Reformed Baptist terminology explained simply: it is the vocabulary of confessional Baptist life, words like the 1689, expository preaching, ordinance, and the doctrines of grace that describe how these churches read the Bible, structure a service, and talk about salvation. None of it requires a seminary degree. Most of it can be explained in a sentence or two.
If you have ever sat in a service and heard a word you did not recognize, or scrolled a church website and hit a wall of unfamiliar phrases, you are not missing some obvious piece of background knowledge. This is simply a tradition with its own shorthand, the same way any field develops words that save time for the people already inside it. Here is what the words actually mean, in plain language you could repeat to a friend on the drive home.
Words About the Bible and How It’s Preached
Expository preaching
Expository preaching is preaching that works through a passage of Scripture and explains what it meant and means, rather than starting from a topic and searching for verses to support it. The Valley Remnant Church describes its own approach as presenting the meaning of a Bible passage entirely and precisely as it was intended by God, which is why the current series is simply working through the book of Hebrews, chapter by chapter.
Exposition
Exposition is the noun form of the same idea. An exposition of a passage is the act of explaining it clearly and in order, the way a good teacher walks a class through a text instead of skipping around it.
The regulative principle
The regulative principle is the belief that corporate worship should be shaped by what Scripture actually commands, rather than by whatever seems effective or moving at the time. It is why a Reformed Baptist service tends to feel unadorned: singing, praying, reading and preaching the Word, and the ordinances, without much added on top.
The ordinary means of grace
The ordinary means of grace are the plain, repeated practices God uses to grow a Christian: the preached Word, prayer, and the ordinances. Nothing flashy is required. The claim is that God has always worked through ordinary things done faithfully over time.
Words About the Church’s Confession
The 1689
The 1689 is shorthand for the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, a seventeenth-century document that summarizes what Reformed Baptists believe the Bible teaches on everything from Scripture to salvation to church life. You can read the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith in full if you want to see the source itself.
Confession of faith
A confession of faith is a written summary of what a church believes the Bible teaches, used to teach members and to give the congregation a shared vocabulary for its doctrine. It is not treated as equal to Scripture.
Nevertheless, the Scriptures alone are God-inspired and thus are the supreme authority in all matters of belief and practice.
TVRC Church Constitution
That sentence is worth sitting with. A confession is a confirmation of faith, a means of instruction, and a basis for unity among members, but it answers to the Bible, not the other way around. You can read more of how TVRC frames this in its own church constitution.
Words About Salvation
The doctrines of grace
The doctrines of grace are five linked teachings about how a person comes to saving faith: total depravity, unconditional election, particular redemption, effectual calling, and the perseverance of the saints. Together they say that salvation starts with God, not with human effort or willpower.
Election
Election is the teaching that God chose those who would be saved before they had done anything to deserve or earn it. It is meant as a comfort rather than a riddle: your standing with God does not rest on how well you performed.
Justification
Justification is God declaring a sinner righteous, not because of anything the person has done, but because of what Christ has done on their behalf. It is a legal word borrowed for a spiritual reality: the verdict has already been rendered, and it is not guilty.
Sanctification
Sanctification is the lifelong process of a Christian becoming more like Christ after being justified. It is slow, uneven, and never finished in this life, which is part of why a church full of sanctified people can still look like a room full of ordinary, unfinished human beings.
Regeneration
Regeneration is the term for being made spiritually alive by God, sometimes described as being born again. It is the starting point that makes faith and repentance possible, rather than something a person produces on their own.
Providence
Providence is the belief that God is actively governing everything that happens, down to the ordinary details of a person’s life, rather than having set the world in motion and stepped back. It is the word behind a phrase you may hear at TVRC, that members attend worship unless providentially hindered, meaning something outside their control got in the way.
Assurance
Assurance is the settled confidence that a Christian can actually have that they belong to God, built on the promises of Scripture rather than on a feeling that comes and goes. Doubt still happens. Assurance is what a person returns to when it does.
Words About How the Church Is Organized
Elder
An elder, also called a pastor, bishop, or overseer, is one of the two church offices recognized at TVRC, responsible for teaching, shepherding, and leading the congregation. You can read about the specific men who serve in this role at TVRC on the leadership page.
Deacon
A deacon is the other recognized office, focused on administering the church’s ministries of mercy and practical care rather than the teaching and governing work of an elder.
Congregational
Congregational describes a form of church government in which the members themselves hold final authority under Christ, including deciding who belongs to the church, rather than that authority resting with a denomination, a bishop, or the elders alone.
Covenant
A covenant is a solemn, binding commitment. Used of church membership, it describes the promises members make to God and to one another, not a casual arrangement that can be entered or dropped without any weight to it.
Words About Sunday Itself
The Lord’s Day
The Lord’s Day is the traditional term for Sunday, the day the church gathers because it is the day Christ rose from the dead. At TVRC that means Sunday School at 10:15 AM and worship at 11:00 AM.
Ordinance
An ordinance is a practice Christ himself commanded the church to observe. TVRC recognizes two: baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
The Lord’s Supper
The Lord’s Supper is the ordinance in which the church shares bread and a cup in remembrance of Christ’s death, following his own instruction to his disciples to do so.
Credobaptism
Credobaptism is baptism upon a personal profession of faith, by immersion, rather than infant baptism. TVRC practices credobaptism and does not baptize infants, while loving, teaching, and including the children of believing parents until they profess faith for themselves.
Benediction
A benediction is a spoken blessing pronounced over the congregation, usually at the close of the service, sending people out under God’s favor rather than simply announcing that the meeting has ended.
What This Means If You Visit
You do not need to memorize any of this before you walk in the door at 130 Greenwood Ave. in Belle Vernon. These words will simply make more sense once you have heard them used in context a time or two. If a term comes up in a sermon and you cannot place it, that is a completely normal reason to ask an elder about it afterward, or to look it up in the church’s own constitution, where most of these ideas are spelled out in full.
Frequently asked questions
What does credobaptism mean?
Credobaptism means baptism given upon a personal profession of faith, by immersion, rather than baptism given to infants. Reformed Baptist churches like TVRC practice credobaptism, baptizing believers once they profess faith for themselves.
What is the 1689 Confession of Faith?
The 1689 is the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, a historic document summarizing Reformed Baptist doctrine on Scripture, salvation, and church life. TVRC holds to it as a faithful summary of biblical teaching, subordinate to Scripture itself.
What are the doctrines of grace?
The doctrines of grace are five related teachings, total depravity, unconditional election, particular redemption, effectual calling, and perseverance of the saints, that describe salvation as God’s work from beginning to end rather than a human achievement.
What does it mean for a church to be congregational?
A congregational church places final earthly authority in the hands of its members under Christ, including who is received into membership, rather than in a denomination, bishop, or the elders acting alone.
What is the difference between an elder and a deacon?
An elder, also called a pastor, teaches, shepherds, and leads the congregation. A deacon administers the church’s ministries of mercy and practical care. TVRC recognizes only these two offices.
None of these words are a password you need to know to be welcome. If you are anywhere in the Mid-Mon Valley, or driving in from Pittsburgh, you are invited to come hear them used in their natural setting this Lord’s Day, Sunday School at 10:15 AM and worship at 11:00 AM. You can plan your visit whenever you are ready.
