About

1. The Bible is inspired of God, inerrant, and the final authority in all matters of faith and practice. (II Timothy 3:16)There is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (Deut. 6:4; John 1:1)
2. The Lord Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, was born of a virgin and is perfectly sinless.  He died for our sins, was bodily resurrected from the grave by God the Father, and has ascended into Heaven interceding for us as our eternal High Priest at the Father’s right hand.  (Phil. 2:5-8; Matt. 1:18; II Cor. 5:21; Matt. 28:5-7; Acts 1:9; Heb 3:1, 4:14-16, 5:5-9; Mark 16:19)
3. Each member of the human race is fallen, sinful, and lost.  Redemption is wholly by the blood of Christ, and salvation is by grace, through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit indwells the believer upon conversion and thus empowers a godly life. (Rom. 3:23; Eph. 1:7; Rom 5:9; Eph. 2:8-9; Eph. 1:13-14)
4. There are two Christian ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Baptism by immersion identifies the Believer with Christ in death, burial, and resurrection.  The Lord’s Supper is a memorial feast, instituted by the Lord Himself exclusively for His own. (Acts 8:26-38; Matt. 28:19; I Cor. 11:23-26)
5. The Church began with the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and is composed of all true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, with each local group led by a plurality of Elders.  Our hope is the personal, imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 2:1- 42; Acts 20:28; I Tim. 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9; I Peter 5:1-3; I Thess. 4:13-18; Rev. 22:20)

Our goal is to bring glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:20–21). This is accom­plished by obey­ing His Word in all issues con­cern­ing life, espe­cially those relat­ing to the church. Thus, our vision is based upon the Great Com­mis­sion of the Lord Jesus Christ in which He gives instruc­tions to make dis­ci­ples of all nations (Matthew 28:19–20). Paul re-emphasizes this con­cept in his let­ter to the Eph­esians where he states that his goal is to preach the “unsearchable riches of Christ” and teach the “fel­low­ship of the things…hidden in God” (Ephesians 3:8–10). Con­se­quently, we desire to see souls saved as ones trust the Lord Jesus as the Sav­ior for their sins, and believe that He died for their sins and rose again. We desire to see believ­ers grow to under­stand the Word of God, appre­ci­ate the love of God, and prac­tice in their lives all that God teaches. Even­tu­ally, believ­ers should grow to see other souls saved and fol­low the teach­ings of God’s Word. This becomes a repeat­ing cycle.

As one comes into a meet­ing of the church, he will observe three “per­son­ages” that come into view; the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and believ­ers or saints (those who have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior).

• The Lord Jesus is God and our head or pas­tor of the church. (Ephesians 1:22–23). He is to have the fore­most and pre-eminent place in our affec­tions, plans, and pri­or­i­ties (Colossians 1:17–18). The Bible does not des­ig­nate any­one else to hold this posi­tion. There­fore, we do not estab­lish the office of pas­tor as is tra­di­tion­ally done by many churches. There is still lead­er­ship in the local church, but it is not a sin­gu­lar indi­vid­ual pre­sid­ing over a church gathering.

•The Holy Spirit is another per­son who func­tions in the local church. He is fully God and serves to direct our atten­tion to the Lord Jesus Christ (John 16:13–14). Addi­tion­ally, He directs and guides the church in our wor­ship (John 4:23–24) and deci­sions (Acts 13:2–4). He pro­vides the strength necessary for believ­ers to live the life of a Chris­t­ian (Galatians 5:16–22).

• The believer is one who has specif­i­cally believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. He believes that Christ was sent by God His Father to take the form of man in order to die and rise from the dead as a sub­sti­tute for the penalty of man’s sin which is death (John 1:12, 3:16, 3:36). The believer is subsequently adopted into the fam­ily of God and made a mem­ber of the church. The Bible uses the anal­ogy of the anatomy of the body of the Lord Jesus to explain this new relationship of believ­ers, one to another.

The Word of God orga­nizes believ­ers in the church into three groups for the sake of orga­ni­za­tion and order: saints, elders, and deacons (Philippians 1:1). The “saints” com­prise all believ­ers in a church meet­ing. “Elders” are ones who have been put into a posi­tion of church lead­er­ship by God’s Spirit (Acts 20:28). “Dea­cons” are like­wise iden­ti­fied as ones whom God’s Spirit uses to pro­vide prac­ti­cal assis­tance in the affairs of the Church so that the “elders” can more fully devote their atten­tion to spir­i­tual mat­ters in the Church (1 Timothy 3:8–13; Acts 6:1–4). The elders and dea­cons are clas­si­fied as “saints” but pro­vide a par­tic­u­lar ser­vice in unique areas for the Lord.

The lead­er­ship struc­ture of Mar­tinez Bible Chapel is based on the offices of elders and dea­cons, as rec­og­nized in the New Tes­ta­ment. Also, based on the pat­tern pro­vided in the New Tes­ta­ment, Mar­tinez Bible Chapel prac­tices a plu­ral­ity of lead­er­ship. As such, no sin­gle indi­vid­ual has the respon­si­bil­ity of pre­sid­ing over Mar­tinez Bible Chapel.

The elders and dea­cons have spe­cific qual­i­fi­ca­tions (1 Timothy 3:1–13 and Titus 1:5–9). They also demon­strate that the Holy Spirit has cho­sen them for their roles in the church by their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the respon­si­bil­i­ties for their respec­tive areas of ser­vice (1 Thessalonians 5:12, 1 Timothy 3:10). The Holy Spirit works in the lives of prospec­tive elders and/or dea­cons as they func­tion within a local church so that the believ­ers in the church are able to rec­og­nize whether the Holy Spirit has cho­sen them to become elders or dea­cons. The elders are specif­i­cally charged with shep­herd­ing the saints and pro­tect­ing the saints from erro­neous teach­ing from God’s Word. In short, they must give an account for the “mak­ing of dis­ci­ples” to the Lord Jesus in a com­ing day of eval­u­a­tion (Hebrews 13:17; 1 Corinthians 5:9–11).

Many ask about our mem­ber­ship. The truth is that the Bible already calls you a mem­ber of the Body of Christ, if you have trusted the Lord Jesus as your Sav­ior (1 Corinthians 12:12–14). Scrip­ture does not rec­og­nize any other mem­ber­ship list. How­ever, Scrip­ture does present the idea of “being in fel­low­ship” (1 John 1:5–7; Acts 2:42). This phrase describes an under­stand­ing and agree­ment between the church-goer and the Lord Jesus Christ, that such a per­son is plac­ing him­self under the author­ity of the Lord Jesus through the lead­er­ship of the local church elders. These elders are charged by God to give an account of such souls, and the believer is charged to make sure that this account­ing is hon­or­able (Hebrews 13:17). This rela­tion­ship implies that there is a “shar­ing in the com­mon” (def­i­n­i­tion of “fel­low­ship”) or a com­mon bond in the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many ben­e­fits to the believer in this rela­tion­ship; prayer for one’s spir­i­tual well-being, account­abil­ity in main­tain­ing one’s per­sonal and church tes­ti­mony, iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with one another, love for each other in a family-like atmos­phere, and a bear­ing of each other’s bur­dens, to just name a few.

We prac­tice the priest­hood of all believ­ers. We do not rec­og­nize a spe­cial class of peo­ple who do the Lord’s work. Every believer in Christ is encour­aged to use their gift(s) to serve the Lord for the ben­e­fit of fel­low believ­ers and to reach the unsaved.

On the night on which He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper with His disciples. He did so on the night of the Passover feast, anticipating His coming sacrifice as the true Lamb of God. As He passed the bread and cup to His disciples, He commanded “This do in remembrance of Me.” (Luke 22:19)Early Christians understood this and made it part of their regular church practice (Acts 2:42). It was customarily done on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7), the day Jesus rose from the dead.The object of this memorial feast is the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to remember Him. The loaf of bread represents His body, given on the cross for us. (Luke 22:19) The cup represents His blood shed for our sins. The Lord’s Supper reminds us of the person and work of the Lord Jesus. It is primarily a time of worship, thanksgiving and adoration centered on God Himself, and not a time centered on blessings we have received or petitions (requests) for our own needs.Partaking in the bread and cup is restricted to believers only. Martinez Bible Chapel welcomes anyone who names the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, and is living in fellowship with Him (1 Cor. 11:27), to participate. If someone has not yet accepted salvation in Christ, or if he is unsure of his relationship with Christ, we would ask that he be an observer only and not partake of the bread or cup.The Lord’s Supper is an open meeting where believers are encouraged to share from the Word of God, offer a hymn, or pray. (1 Cor. 14:26) The Holy Spirit Himself directs the time of worship.Public sharing is restricted to men. (1 Cor. 14:34) Women are encouraged to pray and worship silently, but not publicly, in the Lord’s Supper. (1 Tim 2:11-14) This is a matter of church order, not superiority or inferiority between genders, as God views all as equally one. (Gal 3:28) God also instructs women to have their head covered and men to have their head uncovered as they gather for prayer and worship. (1 Cor. 11:4-5)

Public participation is to be thoughtful and prayerful. Attention should be given to the words of hymns sung or Scriptures shared in order to harmonize with others in the purpose of worship. We want to glorify Christ with hymns, scripture readings and prayers, all focusing on Him. This is not intended as a time to simply give out favorite hymns, tell anecdotes of our daily life, publicly confess failings, or give some doctrinal teaching that may have appealed to us personally. This is a time to exalt and magnify Christ alone.

Remember, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, then you are a holy priest (1 Peter 2:5) bringing sacrifices within the “holy of holies” where God is present. At the Lord’s Supper, you are acting in a position of highest privilege to bring honor and glory to His name.

Each Wednes­day night at 6:00 pm, a free meal is pro­vided by Mar­tinez Bible Chapel in the fel­low­ship hall. All are invited to join us for din­ner and to spend time together.

We believe that gath­er­ing together in cor­po­rate prayer is of utmost impor­tance for believ­ers in a local church and that an effec­tive prece­dent was set by the early church as they con­tin­u­ally devoted them­selves to prayer (Acts 2:42).

At Mar­tinez Bible Chapel, every Wednes­day night at 7:00 pm a period of time is devoted to the study of Scrip­ture and then a time is devoted to prayer. Men are pro­vided the oppor­tu­nity, and have the respon­si­bil­ity, to pray and offer thanks­giv­ing to the Lord audi­bly on behalf of the saints. It is a valu­able oppor­tu­nity to be together, be of one mind, and be thank­ful and dili­gent to pray for oth­ers and to be led by the Lord.