Know What You Believe: Why Doctrine Matters*
I have never been a big fan of systematic theology. Unlike some friends of mine – men whom I admire, brothers who love to read theological literature – my eyes glaze over when I try to read theology.
For me, reading theology is like reading spreadsheets. It all blurs together.
Some people are actually disdainful about doctrine. “Doctrine divides,” they complain. “Why can’t we all just love Jesus?”
Doctrine matters, for instance, precisely because it matters what we mean when we use the name of Jesus. Doctrine drills down on essential questions like who Jesus is and why we should love him.
THE TEACHER AS A LEARNER
I’m teaching a class on our church’s Statement of Faith; I’m trying to explain what we believe as a fellowship and why we believe it. And I don’t want the class to devolve into something along the lines of driver’s ed classes, a crushingly boring class you must simply endure (with apologies to any readers who teach drivers ed, of course).
So I have had to think carefully about why doctrine matters.
In my first class, I explain what doctrines are: interlocking assumptions about key truths that control the way we think, key truths like
-- who God is: His attributes, the Trinity
-- human nature: what makes humans such splendid creatures, capable of such great things, but also so corrupt and capable of great wickedness
-- how we can deal with the brokenness in our nature, how I cope with the fact that I can’t even live up to my own standards, much less withstand the scrutiny of a holy God
-- who Jesus was and is: what he accomplished at the cross, what happened on that magnificent Sunday following his death, our expectation that we will see him again
-- what role the Bible ought to play in our lives and in our thinking
In other words, doctrine is about the bedrock issues of our how we perceive and interpret what we see and experience. Doctrine matters because of how important these key truths are.
This is why we need to have a firm grasp on what we believe. Fuzzy thinking about money or time management has consequences. Procrastination will almost always create problems. Always having “too much month at the end of my money” can bring about real difficulties. But fuzzy thinking about doctrine is actually a matter of spiritual life and death.
This is why Paul says that helping God’s people grow theologically is one of the primary responsibilities of Christian leaders. He uses a terrifying word picture – babies floundering in the water – to describe what happens when we get stuck in spiritual immaturity because we don’t have a good grasp on doctrine:
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Eph 4:11-14, ESV
We cannot afford to be careless in our thinking about God, about our own nature, about our sin, about Jesus, about the Bible. If our doctrine is shaped by the culture or our own life circumstances or (worse yet) social media, we will find ourselves vulnerable to deception and error.
HOW DOCTRINE OPERATES BENEATH THE SURFACE
Doctrines are articulated as statements, but they usually operate as unconscious assumptions. Doctrine functions like an operating system in a computer, always running in the background, controlling the way we think and react. The way we think about these key ideas isn’t usually intentional; we don’t consciously rehearse our views on these matters every day. But we operate on those assumptions all the time.
-- We assume that God is real, actually interested in our well-being, a wise and generous Father; or we assume that He is remote and disinterested.
-- We assume that people are basically good and well-intentioned; or we assume that people are inwardly corrupt and self-serving.
-- We assume that the life of Jesus was the fulcrum on which human history turned and that he’s coming again to make all things right; or we assume that he was only a kind and good teacher, one of the great moralists of history, who showed us how to live more ethically.
This is why we read Scripture and we sometimes refer to doctrines or the creeds in our sermons, because we are forgetful. In a culture that always ignores sound doctrine and sometimes attacks it, it is far too easy to give head space to faulty assumptions about God, ourselves, Jesus, the Bible. So we need to remind ourselves frequently of these key truths, these bedrock doctrines.
WHY THE ASTERISK*
Some of you caught the asterisk in the title, after the phrase “why doctrine matters,” and you are wondering what it means. The asterisk is there because of the sad fact that it is possible to be an expert in sound doctrine that doesn’t actually matter.
For doctrine to matter in my life, it must penetrate my heart, it must have an impact on my character and my priorities, particularly on the way I treat people. If I have all the key doctrines locked down but I am arrogant and impatient, my doctrine is no more significant than, as Paul describes it, “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor 13:1).
Social media is full of arrogant, impatient doctrine warriors pounding their gongs and clanging their cymbals, filling the web with their toxic attitudes and taking perverse pleasure in their devastating critiques on the doctrines of other believers. If my doctrine doesn’t make me humble and compassionate, either my doctrine isn’t actually Christian or I don’t really understand Christian doctrine.
So, yes, doctrine does matter because I need to have a good grasp on what I believe. And because I am forgetful, I need to often remind myself and be reminded of key truths about God, my own heart, Jesus, the Bible.
Someday, in the next life, when we have reached our glorified state, we will see all things clearly, and all the key truths that we have in doctrine will be obvious and self-evident. But for now, we need to remind ourselves, to remember the doctrines, so we don’t forget.
Persevere.
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor