We would like to issue a challenge to our readers, particularly to those who are members of a denomination. Can you point to a passage or group of passages in the New Testament and say, “That’s where you can read about my denomination”? After all, the New Testament is our source of authority, and if we can’t find it there, we should obviously be very concerned. Do your own study, and see if you agree with the points made in the remainder of this article. Please feel free to reply if you have any objections to what is said. It will do us all good to discuss this matter openly.

When you look carefully through the New Testament, you will not find a word about Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, etc. What we do find in the New Testament is that individually, the people of God were referred to as Christians (Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Peter 4:16), disciples (Acts 6:1; 9:1, 19), saints (Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2), believers (1 Tim. 4:12; 6:2), etc. Groups of Christians who worked and worshipped together (local congregations) were likewise described in various ways, sometimes simply by their location (e. g. “church in Ephesus”—Rev. 2:1); sometimes by whom the church was composed (“church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”—1 Thessalonians 1:1); and then other times by their relationship to God and to His Son (“churches of Christ”—Romans 16:16; “church of God” (1 Corinthians 1:2). There were some divisions that developed in the New Testament, with different party names, but these were strongly condemned (1 Corinthians 3:1-4; 1:10).

Perhaps this will make the point even clearer. Could someone today follow only the New Testament and become a Baptist, or Methodist, or Lutheran, or Catholic, etc.? The answer is clearly no. If you followed only the New Testament you would be just what those people in the New Testament were—simply Christians with no denominational ties whatsoever. To become anything else, you would have to do something not found in the New Testament.

The good news, though, is that each one of us can be a member of the church described in the New Testament, the one Jesus promised to build (Matthew 16:18). You can be part of something where your only allegiance is to Jesus Christ, not to any denominational creed or doctrine. You can be part of a local church like the ones described in the New Testament. The next few articles will go into more detail about exactly how that can be done.