Proud IFB
Good Morning,
Our world is infinitely provided with foolishness, ignorance, and assumptions. One such ignorant assumption crossed my path recently; someone said that I was an IFB. Saying so, as if it were a cuss word. They were talking as though the behavior of someone across the nation or across town was somehow tied to our church. IFB… INDEPENDENT – They missed the “I” of IFB. We are not tied by finance, by leadership, by organization, or by fellowship – we are independent.
Slanderers and accusers love to lump folks together in groups, thereby maligning them because of others who have stumbled. Nevertheless, that would be like saying the first place team is the same as the last place team because they both play the same sport.
We understand that Satan is an accuser of the brethren. It is his specialty to slander you when you do not want to drink liquor at a company gathering, or for skipping a family gathering for church on Sunday. It is the specialty of Satan to bring railing accusations against you for simple things like attending church on Sunday or putting your children in a private school, rather than the public education cesspool.
Of course, Satan is going to slander anything that is good and godly. Slanderers attacked the prophets; they also attacked Jesus, Himself. The apostles all faced their share of verbal and physical assault as well – that is what Satan does.
I have two pastors, both in Heaven, who both pastored Independent Baptist churches. Independent – that means nobody is over anybody. That means the church next-door or across the street is none of my business. That means the Bible and the membership are the ones who make the decisions in our church planning. Independent means we are independent, and whatever another independent entity does is no more our business than what Ecuador has to do with Estonia. These are independent nations; they do not oversee each other.
Let me quickly define IFB.
Independent means we are independent as a church. I think I have made that clear. We pay our own bills, and we give to whomever we choose on the mission field; no one outside our church tells us what to do.
Fundamental means that we stick to the basics, the most foundational truths and principles of our church. Fundamentals meaning we believe the Bible to be the Word of God. We believe Jesus was virgin-born, that He died for our sins, that He rose again three days later, and that He is coming again for us. Fundamental means we believe the simple old principles that old-time Baptists believed throughout the ages. We believe that baptism is for believers, and that it is under water. We believe that the church is to be separate from the state, and that the church members are to be separate from the world. The Bible says friendship with the world is enmity with God.
Baptist means we are Baptist. We are not Lutherans; we are not Presbyterians; we are not Methodists – we are Baptists! We are not Protestants – we were never Catholics, and we never did protest and come out of the Catholic Church. As our Wednesday night Bible studies have shown, Baptist churches, as well as others who are Baptistic in their philosophies, have been around for 2000 years. We did not come from the Reformation, and in reality, we were reformers long before the Reformation ever took place.
I, for one, am proud to be what I am spiritually and organizationally. I love that I am an American, and I am proud of it. America has its flaws, but it is my country, and there is nowhere else I would rather be. I am thankful, proud, and honored that I can have a wife and a family. I am certainly proud to be called a child of God. I am a member of an independent church, and that church believes in the fundamental doctrines that Baptists have always held. We are Baptists! Therefore, yes, I am an IFB! I do not believe I have ever identified myself or our church as IFB, as if it were a title (for the very essence of independent does not allow it). If I said we were a part of a group called IFB, then we would not be “I” or independent. Yes, we are Independent; we are Fundamental, and we are Baptist, but we are unaffiliated with anyone – so we are not in a group, denomination, or association. It is nobody’s business how our church is run, and it is none of our business what other churches do because we are independent.
Pastor