“Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (Romans 15:7)
How did Christ welcome you when he saved you? How, then, should you welcome others? With Romans 14–15 as his text, Pastor Mike gives some practical, biblical exhortations to help Christians to love one another in spite of differences.
“[Election] has a natural tendency to rouse the soul out of its carnal security.” The biblical doctrine of election has been a point of controversy among Christians long before George Whitfield penned these words refuting John Wesley in 1740. It continues to be controversial to this day. Using Ephesians 1 and 2, Pastor Mike explains the doctrine and answers some common questions about it.
Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church, firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text. There is no substitute for the Bible. While the current trend of evangelical churches is toward slogans, programs, dramatizations, and showmanship--none of these is able to change a single life, nor is any other man-made artifice described as Scripture describes itself: "living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword." Only the Word of God is perfect and pure, with the ability to make wise the simple, rejoice the heart, enlighten the eyes, and bring the weary soul to peace with God.
Letter from the Pastors
Letter from the Pastors
Welcome to the Bethlehem Bible Church website! As a church and a pastoral staff, we are delighted that you’ve chosen to visit our site. We pray our Savior will use the content here to strengthen your walk with Him. Bethlehem Bible Church is different from many churches by design. We have one primary aim: to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ by preaching the Word of God verse-by-verse. There are those who see such preaching as passé, but we see it as a Biblical mandate (2 Tim. 4:1, 2). Because of our desire to be true to that mandate, we emphasize (drawn from the Nine Marks of a Healthy Church by Mark Dever):
Expositional Preaching—meaning we want to demonstrate, in context, what Scripture says and not use the Word as a platform for our own opinions. All of our sermons are available for FREE download.
Biblical Theology—The very word “theology” frightens some people. However, everyone is a theologian. That is, you have a system of beliefs about God. We want you to have the tools to fashion an understanding of God from His Word—that’s why He gave it to us.
Biblical Understanding of the Good News—it is frightening to us how fragile a grasp today’s church has on the Gospel. We want to stress the Gospel so that our members can “do the work of ministry.”
Biblical Understanding of Conversion—knowing how God saves and transforms lives is key to living your Christian walk.
Biblical Understanding of Evangelism—every Christian has an obligation to share the good news! Furthermore, inviting someone to go to church is not “evangelism.”
Biblical Understanding of Membership—church membership matters and is biblical.
Biblical Church Discipline—if the Lord commands it, and He does, how dare His church disobey?
Promotion of Christian Discipleship and Growth—we value the interpersonal relationships that develop in the Body and believe they are instrumental in helping individual Christians to mature in Christ.
Biblical Understanding of Leadership
We believe these to be the Biblical "ingredients" of a healthy church - one that can assist you in growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many churches have as their emphases - programs and property, however, we want to have the same priorities as the Lord Himself did during His ministry - people and principles. We want to provide for the genuine needs of people: the accurate teaching of the Word of God, opportunities to exercise spiritual giftedness, loving shepherding and discipleship, and fellowship with those of like precious faith.
We have programs such as: AWANA, Sunday School, a prayer ministry, men’s and women’s ministries, IBS (Institute of Biblical Studies) and more. Every one of our programs is built around our central theme: "(Our) delight is in the Word of the Lord" (Ps. 1:3).
On behalf of the membership here at BBC, we pray you will find your time here edifying, glorifying to God, and maybe a bit challenging. We would love to have you visit us in person!
If that is not possible, please call us during the week. We stand ready to minister to you in any way we can.
More information about BBC and our ministries may be obtained by calling us Monday through Saturday 8:30-5:00 at (508) 835-3400.
In Awe of the Grace of God,
Pastor Mike Abendroth Pastor Steve Cooley Staff Elders
Elder Scott Brown Elder Pradeep Tilak Elder Hariton Deligiannides Lay Elders
Church Info
Bethlehem Bible Church 307 Lancaster Street West Boylston, MA 01583 (508) 835-3400
