My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass. (Deuteronomy 32:2)

What is Doctrine? (November, 2009)

A Test.

Examine the following statements and see if you can determine which statements are doctrine and which statements are practical instruction.  Answers will follow.

1. God chose his people in Christ before the foundation of the world.  (Ephesians 1:4)
2. Love your enemies.  (Matthew 5:44)
3. Jesus is God.  (John 1:1-3,14)
4. Seek first the kingdom of God.  (Matthew 6:33)
5. Do not worry about anything, but pray with thanksgiving about everything.  (Philippians 4:6)
6. All those who God chose will come to Christ.  (John 6:37)
7. He that has the Son of God has life.  (I John 5:12)
8. He that does not have the Son of God does not have life.  (I John 5:12)
9. Be sober.  (Titus 2:4)
10. Thou shalt not steal.  (Deuteronomy 5:19)

Now, have you taken some time to classify these statements?  Now for the answer:

If you identified that all of these statements are doctrine, then congratulations, you are correct.  Doctrine is an often misunderstood word that simply means teaching or instruction.  Thus, whether the teaching is a statement of fact like “Jesus shall save his people from their sins,” or a command like “love your neighbor”, it is, in both cases, doctrine.  Many people misunderstand doctrine to refer to abstract theological concepts that do not have direct bearing on our daily lives, but this idea is foreign to the scripture.  For example, consider that Paul instructs Titus to “speak thou the things which become sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1), and then goes on to list such things under this category as teaching older men to be sober, older women to not gossip, younger women to obey their husbands, and everyone to obey magistrates and other earthly leaders.

The Bible is filled with “sound doctrine”, and it includes everything from declaring that there is one God, to instructing children to obey their parents.  Briefly, “sound” doctrine is any teaching that is true, honoring to God, and in harmony with the Bible.  In this sense, the entire Bible is doctrine.  In contrast to the sound doctrine of the Bible, there are many false doctrines.  A false doctrine is any teaching that is contrary to the Bible.  For example, Paul speaks of “doctrines of devils” like forbidding people to join in godly marriages or commanding people to abstain from certain foods (I Timothy 4:3).  He describes in Ephesians 4 that the purpose of teachers of the word is so that the church would be built up in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God (true doctrine), so they would not be “carried about with every wind of doctrine (false doctrine).  This is accomplished through “speaking the truth in love”.  False doctrine is better known by the shorter and simpler term: lies.  To those that did not believe Christ, he said, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8:44) 

Now, what about the second part of the question?  Well, if you identified that all of these statements are also practical instruction, then congratulations, you are correct again and you have passed the test.  I alluded before to “abstract theological concepts that do not have direct bearing on our daily lives”; however, the Bible does not contain any such statements.  Everything that God has taught us in the Bible about himself, his will, his plan, his character, and his work of redemption, among other things, is of direct practical value to our lives.  Paul instructed Timothy that all scripture “is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:  that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”  (II Timothy 3:16-17)  This means that in order to be prepared for a life of good works, one must be equipped by continual instruction from the word of God, the only source of sound doctrine.

The truth that we believe will have a visible effect on our lives and the fruit that we bear.  This means that believing that Jesus rose from the dead will affect how we think and live, believing that we were dead in sin apart from his grace will affect how we think and live, believing that Jesus Christ is Lord will affect how we think and live, and so on. 

Some would claim that it is not so important what you believe, but how you live.  That is, that we should focus more on performing good works than on teaching sound doctrine.  However, this is really an unbiblical divorcing of works and beliefs.  In fact, the Bible everywhere shows that faith and works must go hand-in-hand.  James taught that faith (belief in the truth) would manifest itself in good works (James 2).  Paul always grounded his instruction in concrete statements of fact:  God forgave you through Christ, therefore forgive one another (Ephesians 4:32), or God’s choice of who he would save was not based on your works, so do not boast (Romans 9-11).  Jesus taught that it was not only the outward works that were important, but the state of the heart (Matthew 5). 

Biblically, sound doctrine and righteous living cannot be separated.  What you believe in your mind and your heart will direct your actions throughout your life.  As Jesus said, “For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit” (Luke 6:43).  The Bible was given to us that we might be established in sound doctrine, so that through belief in the truth, we might be conformed to the image of Christ in all holiness.   May God bless us to be always growing in the truth, that we might glorify him through the fruit that we bear.