Why Study Doctrine?
Why should you study Bible doctrine? Maybe you’re a student, stay-at-home mom, or professional in the business world. Why take time out of your busy schedule to learn the major teachings of the Christian faith?
Some dismiss doctrine as uninteresting, irrelevant, or just plain boring. “Don’t give me doctrine. Just give me Jesus! Doctrine may be cool for pastors or Bible nerds, but I live in the real world. I need practical stuff that works!”
Why study doctrine? Let me suggest a few reasons…
Study doctrine to ignite greater purity and passion in worship
A.W. Tozer stated, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God. For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.”1 We don’ t study doctrine simply to acquire more knowledge. We study the truth so that we can rightly know, love, and worship God! Studying doctrine fuels a life of passionate, Biblically-informed worship.
What you believe about God will directly impact how you relate to Him. For example, if you believe that God is good, wise, loving, and sovereign over all things, then you won’t be overcome by anxiety when it seems as if life is falling apart. You won’t wonder if God has failed you or stopped loving you. Even in the most difficult circumstances, you will find peace and rest in God’s goodness. Worship will overcome worry as you live in the light of the truth.
Study doctrine to think and live Biblically in this present world
You cannot read the Bible carefully without seeing the significance God places on right thinking.2 Your attitudes and actions reveal what you think about God, yourself, people, and what life should be like in this present world. Biblical thinking, which leads to Biblical living, can only occur as you daily renew your mind with God’s Word.
The importance of rooting your thinking in the rich soil of doctrinal truth cannot be overstated. Daily, you and I are bombarded with messages that defy God and disregard His truths. The enemy of your soul does not want you to live Biblically. The world is relentlessly striving to make you conform to its way of thinking. It constantly pushes you to embrace a lifestyle that is shaped by its values and priorities, which are essentially God-belittling and self-serving.
Biblical doctrine is like a pair of glasses. It enables you to see the lies of culture for what they are so that you’re not deceived by them.
Study doctrine to fulfill your God-given responsibility to protect and propagate the truth
Among other things, God has called the church to be the “pillar and ground” of truth (I Timothy 3:15). As a vital part of Christ’s body, you have a holy responsibility before God to learn the truths of God’s Word so that you will not be “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:11-16).
Not only are you called to learn God’s Word for yourself, but also to carefully teach them to the next generation.3 Truth will continue to impact lives as each generation of believers is committed to knowing, believing, and teaching right doctrine.
John Piper notes, “It is the Biblical duty of every generation of Christians to see to it that the next generation hears about the mighty acts of God. God does not drop a new Bible from heaven on every generation. He intends that the older generation will teach the newer generation to read and think and trust and obey and rejoice. It’ s true that God draws near personally to every new generation of believers, but he does so through the Biblical truth that they learn from the preceding generations.” The purity of the gospel is preserved as truth is passed on from one generation to the next.
Study doctrine to give a reason for the hope that you have in Christ
1 Peter 3:15 states, “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” You need to be ready to answer questions that unbelievers will ask you about your faith. That’s not just your pastor’s job… that’s every believer’s responsibility!
- If a co-worker asked you how a God of love and goodness could allow suffering, what would you say?
- How would you counsel a neighbor who told you that she tried Christianity, but it “didn’t work?”
- Parents, what about the countless questions your children or teenagers ask about the things of God?
Are you prepared to give answers? People’s lives might be at stake. If you don’t have a sure doctrinal foundation, you will miss out on opportunities to point people to Christ.
Conclusion
Doctrine is not irrelevant. It is essential to everything you are and do as a Christian. Studying doctrine is one of the most practical things you can do to glorify God in this complex, ever-changing world. The more you know about God and His Word, the more fully you can trust Him, the more passionately you can worship Him, and the more whole-heartedly you can serve Him.
Micah Colbert is the discipleship and outreach pastor at Community of Grace Church in Buffalo, NY. You can find his booklet, Good News for All Nations, designed for evangelism in ESL encounters, here. The post Why Study Doctrine? appeared first on Rooted Thinking.
Photo by Charl Folscher on Unsplash
- A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy. (New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 1961), p.1. [↩]
- For example: “Do not be conformed to [shaped or influenced by] this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:1-2). “You must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds … Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and… put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:22-24). “Prepar[e] … your minds for action … Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance” (I Peter 1:13-14). “Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Col.3:1-2). [↩]
- For example: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise …” (Deuteronomy 6:5-9). “We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation, the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done” (Psalm 78:1-4). “Fathers … bring them [your children] up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). “And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men [and women], who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). [↩]