When Jesus asked his disciples, “...whom say ye that I am?”, Peter answered, “ ... Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. “ It is upon Jesus and the great truth that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, that the Church is built.

When our Lord asked the twelve, “Will ye also go away?”, Peter answered , “ Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.” And later at the council of Jerusalem, Peter said, “ . . . we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.” (John 6:67-69, Acts 15:11) These two “we believe “ statements are the very foundation of the Church and the heart and soul of everything we at Salem believe. Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh and salvation is solely by the grace of God!

The term “primitive” means first or original. In our post-modern, high-tech world it may seem archaic or “out of date” to look to the Bible and the Church for the answers of life but it is this primitive “... faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” , that unlocks the kingdom of God and reveals the secret of the Universe and the meaning of Life. ( Jude 3, Matt. 16:19, Ro. 16:25, Rev 4:11)

The apostle Paul tells us in Eph. 2:20 that we “... are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; Just as every builder knows that no house, no matter how magnificent, can stand if the foundation is faulty and just as every computer analyst knows that no matter how complex the system, no program will run properly if there is a problem with the code , so no life regardless of how grand or complex can be what it should be without the proper world-view to build upon and guide it. What one believes about God, the origin of the Universe, and all things is the guiding principal of everything one does in life. For example, If one believes that there is no God , that the Universe is the result of an explosion and that he is nothing more than a complex system of chemicals animated by an electrical impulse evolved from a lower form of primate (i.e. evolution ) then he will be guided by the belief that there are no rules to govern his life and that ultimately there is no purpose to life. However, if one understands that he is the creation of God and his purpose in life to to please the one who created him, then life has value, purpose and joy!

The following is a brief summary of our faith or what “we believe”. These “Articles of Faith” are the same as held by our forefathers when they constituted the first Baptist Church in Mississippi on Cole’s Creek in 1791, and more importantly embody “... the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. (Jude 3)