Authority & Boundaries

Every Christian ministry teaches something.
Before engaging with our teaching, it is only right that you know how we understand authority, where our boundaries lie, and how you are encouraged to evaluate what you read here.

This page explains the framework that governs everything taught at Teaching Bridge Fellowship—so that you may explore our content with clarity, confidence, and discernment.

The Holy Scriptures are the only inspired, infallible, and final authority for the faith and life of the Church.

Scripture alone is God-breathed and therefore uniquely authoritative. All doctrine, teaching, tradition, and confession must be tested by Scripture and corrected by it where necessary.

Teaching Bridge Fellowship affirms without qualification:

• Scripture stands over the Church

• Scripture governs all doctrine and practice

• Scripture interprets Scripture

• No human authority is equal to or above the Word of God

We do not ask anyone to submit to our teaching apart from Scripture. Rather, we invite every reader to examine what is taught here by the Word of God itself.

While Scripture alone is supreme, the Church has never existed in isolation.

From the earliest centuries, Christians have publicly summarized what they believe Scripture teaches in the form of creeds and confessions. These documents did not replace Scripture; they served the Church by:

• Summarizing biblical teaching

• Guarding against error

• Promoting unity in essential doctrine

• Passing down the faith once delivered

Historic creeds and confessions represent the Church’s collective effort to speak faithfully, clearly, and responsibly about what Scripture teaches.

Teaching Bridge Fellowship affirms that creeds and confessions possess ministerial authority, not magisterial authority.

This distinction is crucial.

• Magisterial authority belongs to Scripture alone.
  Scripture rules, judges, and binds the conscience.

• Ministerial authority belongs to confessions only insofar as they faithfully summarize Scripture.
  Confessions serve the Church; they do not rule it.

Creeds and confessions are valuable precisely because they are subordinate to Scripture. They may instruct, guide, and correct—but they may also be corrected by Scripture.

What They Can Do

• Help the Church teach doctrine clearly

• Provide theological guardrails

• Express doctrinal unity across time and geography

• Assist believers in learning the faith

What They Cannot Do

• Replace Scripture

• Bind the conscience apart from Scripture

• Function as inspired revelation

• Override the clear teaching of God’s Word

Our use of confessions reflects these boundaries intentionally.

Teaching Bridge Fellowship is confessionally Reformed Baptist.

We gladly confess the faith summarized in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, which we believe faithfully expresses the teaching of Scripture on the major doctrines of the Christian faith.

We also affirm the historic ecumenical creeds of the Church, recognizing them as foundational summaries of orthodox Christian belief.

Our confessional commitments are not treated as infallible documents, but as carefully tested theological summaries that help anchor teaching, preserve clarity, and promote unity.

Everything taught at Teaching Bridge Fellowship is governed by the following commitments:

• Scripture is the final authority

• Teaching must be faithful to the text of Scripture

• Historic confessions serve Scripture, not replace it

• Doctrine should be taught with clarity and pastoral care

• Believers are encouraged to examine all things biblically

We do not claim originality.
We do not claim infallibility.
We do not ask for uncritical agreement.

We aim to teach faithfully, humbly, and confessionally, always under the authority of God’s Word.

As a reader and learner here:

• You are encouraged to test our teaching by Scripture

• You may use creeds and confessions as guides, not masters

• You are welcome even if you disagree

• You are invited to grow in understanding without pressure or polemics

Teaching Bridge Fellowship exists to serve the Church—not to stand over it.