Module 07
Doctrine II — Sin, Salvation & the Church.

1. Purpose & Place in the Arc

Module 06 taught who God is: Father, Son, and Spirit, and Christ crucified and risen. This module teaches what that God has done with sinners, and the people he gathers. It is the second half of the doctrinal spine of Phase II.

The pastor cannot preach good news until he can name the bad news plainly. So we begin with sin as rebellion, not misfortune. Then the heart of the gospel: justification by faith alone, the doctrine that keeps grace free. Then the door and the family: conversion, baptism, and belonging, in their right order and meaning. We end with the church, and the four marks that separate a church from a crowd.

That last step carries the weight of the module. A gifted man can draw a crowd in one generation; only a true church, marked by the Word, the ordinances, discipline, and love, survives into the second. The pastor is trained not to gather a crowd but to plant a church that outlives him. What is taught here as doctrine becomes practice in Module 08 (storying), Module 09 (planting the house church), and Module 11 (worship, baptism, and the Table).

2. Learning Outcomes

By demonstration, not attendance, the pastor can:

1. Explain sin as rebellion against God, distinct from misfortune, weakness, or mere shame, from Genesis 3 and Romans 3.
2. State justification by faith alone in one clear sentence, and defend it against adding works, ritual, or payment.
3. Describe the great exchange from 2 Corinthians 5:21 without notes.
4. Lay out the pattern of conversion in Acts (hear, repent, believe, be baptized, belong) and explain why the order matters.
5. Teach believers' baptism as union with Christ and public confession, guarding it from ritual power.
6. Name and defend the four marks of a true church, and test a gathering against them.
7. Walk through loving church discipline as a path toward restoration.
8. Teach church membership as covenant belonging that engages kinship and honor rightly.

3. Session Plan

Fourteen 2-hour sessions, in four units.

Unit A — Sin (Sessions 1–3)

Session 1 — Rebellion, not misfortune

• Aim: Trainees can say why sin is rebellion, not bad luck, weakness, or mere shame.
• Core text(s): Genesis 3:1–13; Isaiah 53:6; 1 John 3:4.
• Oral teaching outline:
• Tell the garden story: the good command, the serpent's question (Did God actually say), the eating, the hiding.
• Name the root: each of us turned to his own way (Isa 53:6); sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4), a refusal of God's rule, not only a broken rule.
• Show the fruit: fear, hiding, blame. Sin breaks the relationship, not just the record.
• Practice: In pairs, retell Genesis 3 in ninety seconds; the partner checks that rebellion, not accident, is the center.

Session 2 — How deep, how wide

• Aim: Trainees can show from Scripture that sin reaches every person and the whole heart.
• Core text(s): Romans 1:18–25; Romans 3:9–23; Jeremiah 17:9.
• Oral teaching outline:
• Wide: all are under sin; none is righteous, no, not one (Rom 3:10–12).
• Deep: the trouble is the heart, deceitful and sick (Jer 17:9); its shape is idolatry, exchanging the Creator for created things (Rom 1:23–25).
• The verdict: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).
• Practice: Call-and-response drill on Romans 3:23; each trainee then names one everyday form of going our own way, naming no person.

Session 3 — Guilt, shame, and fear

• Aim: Trainees can speak of sin in guilt, shame, and fear terms while keeping rebellion as the root.
• Core text(s): Genesis 3:7–10; Romans 10:11; Isaiah 61:7.
• Oral teaching outline:
• In the garden all three appear: guilt (the broken command), shame (they cover themselves), fear (I was afraid, and I hid, Gen 3:10).
• The gospel answers all three: it forgives guilt, covers shame, casts out fear. But never shame-relief without repentance; only the cross removes the root.
• Promise: the one who believes will not be put to shame (Rom 10:11); instead of shame, a double portion (Isa 61:7).
• Practice: Trainees list, for their own people, the words used for guilt, for shame, and for fear. [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]

Unit B — Justification (Sessions 4–7)

Session 4 — The just judge and the guilty

• Aim: Trainees can state the problem justification answers: how a just God can accept the guilty.
• Core text(s): Romans 3:19–20; Ezekiel 18:4; Habakkuk 2:4.
• Oral teaching outline:
• The law shuts every mouth; the whole world is accountable to God (Rom 3:19).
• God is just; the soul that sins shall die (Ezek 18:4). He will not overlook sin.
• So the question is not whether God is loving, but how he can be both just and the one who accepts sinners. Hold it: the righteous shall live by faith (Hab 2:4).
• Practice: Trainees pose the problem aloud to one another as a question, without yet giving the answer.

Session 5 — Justified by faith alone

• Aim: Trainees can explain justification as God declaring the believing sinner righteous on the ground of Christ.
• Core text(s): Romans 3:21–28; Romans 5:1; 2 Corinthians 5:21.
• Oral teaching outline:
• Apart from the law, a righteousness from God has come, through faith in Christ, for all who believe (Rom 3:21–22).
• God set Christ forth to bear his wrath, so that he is both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom 3:26).
• The great exchange: God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21).
• Result: justified by faith, we have peace with God (Rom 5:1). To justify means to declare righteous, a verdict, not a slow repair.
• Practice: Each trainee uses two objects to show the exchange (my sin to Christ, his righteousness to me) and explains it aloud.

Session 6 — The doctrine that keeps grace free

• Aim: Trainees can defend faith alone against adding works, ritual, or payment.
• Core text(s): Galatians 2:16, 2:21; Ephesians 2:8–9; Titus 3:5.
• Oral teaching outline:
• A person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Christ (Gal 2:16).
• If righteousness came by law-keeping, Christ died for nothing (Gal 2:21). Adding to faith empties the cross.
• By grace through faith, the gift of God, not of works, so no one may boast (Eph 2:8–9).
• Name the counterfeits this guards: prosperity teaching (faith as a lever for wealth), ritual transfer (a rite that mechanically saves), charm-trading (paying for blessing). Grace received is never grace bought.
• Practice: Trainees role-play answering a seeker who asks, What must I add to be sure? The answer keeps grace free.

Session 7 — Repentance and faith; kept to the end

• Aim: Trainees can describe conversion as repentance and faith, and assurance as God's keeping.
• Core text(s): Mark 1:15; Acts 20:21; John 10:28–29; Philippians 1:6.
• Oral teaching outline:
• Jesus' first call: repent and believe the gospel (Mark 1:15). Two hands of one turning, from sin, to Christ.
• Repentance is not a work that earns; it is the turn that faith makes.
• Assurance rests on God: I give them eternal life, and no one will snatch them out of my hand (John 10:28); he who began a good work will complete it (Phil 1:6). We persevere because he preserves.
• Practice: From three cases read aloud, trainees distinguish true repentance from mere regret or fear of punishment. [MENTOR: local example]

Unit C — Conversion, Baptism, Belonging (Sessions 8–10)

Session 8 — The order and the meaning

• Aim: Trainees can lay out the pattern in Acts: hear, repent, believe, be baptized, belong.
• Core text(s): Acts 2:37–47; Acts 8:26–38; Acts 16:14–15.
• Oral teaching outline:
• At Pentecost they heard, were cut to the heart, were told to repent and be baptized, and were added to the people (Acts 2:37–41).
• The Ethiopian hears, believes, and asks for baptism at once (Acts 8:35–38); Lydia's heart is opened, and her household is baptized (Acts 16:14–15).
• The order teaches meaning: baptism does not create faith, it confesses it; and belonging is not optional, converts are added to a people.
• Practice: Trainees put five cards (hear, repent, believe, be baptized, belong) in order and defend it from one passage.

Session 9 — Baptism: buried and raised

• Aim: Trainees can teach believers' baptism as union with Christ and public confession.
• Core text(s): Matthew 28:18–20; Romans 6:3–4; Colossians 2:12.
• Oral teaching outline:
• The command: make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Matt 28:19).
• The meaning: baptized into his death, buried with him, raised to walk in newness of life (Rom 6:3–4). Baptism follows faith; it does not run ahead of it.
• Guard: the water does not wash sin by its own power; it signs and seals what faith has received. This guards ritual transfer and syncretism.
• Practice: Trainees explain baptism first to a mock candidate, then to that candidate's worried parent. [MENTOR: local example]

Session 10 — Baptism in kinship and honor cultures

• Aim: Trainees can count the cost of baptism as public confession where family and honor are at stake.
• Core text(s): Matthew 10:32–37; Mark 10:29–30; Romans 10:9–11.
• Oral teaching outline:
• Baptism is public: whoever confesses Christ before men, Christ confesses before the Father (Matt 10:32).
• In kinship cultures this can look like betrayal. Jesus is honest that following him may set a person against father or mother (Matt 10:35–37).
• Yet no one who leaves family for his sake is left without it: a hundredfold of brothers and sisters now, with persecutions (Mark 10:29–30). The church becomes the convert's new household. [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]
• Practice: Trainees map, for their setting, who is affected when a person is baptized, and how the church can receive them. [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]

Unit D — The Church: Marks and Membership (Sessions 11–14)

Session 11 — Church or crowd: the four marks

• Aim: Trainees can name and defend the marks of a true church: Word, ordinances, discipline, love.
• Core text(s): Acts 2:42–47; Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 4:11–16.
• Oral teaching outline:
• A crowd hears a speaker and scatters. A church is a covenanted people under Christ its head (Matt 16:18).
• The first church devoted itself to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers (Acts 2:42): Word and ordinances. Add the two that keep it a church over time: discipline, a real boundary, and love, a real bond.
• Why it matters: a movement survives its second generation only where the marks are present. Gifting and crowds do not reproduce the church; the marks do.
• Practice: Trainees test three described gatherings against the four marks and say which is a church and why.

Session 12 — The Lord's Table

• Aim: Trainees can lead the Lord's Supper with right meaning and right fencing.
• Core text(s): 1 Corinthians 11:23–29; Acts 2:46.
• Oral teaching outline:
• The Lord gave the Supper: bread and cup, do this in remembrance of me (1 Cor 11:24–25). It proclaims the Lord's death until he comes (1 Cor 11:26): the gospel preached with the hands.
• It is for the church. Let a person examine himself before he eats (1 Cor 11:28); the Table is fenced, but never against the repentant.
• Guard: the Supper is not a charm and not a fresh sacrifice; it remembers the one finished sacrifice. This guards ritual transfer.
• Practice: Trainees rehearse the words of institution aloud and explain who may come and who should wait.

Session 13 — Discipline and love: the wall and the welcome

• Aim: Trainees can walk through loving correction whose aim is restoration.
• Core text(s): Matthew 18:15–20; 1 Corinthians 5:1–13; John 13:34–35.
• Oral teaching outline:
• The steps: go privately, then with two or three, then tell the church (Matt 18:15–17). Discipline is a path, not a blow.
• Its aim is rescue: that his spirit may be saved (1 Cor 5:5); purge the evil, protect the body (1 Cor 5:13).
• What makes discipline safe is love: by your love for one another all will know you are mine (John 13:35). No wall makes a crowd; no welcome makes a court.
• Practice: Trainees role-play step one of Matthew 18: a private, gentle, restoring conversation.

Session 14 — Belonging: the new household

• Aim: Trainees can teach membership as covenant belonging that engages kinship and honor rightly.
• Core text(s): 1 Peter 2:9–10; Ephesians 2:19; Mark 3:31–35.
• Oral teaching outline:
• Jesus reorders family: whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother (Mark 3:35).
• The church is a new people: once you were not a people, now you are God's people (1 Pet 2:10); no longer strangers, but members of God's household (Eph 2:19). In honor cultures this is good news: the shamed are given a name and a family, by grace, not by birth or bribe.
• Membership is mutual promise: to gather, to submit to the elders (men called and qualified, 1 Tim 3:1–7), to love, to accept correction, to bear one another. [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED for the mother-tongue confession]
• Practice: Trainees compose, orally, a simple welcome and promises a new member speaks and the church speaks back. [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]

4. Story Set & Memory Work

Passages to be mastered orally, each with a one-line handle:

• Genesis 3:1–13 — The garden. Rebellion, hiding, the broken relationship.
• Luke 18:9–14 — Two men praying. The one who begged for mercy went home justified.
• Luke 15:11–32 — The running father. Shame met by grace before a word of merit is spoken.
• Acts 8:26–38 — The Ethiopian on the road. Hear, believe, be baptized.
• Acts 16:11–34 — Lydia and the jailer. Two households brought to Christ and washed.
• Matthew 18:15–20 — The path of correction. How a church keeps both its wall and its welcome.

Memory verses (exact mother-tongue wording is [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]; taught by call-and-response and song):

5. Discussion Questions

Crafted for oral, communal learning; several are honor-shame aware.

1. Some call wrongdoing bad luck or a weak moment. From Genesis 3, why is it better to call sin rebellion?
2. In our people's speech, which is felt most strongly: guilt, shame, or fear? How does that shape how we tell the gospel? [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]
3. If all have sinned, is anyone good enough to look down on another? What did the tax collector understand that the Pharisee did not (Luke 18)?
4. Explain the great exchange to a child. What was given, and what was received (2 Cor 5:21)?
5. A neighbor says, I will trust Christ, but I must also keep the old rites to be safe. What has he not yet understood?
6. Why does baptism come after faith, not before it? What would we teach wrongly if we reversed the order?
7. In our setting, what does a person risk in the family when he is baptized? How can the church stand with him? [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]
8. Jesus says his true family is those who do God's will (Mark 3:35). How is that both comfort and cost in a kinship culture?
9. Why is discipline an act of love, not of anger? What goes wrong when a church has no discipline? When it has no welcome?
10. To the person shamed by the village, what does it mean that God calls him his own people (1 Pet 2:10)? What promises might that person make to the church, and the church to him? [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]

6. Between-Sessions Field Practice

Concrete assignments in the pastor's own village and context:

1. Retell the garden story (Gen 3) to at least two people who are not believers, and listen for whether they hear sin as rebellion. Report what they said.
2. Explain justification by faith alone to one mature believer in your own words, and ask him to correct you.
3. Sit with a person who has recently believed. Walk through the order: hear, repent, believe, be baptized, belong. Note where he is on that path.
4. Observe or recall a baptism in your area. Write down who in the family and village was affected, and how. [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]
5. Test your own gathering against the four marks. Name honestly which are strong, which are weak, and why.
6. Draft, orally, the welcome and promises your church would use to receive a new member, and bring it to Session 14. [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]

7. Competency Assessment

A module is passed by demonstration, not attendance. To pass, the pastor must do all five before his mentor:

1. Tell the arc from sin to church without notes in about ten minutes: sin as rebellion, justification by faith alone, conversion and baptism, the marks of a true church. The mentor listens for accuracy, order, and plainness.
2. State justification by faith alone in one sentence, then defend it against three added conditions the mentor names (a good work, a ritual, a payment).
3. Explain the great exchange (2 Cor 5:21) using only two objects, so an oral learner could repeat it.
4. Test three gatherings against the four marks and say which is a church and why.
5. Walk step one of Matthew 18 in a live role-play, keeping both the wall and the welcome.

How the mentor verifies: a simple checklist of the five tasks, the live demonstration, and two follow-up questions per task to confirm understanding, not mere recitation. Where possible a second trainer observes and agrees.

What "not yet" looks like: sin described as misfortune or only as shame; faith made one condition among several; baptism taught as the thing that saves; a crowd called a church because it is large or lively; discipline used as punishment with no path to restoration.

Remediation path: the mentor names the gap, assigns the sessions that address it (Sessions 5–6 for a works-mixed gospel, Sessions 11 and 13 for a weak view of the church), and re-tests only that task after more field practice. No pastor advances to Phase III with a works-mixed gospel or a crowd-for-church confusion uncorrected.

8. Mentor Notes

Common errors to watch for and correct:

• Sin softened. Trainees may reduce sin to misfortune, imbalance, or loss of face. Keep returning to Genesis 3 and Romans 3: the root is rebellion against God.
• Grace mixed with works. The most dangerous error here. If faith becomes one payment among several, grace is gone. Re-teach Galatians 2:21 until it is instinctive.
• Baptism made powerful in itself. Guard the line: baptism confesses and seals; it does not wash by its own power. Watch for it blended with older cleansing rites.
• The Table treated as a charm or a repeated sacrifice. Re-anchor to 1 Corinthians 11:26: it remembers one finished sacrifice.
• Crowd mistaken for church. A large, joyful meeting is not yet a church. Press the four marks, especially discipline and love, which young movements lose first.
• Discipline without love, or love without discipline. Both unmake a church. Hold Matthew 18 and John 13:35 together.

Contextualization flags (these belong to partners, not to us):

• The local vocabulary of guilt, shame, and fear, and which the gospel should lead with. [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]
• The family and honor cost of baptism in this people, and a wise, honoring path through it. [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]
• Local rites that baptism or the Table might be confused with, so the line can be drawn clearly. Do not invent these; wait for the partner's map. [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]
• The mother-tongue membership confession, and any songs used to carry the memory verses. [PARTNER INPUT REQUIRED]

9. Doctrinal Anchors

This module chiefly serves Article V (Humanity & Sin), Article VI (Salvation: justification by faith alone, repentance and faith, perseverance), and Article VII (the Church: Word, ordinances, discipline, love; believers' baptism). It rests on Article III (Christ, substitutionary atonement) as the ground of justification, on Article I (the Scriptures, authoritative and sufficient) as its only source, and touches Article VIII (the Commission) in baptism and disciple-making.

Guardrails against the named counterfeits:

• Against prosperity teaching: justification is God's free verdict on the ground of Christ, not a lever for wealth or health. The gift is peace with God (Rom 5:1), not gain.
• Against ritual transfer: neither baptism nor the Table conveys grace mechanically. They sign and seal what faith receives (Rom 6:3–4; 1 Cor 11:26).
• Against charm-trading: grace cannot be bought or secured by an object or a price. By grace, the gift of God, not of works (Eph 2:8–9).
• Against syncretism: the convert leaves the old rites; he does not add Christ to them. Baptism buries the old and raises to new life (Col 2:12), and membership is belonging to one new people (1 Pet 2:9–10).

Where the pastoral office is named, the module mirrors the curriculum's usage of "men" from 1 Timothy 3:1–7 and Titus 1:5–9 without further comment; the office itself is developed in Modules 10 and 16.