God is the Unbeginning Alpha and the Unending Omega
This is properly to be, and only this deserves the name of being – that which never was nothing, and never shall be nothing, which may always say, “I am.”
Man is, but look a little backward, and he was not, you shall find his beginning: and step a little forward, and he shall not be, you shall find his end. But God is alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.
But who can retire so far backward as to apprehend a beginning, or go such a leap forward as to conceive an end in a being who is the beginning and end of all things, but without all beginning and end? Whose understanding does it not confound? We cannot imagine a being, but we must first conceive it as nothing and in some instant receiving its being. Therefore, canst thou by searching find out God?
A man’s imagination may extend to suppose to itself as many thousands of years before the beginning of time as have been so far. Then let all the angels and people of all generations from the beginning be employed in nothing but calculating this. And then suppose a product to be made of all their individual sums of years. It would be vast and unspeakable, but yet your imagination could reach further. You could multiply that great sum as often into itself as there are units in it. Now, when you have done all this, you are never a whit nearer the days of the Ancient of Days. Suppose then this was the only activity of humans and angels throughout all eternity, all this marvellous arithmetic would not amount to the least shadow of the countenance of Him who is from everlasting. All that huge product of all the multiplications of humans and angels has no proportion to that never beginning and never ending duration.
Our Lives are Fleetingly Brief
But O, where shall a soul find itself here? It is enclosed between infiniteness before and infiniteness behind, between two everlastings. Whichever way it turns, there is no outgoing, whichever way it looks, it must lose itself in an infiniteness round about it.
Though we vainly please ourselves in the number of our years, and the extent of our life, yet the truth is, we are still only losing as much of our being and time as passes. First we lose our childhood, then we lose our adulthood, and then we leave our old age behind us also, and there is no more before us.
But though days and years are in a continual flux about Him, and they carry us down with their force, yet He abides the same for ever. He is the beginning without any beginning, the end without an end, there is nothing past to him, and nothing to come. He is all, before all, after all, and in all. He beholds out of the exalted and supereminent tower of eternity all the successions and changes of the creatures, and there is no succession, no change in His knowledge, as in ours. He is never driven to any consultation on any emergent or incident. He is in one mind, and who can turn Him?
The Being of God is Beyond Us
Now, canst thou by searching find out God? If mortal creatures cannot attain the measure of what is finite, O then, what can a creature do, what can a creature know, about Him who is infinite, and the maker of all these things? You cannot compass the sea and land, and how then can you comprehend Him who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand? (Isa. 40:10).
Read More

Written by Kyle E. Sims |
Saturday, December 25, 2021
Love must be seen in our denominations. Many denominations are going through difficult times. The issues are serious. Some cut to the heart of what we believe and others to disagreements on how best to live out the Bible. As church leaders, we should be setting an example of love in disagreements and conflict.

Love should be a ubiquitous characteristic among Christians. The scriptures are replete in calling for this emphasis on love in the life of every Christian. Jesus answers the Pharisees that love for God and others were the greatest commandments.
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” – Matthew 22:37–40 (ESV)
The world speaks of love but really they only mean acceptance. Worldly love is predicated on set conditions. In the church, love is much deeper. Love does not just accept people, it works for their best interest.  Christian love should be a much greater love. The church is a place where worldly distinctions are melted away by an intense love fired by a common salvation, a shared hope, and the powerful indwelling by the Holy Spirit. It is a love that is active and involved. The early church father Tertullian wrote how the pagans noted the evident love Christians had for each other.
“But it is mainly the deeds of love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See, they say, how they love one another, for they themselves are animated by mutual hatred.”
Love is at the center of Christianity. God’s gracious and merciful love for sinners is at the heart of the gospel. Once experienced, the Gospel brings a genuine love for God and develops a love for all men. Apostle John speaks about this truth in his First Epistle:
We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. 1 John 4:19–21
Christian, you must be a person of love. Our great enemy knows the power of this love in our hearts, relationships, and churches.
Read More

Doctrinal uncertainty captures not just the difference in relative importance of doctrine, but also the difference between how clearly Scripture presents a doctrine. Doctrinal uncertainty is inherently more focused on the text of Scripture itself. In this way, doctrinal uncertainty is an attractive alternative to doctrinal tiers when dealing with the question of why Christians disagree on some interpretations of Scripture and which interpretations are within orthodoxy.

You have probably heard the phrase “doctrinal tiers” at some point if you have been involved at Church for any length of time. Each Church I have attended in both my childhood and adult life have either mentioned doctrinal tiers or explicitly included them on their Church website. Suffice to say, at some point in your life I have no doubt you will encounter doctrinal tiers if you attend a Bible-preaching Church.
But what are “doctrinal tiers?” Is it a helpful concept? Are there any problems with using it? And is there a better way to solve the same problems doctrinal tiers tries to solve? In this post, I want to answer each of these questions and, in particular, propose an alternative to doctrinal tiers which I call “doctrinal uncertainty.”
What are doctrinal tiers?
Doctrinal tiers are a means to categorize different Bible doctrines in order of importance, orthodoxy or necessity of belief. The number of tiers, what each tier contains, and how the tiers are used varies from person to person and from Church to Church. I have seen them formulated as a pyramid and as a target. Essentially, doctrinal tiers is a way to answer the question “what doctrines and biblical interpretations can Christians disagree on and yet still be considered orthodox in their theology?“
Knowing what Biblical doctrines are essential to be considered saved and orthodox and what doctrines are “secondary” is a vital and practical distinction to make. And that is really all the tiers are: a method of categorization. It is a way of saying “this set of biblical beliefs you must hold to in order to be considered Christian, but these other issues, while important, have varying valid, orthodox interpretations.”
Generally “first tier” issues are the foundational doctrines of the gospel:

Who Christ is
What the nature of Sin is
What is the gospel
How is one saved

And so on. In contrast, secondary or tertiary doctrines include:

Infant baptism vs. believers’ baptism
The various eschatological interpretations
Views on Church structure

And others. From these lists, it is clear the first set deals with doctrines essential for saving faith while the second list deals with different practical matters of Church life and the interpretation of difficult passages.
Now, the concept of doctrinal tiers is important and helpful to a degree. By knowing where the lines of orthodoxy are drawn, Christians can contend for “essential” issues and agree to disagree on other issues. However, there are several problems with the doctrinal tiers model.
Issues with doctrinal tiers
1. Who decides how many tiers should their be and why?
This is a common problem I see when I read about doctrinal tiers: there is no “standard” for how many tiers one creates. Many Churches I know of have either two or three tiers. If you have two tiers, you divide up doctrines between necessary for orthodoxy and doctrines which Christians can disagree on. The three tier model adds another category, typically on doctrines which affect Church practice.
But hypothetically, one need not stop at two or three tiers. Why not four? Five? Ten? At some point the categories end up losing their usefulness, but I think this highlights an issue with the doctrinal tiers model: there is no limit to which you can categorize doctrines by degree of importance. As soon as you open the door for “ranking” doctrines so to speak, there is no reason you have to stop at two or three levels. This can create a situation where some doctrines are seen as “unimportant” simply because they are in a lower tier. Eschatology is a great example: I have met many people who refuse to study the topic because it is “less important.”
2. Who or what decides what doctrine goes in what tier?
This becomes more of a problem the more tiers you add to your model. Who decides which doctrines are essential and which can be safely disagreed upon? For the most part, Christians agree doctrines related to Christ and the gospel are tier 1. But what about different view on God’s providence in salvation? For some people, this is closer to a tier 1 issue than to other people.
Additionally, many of the tier 2 or 3 doctrines in Scripture have a direct relation to tier 1 doctrines. For example, your understanding of the doctrine of baptism (tier 2+) is not independent from what you believe about the gospel (tier 1). And as mentioned above, your view of God’s sovereignty in salvation (most of the time tier 2+) is integral to what you believe about the work of Christ on the cross (tier 1).
The issue with doctrinal tiers is someone has to sort all this out in a way that is not arbitrary. But if you examine what different Churches put into different tiers, you will find enough variation to call into question the process of how the doctrinal tiers are developed. Not every Church agrees with what doctrines goes into what tiers. How then does one discern what the “right” tier is to put a doctrine into? Without some objective or explicitly Scriptural process to decide what doctrines go into what tier, the decision potentially becomes arbitrary.
3. Is there a strong textual basis for doctrinal tiers?
A final critique of the doctrinal tiers model is the Bible generally presents itself as a unity of truth. What I mean by this is Scripture does not label its own doctrines or order them from “most important” to “least important”. Rather, the Bible is presented as God’s revelation to man as a whole. Moreover, doctrines are developed from synthesizing a wide variety of Biblical literature: poetry, prophecy, narrative, epistles, etc. Very rarely does Scripture explicitly say a certain doctrine takes priority over a different doctrine, such as ecclesiology (doctrine of the Church) being in a “higher tier” than eschatology (doctrine of end times).
There are two potential exceptions to this general rule. The first is the Bible puts an enormous emphasis on God’s plan of salvation through Jesus Christ.
Read More