FAQ on the "Image of God" Teaching Position

Throughout 2021, our elders have been working on a new teaching position on the Image of God. Below are some questions that have come up about that process. 

What does this new teaching position say? What are the other teaching positions? 

You can find the full text of the Image of God teaching position, as well as all our other teaching positions, on the Grace website under “Resources” or by clicking here. 

Why does our church have teaching positions? 

From the preamble of the Teaching Positions: 

The Statements of Belief in our church’s Constitution set forth the minimum understandings of biblical teaching necessary for membership and ministry in this church.  We recognize that there are Bible-believing, godly Christians who, though they agree on the basics, differ in non essentials and over disputed matters of biblical interpretation. The following "Position Statements" set forth the teachings which a member or visitor should expect to hear taught at this church and reflected in our practical life.

How does this teaching position integrate with our statement of belief and our other teaching positions? 

This teaching position supports and expands what our “Statement of Belief” (our church’s core theological document) states about human nature. It also dovetails well with our teaching position on the sanctity of human life. 

How does the church plan to use this teaching position in the future? 
As with all our teaching positions, they are helpful in at least three ways: 

• For those considering becoming a part of Grace, it gives them a clearer picture of who we are and what we value. 

• For those within Grace, it gives a guideline of where our church lands on contested or confusing issues and invites those in teaching roles (such as life group leaders and Sunday school teachers) to consider how to teach well on these complicated issues. 

• For times when the church is recruiting and training ministry leaders (such as directors, elders, and pastors), it gives our search teams guidelines of what a doctrinal fit for our church looks like.

Why adopt a teaching position on the image of God? 

We see it as an important statement to make now due to the swirling cultural winds of naturalism, racism, and secularism in our culture. It is the first of a series of new teaching positions in the coming few years where we attempt to begin with biblical categories to make sense of the way that our generation is understanding human nature and how we relate to one another. In upcoming years, we are planning to develop teaching positions on biblical unity, biblical justice, and biblical gender and sexuality. 

What resources are available for learning more about the image of God? 

Created in God’s Image by Anthony Hoekema - This was the main book our elders read on the image of God this year. Multiple copies are available to borrow from the church library. Chapter 5 (“A Theological Summary”) is a helpful summary of the topic. 

Sermon series on the Image of God - Last spring we did a sermon series on the topic of the image of God. You can view those sermons on our YouTube page. 

Grace’s Life group curriculum from last Spring during the Image of God sermon series.