WHAT WE BELIEVE

Welcome to First Baptist Church of Woodbury.

 My name is Dr. Peter P. Ventura.

We are an Independent, Fundamental, Bible Believing Church. Our Church in these last days is a Frontline Church on the move where the Word of God is our Final Authority, without compromise, or apology! We are a Church with a vision. We are a Church with a heavy burden for lost souls in our community and around the entire world. We respect and honor our Veterans and Active Duty Servicemen. 

We love the Lord Jesus Christ, the Brethren, and our Country. As we are the very first Baptist Church every in Woodbury, CT., we would like to invite you to visit us, and if the Lord be willing, to join us and serve the Lord with us as we make this historical journey for the Glory of God; as the Lord leads us.

THE SCRIPTURES: We believe the Holy Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, are verbally, plenarily, and inherently inspired of God and they constitute the absolute authority in all matters of faith and practice. 2 Tim. 3:16, 17; 2 Pet, 1:21; Matt. 24:35; Ps. 119:89.

THE GODHEAD: We believe in the trinity, a triune Godhead, being eternally existent in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit: equal in all their attributes. Deut. 6:4; Gen. 1:1, 26; Jn. 1:1-13; Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14; Rev. 1:8, 17, 18.

MAN'S CREATION AND FALL: We believe that man was made in the image of God, a special creation of God and not a product of evolutionary development. However, man disobeyed his Creator and incurred spiritual and physical death, total corruption and divine condemnation. Because of this, man is a sinner by nature and practice and is in need of Divine redemption. Gen. 1:26, 27; 2:16, 17; 3:6;

 Ro. 3:10, 20; Jn. 3:18, 36.

THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST: We believe in the deity and humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, one Person possessing two natures making Him very God and very man, In His deity, He is Creator and Sustainer of the Universe; in His humanity, He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, virgin born of Mary, lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary death for sinners, arose bodily from the grave, ascended into heaven, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father, where HE ever intercedes as a Mediator for the righteous. Jn. 1:1, 14; Lk. 1:31-35; Phil. 2:7, 8; col. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:24; Eph. 1•.7; Heb. 9:12; 1 Cor. 15:1-8; Heb. 1:3.

THE HOLY SPIRIT: We believe the Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Godhead, who convicts, regenerates, indwells, baptizes and seals all believers in Christ and fills those who are yielded to Him. We believe that the Holy Spirit sovereignly bestows gifts to all believers for the purpose of maturing and strengthening the Body of Christ, but that some gifts are permanent while others were temporary, given only in the Apostolic Age until the completion of the New Testament. Jn. in water6:44; 16:8-11, 13, 14; Titus 3:5; Jn. 3:5,• 1 Cor. 12:13; Eph. 1:13; 4:30; 1 Cor. 13:8; Eph.5:18.

SALVATION: We believe that salvation is the free gift of God which can only be  appropriated when an individual recognizes he is a sinner and turns to Jesus Christ as the only sufficient payment for man's sin, placing his personal faith in His finished work on the Cross. Since salvation is wholly by grace and cannot be  earned in whole or in part by our works, the believer is eternally secure in Christ.

Ro. 5:15; 6:23; Eph. 2:8, 9; Jn. 1:12; Ro. 10:9-13; Titus 3:5; Acts 16:31; Jn. 5:24. 

THE CHURCH: We believe in the historic Baptist belief that a scriptural church is a  body of believers meeting in a local place with a Pastor and Deacon as the only recognized biblical officers; sovereign and autonomous in deciding matters of  church policy and affiliation; and composed only of individuals who profess to have been born again and have been immersed in water, according to the

Scriptures, upon their confession of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. Acts 2:11 41, 42; Phil. 1:1; Titus 1:5; 1 Tim. 3:1-15.

LAST THINGS: We believe that our Blessed Hope is the imminent return of the Lord to rapture His Church. The event is followed in order by the seven years Tribulation period, the Second Coming of Christ to the earth to rule for one thousand years, and the Great White Throne Judgment. This sequence of events will issue in the conscious states of everlasting punishment for the unsaved and everlasting blessing for the redeemed. 1 Thess. 4:13-18; Rev. 19:11-16; 20:1-6; 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9; Titus 2:13; 2 Thess. 1:7-9.

DISPENSATIONALISM: We believe that the Scriptures interpreted in their natural,  literal sense demonstrate that God has progressively revealed Himself in successive dispensations and that the present dispensation is that of the Church. We believe that a careful study of the Scriptures reveal a distinct as well as separate plan for Israel and the Church, contrary to the teaching of many modern movements. Jn. 1:17; 2 Cor. 3:6-18; Gal. 3:13-18; Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:24-27; Gen, 17:8; Deut. 30:3; 2 Sam. 7:16; Jer. 31:33.

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE AND SERVICE: WE believe that the fulfillment of the Great Commission is the responsibility of every believer, that he is to be a personal  soulwinner, that he is to disciple new converts, and that he is to enlist them in the life of the local church. In the accomplishment of this commission, we believe that one must be personally separate from sin and be separate from religious apostasy and ecclesiastical ecumenism which denies the fundaments of the faith. Matt. 28:29, 20; 1 Cor. 5:11; 6:19, 20; 

2 Cor. 6:14-18.

SATAN: We believe that Satan is a spiritual being, the author of sin and the cause of the fall of Adam; that he is the open and declared enemy of God and man, and that he shall be eternally punished in the Lake of Fire. Job 1:6, 7;

 Isaiah 14:12-17; Matt, 4:2-11; Rev. 20:10.

DESTINY OF THE REDEEMED AND  LOST:

 We believe that the souls of the redeemed are, at death, absent from the body and present with the Lord, where conscious bliss they await the first resurrection, when spirit, soul, and body are reunited to be glorified forever with the Lord: and the souls of the unbelievers  remain after death, in conscious misery until the second resurrection, when with soul and body reunited, they shall be made to appear at the Great White Throne Judgment, and shall be cast into the Lake of Fire, not to be annihilated, but to suffer everlasting punishment. 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23; 3:21; 1 Cor. 15:51-53; Rev. 20:4, 5, 11-15; Lk. 16:19-26; 2 Thess, 1:7-9.

THE ORDINANCES: We believe that there are only two ordinances to be participated in by the local Church. They are: Baptism, and the Lord's Supper. We believe that baptism is to be administered only to those who have made conscious decision for Christ and therefore reject infant baptism as a legitimate ordinance. We believe that the mode of baptism is full immersion in water, and therefore reject sprinkling and pouring as a legitimate means of baptism. The very word "baptize" is a transliteration of a Greek word meaning "immerse or plunge". The symbolic nature of baptism points to a "burial" and "resurrection", as history points to immersion as the form in the early Church. We reject the doctrine of transubstantiation for the Lord's Supper, and the Reformed Theology of the presence of Christ in the elements. The Lord's Supper is to be a symbolic remembrance of the Lord's suffering and death on the cross for our sins and imparts no grace, saving or otherwise to the individual, but rather is to be considered a "memorial". 

Acts 2:41, 42; 8:36-39; Matt. 26:26-29; I Cor. 11:23-26. 

BIBLE TRANSLATIONS: 

The King James Bible (A.v.) of 1611

 is the inerrant, infallible verbally, plenarily inspired, preserved Word of God.

 2 Tim. 3:16; Ps. 12:6-7; Jn. 17:17.

"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching" (Heb. 10:25).

TRULY WE LOOK FORWARD TO MEETING WITH YOU!

"Receiving the end of your faith; even the salvation of your souls" (l Pet. 1:9).