We kicked off a new message series yesterday called “CREED: What You Believe + Why It Matters” and we opened with the first message, “STORY: The Doctrine of Scripture.”
Why? Because what you believe influences everything about you — the way you think, feel, speak and act. Right beliefs lead to right attitudes and actions.
What do you really believe about God? The Bible? Human beings? Sin? Satan?Jesus? The Holy Spirit? Church? Your involvement in it? What do you believe about heaven and what comes next?
On top of all that, why do you believe what you believe and why does any of it matter, anyway?
Right beliefs are the foundation of a life of connection with God, character when nobody’s watching and confidence in life.
Before we go any further, let’s go over three terms that are really important: Theology, Doctrine and Orthodoxy.
THEOLOGY: the things we believe about God.
We’re all theologians… The question is whether or not what we believe we know about God is actually the truth about God. In the end, we’re either building our lives on the reality of who God is and what He is like or we’re building our life on our own imaginations and misconceptions.
Here’s why theology is so important: A messed up theology leads to a messed up life.
Unfortunately, today’s church is turning out Christians whose beverage of choice is “Theology Lite” – “everything you always wanted in a God, and less.” The truth is, much of what we believe about God isn’t theology, as much as it is ME-ology masquerading as THE-ology.
I love the way J.A. Medders and Brandon Smith describe theology in their book, Rooted:
“The aim of [good] theology is worship:
meeting with God, living with God, and living for God.”
—J.A. Medders and Brandon Smith [1]
DOCTRINE: what the whole Bible teaches us about any particular topic. [2] It’s the meaning of the story God is writing in the world. [3] It’s the explanation of what God has done, why He’s done it + why it matters.
Have you ever heard someone say something like, “I’m not into doctrine, I’m into Jesus!” That sounds great, but if you’re into Jesus, you’re into doctrine. Because doctrine is what you believe about Jesus.
Doctrines are not “god,” but they do matter! Because what a person believes shapes who he or she becomes. And, just like theology, a messed up doctrineleads to a messed up life.
16 Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them,
because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
—1 Timothy 4:16 NIV
Beliefs and actions matter. Doing right things flows from believing right things. That’s why we’ve got to “keep a close watch” on both our beliefs and our actions.
ORTHODOXY: literally means “right opinion” or “straight teaching.” It is right beliefs and convictions about God and His Word established on truths clearly taught in Scripture and affirmed in the historic creeds of the Christian faith. [4] [5]
We even use the word outside church to mean “what is generally accepted to be true by most people.”
When you apply this term to Christianity, orthodoxy represents the essential and irreducible TRUTHS about God and about God’s work in this world!
I know that relativism, deconstructionism and any number of “isms” rule the day in 2022, but orthodoxy still matters. It matters because Christianity and the Christian faith aren’t just cultural preferences or a moral code to live by. They’re not a state of mind, some kind of mystical experience or concepts from a self-help book that will make your life work better. The Christian faith is what we are literally staking eternity on — not only this life, but whatever comes next.
In this series of posts, we’ll go through five guiding principles when it comes to the doctrine of Scripture. We’ll cover the first one right now.
GUIDING PRINCIPLE #1
WHAT I BELIEVE ABOUT THE BIBLE
AFFECTS WHAT I BELIEVE ABOUT EVERYTHING.
What you believe about the Bible is important because it touches, influences and helps to shape everything else you believe.
If you don’t get this one right, everything else in the life you’re building can come crashing down.
What we believe about God, salvation, who Jesus is and what He has accomplished we believe because God has revealed it to us in the Bible.
The Bible is the foundation for every other belief… It tells us who God is and how He has acted in human history… Apart from the Bible, we couldn’t really know God or understand His activity in the world.
There are two ways God has revealed Himself: General Revelation and Special Revelation.
General Revelation – is general information about God’s existence and character given to everyone. (See Ps 19:1-4; 94:8-10; Rom 1:19-21)
It’s an inner sense about God that He has placed in our conscience. It’s what God has revealed about Himself in general through His creation… (Ps 19:1-4; 94:8-10; Rom 1:19-21) General Revelation is also knowledge we can obtain about God by just watching what God has done or what God is doing.
General revelation is a “broad brush stroke” that points us to the reality of a Master Painter. Through general revelation, we see the majesty, beauty and the power of God. General revelation reminds us that God exists, but it doesn’t fill in all of the details about His character or give us the specifics on the plan of redemption or God’s purpose for our lives.
For instance, David was a lover of nature. He was raised as a shepherd and spent a great amount of time outdoors. Once he became so overwhelmed by the beauty and majesty of the universe that he exclaimed:
The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.
Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known.
—Ps 19:1-2 NLT
John Calvin said it like this, “…humans can’t open their eyes without being compelled to see God.” (Institutes I, V, 1)
Special Revelation – is when God speaks to a specific group of people so they can experience a personal relationship with Him. [1]
The Bible is special revelation. Just think about that for a moment…
What is the Bible?
It’s comprised of two main sections or divisions: the Old Testament, that contains thirty-nine (39) books of what could be called The Hebrew Scriptures, and the New Testament, that contains twenty-seven (27) books including 4 GOSPELS that describe the life and ministry of Jesus, 1 book of HISTORY (ACTS) that describes the birth of the first century church, 1 book of PROPHECY (REVELATION) and 21 LETTERS of correspondence.
The Bible was written over a time span of more than fifteen hundred (1,500) years, by more than forty (40) authors from every conceivable walk of life including kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen and scholars…
MOSES was a political leader who was trained in the best universities in Egypt. DAVID was a shepherd, poet, musician and a king. JOSHUA was a military general. NEHEMIAH was a palace official to a pagan king. DANIEL was a Prime Minister. LUKE was a doctor and a historian. PAUL was a Rabbi.
The Bible was written in different PLACES. For instance, in a DESERT, DUNGEON, PALACE and a PRISON, among other places.
It was written in THREE DIFFERENT LANGUAGES: Hebrew, Greek and a couple of sections were written in Aramaic. It was written by authors spread out on three different CONTINENTS: Asia, Africa and Europe.
It contains HISTORY, POETRY, PROVERBS, PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE, MEMOIRS, BIOGRAPHY, AUTOBIOGRAPHY, LAW, PROPHECY, PARABLE and ALLEGORY. It contains stories of LOVE, SEX, MURDER, WAR and BETRAYAL.
Anyone who says that the Bible is boring, hasn’t read it… Yes, some parts are challenging. But much of it is fascinating.
What’s even more amazing is that Biblical authors spoke on hundreds of CONTROVERSIAL SUBJECTS, yet there is HARMONY, CONTINUITY and UNITY of THOUGHT from the very first page of GENESIS to the last page of REVELATION. There is one unfolding theme throughout the entirety of its pages: just how far the GOD OF THE UNIVERSE WOULD GO TO RESCUE and REDEEM YOU and ME!
Can you imagine the probability of putting forty authors, from three continents, writing in three different languages over a time span of 1,500 years in a room and asking them to express their thoughts and opinions on matters as controversial and opinionated as the creation of the world, the origin of man, the character of God, ethics and morality? Do you think that they would speak with any semblance of unity or continuity? There’s no way! They probably wouldn’t agree on anything!
But the Bible speaks with incredible continuity, unity, clarity and authority!
The Bible is special revelation. And, we need it! We need God’s self-revelation to know what He’s like. We need revelation to know who we are and why we exist. We need revelation to explain our purpose and the eternal significance of life on this planet. We need revelation to know that we are sinners who desperately need a Savior. We need revelation to know that God has provided a savior in His Son, Jesus!
Without the Bible, we couldn’t know or understand the meaning of the cross. We wouldn’t know or understand what Jesus accomplished through His resurrection.
“…faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
—Rom 10:17 ESV
Come back tomorrow for Part 2, as we go through the second guiding principle when it comes to the doctrine of Scripture.
[1] J.A. Medders and Brandon Smith, Rooted, Kindle Edition, Location 121 of 1013.
[2] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, Kindle Edition, p 50 of 3251, Location 718 of 59111.
[3] Josh Harris, Dug Down Deep, Kindle Edition, p 31, Location 547 of 3659.
[4] G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Kindle Edition, p 6 of 154, Location 86 of 2415.
[5] Josh Harris, Dug Down Deep, Kindle Edition, p 14, Location 282 of 3659.