Church Structure

First Century Bible Church is not elder-run. It is apostolic in structure and elder-advised. I, Scott Lively, serve as the founding apostolic trustee and fiduciary with full authority over the church. A board of elders, selected and appointed solely by me, serves in an advisory capacity only. The elders shall serve indefinite terms subject to my ongoing assessment of the needs of the church and the suitability of each member. I shall maintain a current list of elders.

The Board of Elders shall have the specific responsibility to provide appropriate oversight of the apostolic trustee’s financial compensation, ensuring it remains within the established norms and reasonable standards of Evangelical churches of comparable size and scope.

Upon my death or permanent incapacitation, and for the sole and limited purpose of selecting and installing a suitable replacement apostolic trustee, the board of elders shall act collectively. Once a new trustee is installed, that person shall assume full fiduciary authority as described herein and in the Addendum on Qualifications of an Apostolic Trustee.

We believe that humanity was created in the image of God but fell into sin. Salvation is by faith alone in the finished work of Jesus Christ alone (Romans 10:9–10). Once a person accepts Christ, he or she receives the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. It is impossible to lose one's salvation (Romans 8:38–39) so long as one abides in Christ, but the deceitfulness of sin can lead one to voluntarily relinquish his salvation (John 15:5–6; Hebrews 6:4–6).

We believe that both predestination and free will are factually true and well supported by Scripture and biblical logic, the apparent paradox being explained by separating the timelessness of eternity (where predestination originates) from the temporal reality of Creation where human free will justifies God's self-imposed limitations (2 Peter 3:9).

We believe justification is the instantaneous legal declaration by God that a believing sinner is righteous in His sight solely on the basis of faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ (Romans 3:24–28; 5:1).

Sanctification is the ongoing, progressive work of the Holy Spirit whereby the believer is conformed to the image of Christ through the Word of God, prayer, and obedient walking in the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23; Philippians 2:12–13; Romans 12:1–2).

Glorification is the future, instantaneous transformation of the believer at the return of Christ when we receive our resurrected, immortal bodies and are made fully like Him (1 Corinthians 15:51–54; Romans 8:30; Philippians 3:20–21). These three aspects together describe the complete work of salvation from beginning to end.

We believe the Abrahamic Covenant (unlike the Mosaic Covenant) is perpetual, irrevocable and inheritable according to God's own terms. It was divided between the two houses that originated in Jacob’s marriage to Leah and Rachel. The House of Judah (Leah’s line) received the scepter and the oracles of God. The House of Israel/Ephraim (Rachel’s line) received the birthright and the promise of fruitfulness among the nations.

These two houses remain distinct until the Second Advent. The corporate House of Judah is today defined by Judaism; the corporate House of Israel is today defined by Christianity. The Gospel of the Kingdom was first offered to Israel, and when nationally rejected by the leadership of Judah, the Gospel of Grace was extended to the nations to complete the ingathering of Ephraim and grafted-in Gentiles.

At the Second Advent the partial hardening on the House of Judah will be lifted, the two houses will be reunited as one stick in the hand of the Lord (Ezekiel 37), and “all Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26) (Genesis 12:1–3; 17:1–8; Romans 11:25–29; Jeremiah 31:31–34; Ezekiel 37:15–28).

We believe the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24–25; Mark 13; Luke 21) is Jesus’ authoritative prophetic outline of end-time events, with both a near (partial) fulfillment in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and a far total fulfillment at the end of the age leading to His return. The Book of Revelation provides the detailed apocalyptic vision of these events and the final triumph of Christ.

The seven Levitical feasts of Leviticus 23 form the divine prophetic calendar for both advents. Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, and Pentecost were fulfilled at the first advent. The fall feasts — Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles — will be fulfilled at the second advent, which spans those three feasts and culminates in the literal Millennial Kingdom.

The time cycles of Leviticus 25 (Sabbath years and Jubilee cycles) point to the ultimate Sabbath rest of the thousand-year Kingdom, when all things are restored according to God’s original pattern (Leviticus 23:1–44; Leviticus 25:1–55; Acts 3:21; Mark 9:12).

Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, the federal judiciary engineered a profound and illegitimate shift from this biblical and constitutional foundation to a regime of secular humanism in which government presumes superior authority over the church. This turn violates the spirit of both the Declaration of Independence (which is literally the first law printed in the United States Federal Code, appearing as the first organic law in 1 U.S.C.) and the Bill of Rights which expanded upon it.

The transformation was led by Justice Hugo Black, a former Ku Klux Klan member and political ally of Lyndon B. Johnson. Black played a key role in shielding LBJ from exposure of the blatant election fraud that secured his 1948 U.S. Senate victory in Texas (the infamous “Box 13” scandal). In gratitude, Johnson later championed Black’s influence on the Court.

In 1954, Johnson pushed through the Johnson Amendment, which inserted the 501(c)(3) restriction into the Internal Revenue Code — a mechanism designed to silence churches from speaking on political and moral issues by threatening their tax status. This was the opening salvo in the judicial coup that followed. The pivotal Supreme Court cases that accomplished this transformation include:

• Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), in which Justice Black wrote the majority opinion. Everson imposed a test of supposed “benevolent neutrality” toward all religions in place of the founders’ open acknowledgement of the Supreme Being. It incorporated the Establishment Clause against the states and introduced Jefferson’s “wall of separation” metaphor in a way that began erecting a barrier against religious expression in public life.
• Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961), in which Justice Black again wrote the opinion striking down a Maryland requirement that public officials declare belief in God. In a now-infamous footnote, Black listed “Secular Humanism” alongside atheism as religions entitled to equal protection, thereby empowering militant atheists to dismantle the Judeo-Christian infrastructure of government and society — beginning with the removal of prayer and Bible reading from public schools (Engel v. Vitale, 1962, and Abington School District v. Schempp, 1963).
• These decisions, and the broader line of cases they represent (Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971; Roe v. Wade, 1973; Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015), substituted judicially imposed secular humanism for the founders’ Christian-informed order. In my writings and public work over four decades, I have repeatedly warned that this constitutes a form of soft tyranny that presumes the state’s moral superiority over the church — a direct contradiction of Madison’s declaration that religion is “wholly exempt from [the] cognizance” of civil government and Jefferson’s insistence that government’s legitimate powers extend only to acts injurious to others.

First Century Bible Church stands in deliberate and principled opposition to this illegitimate transformation. We maintain our apostolic independence, exercise our automatic exemption under IRC § 508(c)(1)(A), and refuse any entanglement that would imply government superiority over the church. We do so not out of hostility to lawful government, but out of fidelity to the original American understanding of coadjuvancy and, more importantly, to the biblical order in which Christ alone is Head of the Church.

This addendum forms an integral part of the governing documents of First Century Bible Church and shall guide the Board of Elders and any future apostolic trustee in preserving the church’s biblical sovereignty and its proper, limited cooperative relationship with civil authority.