ICBI III – THE CHICAGO STATEMENT ON BIBLICAL APPLICATION

Final ICBI Conference: December 10-13, 1986

• NOTE: If you are not a Biblical Scholar, but do study the Bible and consider how God wants you to apply His Word to your contemporary life in Christ, PAUSE for TRUTH in each of these APPLICATIONS. – RH

16 ARTICLES OF AFFIRMATION AND DENIAL

NOTE: These include the 5 articles previewed in my previous post on DOCTRINE.
I highlight ONLY a few select AFFIRMATIONS or DENIALS included as sub-points for certain ARTICLES.

After scanning the Topics included in all 16 articles I recommend clicking on the link above to the full document and focus on those issues most applicable to your own life in Christ Jesus. RH

• Article I: The Living God

We deny that the notion of God should be accommodated to modern thought which has no place for the
concepts of sin and salvation.

• Article II: The Savior and His Work

We deny that persons capable of rational choice can be saved without personal faith in the biblical Christ

• Article III: The Holy Spirit and His Work

We affirm that the church’s vitality in worship and fellowship, its faithfulness in confession, its fruitfulness in
witness, and its power in mission, depend directly on the power of the Holy Spirit.

• Article IV: The Church and Its Mission
• Article V: Sanctity of Human Life
• Article VI: Marriage and the Family
• Article VII: Divorce and Remarriage
• Article VIII: Sexual Deviations

We affirm that Scripture reveals God’s standards for sexual relationships, deviation from which is sinful.

We deny that heredity, childhood conditioning, or other environmental influences can excuse deviant sexual
behavior.

• Article IX: The State Under God

We affirm that Christ’s rule of the church through His Word must not be confused with the power He grants
to civil governments; such confusion will compromise the purity of the gospel and will violate the conscience
of individuals.

We deny that the state has the right to usurp authority of other God-givenspheres of life, especially in the
church and in the family.

• Article X: Law and Justice
• Article XI: War
• Article XII: Discrimination and Human Rights

We affirm that Christians are admonished to follow the compassionate example of Jesus by helping to bear
the burdens of those whose human rights have been diminished.

We deny that any so-called human right which violates the teaching of Scripture is legitimate.

• Article XIII: Economics
• Article XIV: Work and Leisure
• Article XV: Wealth and Poverty

We affirm that sacrificial effort to relieve the poverty, oppression, and suffering of others is a hallmark of
Christian discipleship.

We deny that we may rightly call ourselves disciples of Christ if we lack active concern for the poor, oppressed, and suffering, especially those of the household of faith.

• Article XVI: Stewardship of the Environment

A few [select] closing points

• Summit III focuses, first, on the Trinitarian foundations that must give shape to all the church’s life and witness, and then on a number of community concerns that come under the heading of Christian social ethics.
• Fifth, it is a mistake of method to relativize biblical teaching to the cultural axioms, assumptions and paradigms of this or any age.

Mainstream Protestantism over the past two centuries .. has erred in a radical way by acquiring the habit of regularly relativizing biblical teaching to current secular fashion..

But this is to forget how sin darkens and misdirects the human intellect in relation to all that ultimately matters, and to forget too that Scripture was given us to lighten our mental and spiritual darkness by showing us where the concepts and conceits of secular culture in this and every other age fall short.

Approaching Contemporary Problems, a fifth principle, ICBI THE CHICAGO STATEMENT ON BIBLICAL APPLICATION

• The proper way to pose the hermeneutical question that is central in contemporary debate is to ask:

• What it is in us, and in our culture, that keeps us from hearing God’s unchanging Word of judgment, mercy, repentance and righteousness, as it applies to us and to our own situation?

ibid.

Conclusion

Hold on to the example of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.

Protect, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.

2 Timothy 1:13-14 NASB20

Pages: 1 2 3 4