How to Understand Your Bible
Disproportionate Zeal
Confirmation Class
Godly or Learned
Right or Left
Barna Report
Blurred Puffs of Gray
Young Pastor Bate
Topic : Doctrine
The Heretic
I was walking in San Francisco along the Golden Gate Bridge when I saw a man about to jump off. I tried to dissuade him from committing suicide and told him simply that God loved him. A tear came to his eye. I then asked him, “Are you a Christian, a Jew, a Hindu, or what?”
He said, “I’m a Christian.”
I said, “Me, too, small world. . .Protestant or Catholic?”
He said, “Protestant.”
I said, “Me, too, what denomination?”
He said, “Baptist.”
I said, “Me, too, Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Baptist.”
I said, “Well, ME TOO, Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.”
I said, “Well, that’s amazing! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.”
I said, “Remarkable! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Eastern Region?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region.”
I said, “A miracle! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”
I said, “DIE HERETIC!’ and pushed him over the rail.
“Teaching”; used of the content rather than the act of teaching. The Greek word may be used of the doctrines of men (Matt. 15:9), but more important, refers to the teaching of Jesus (Matt. 7:28) and later the teaching of his followers. “My teaching,” Jesus said, “is not my own. It comes from him who sent me (John 7:16; i.e., it is from God). The word was used of Christian doctrine (Acts 2:42), to which believers are to be wholeheartedly committed (Rom. 6:17). It is important to “continue” in the doctrine (2 John 9) and to be able both to teach it and to refute those who oppose it (Titus 1:9).
How to Understand Your Bible
Norton Sterret, in How to Understand Your Bible, states very concisely some of the major principles that need to be adhered to when building a theological system from one’s own study of the Bible:
1. Base doctrine on the literal statements of the Bible rather than on the figurative portions.
2. Base doctrine on plain statements rather than on obscure ones.
3. Base doctrine on the didactic (teaching) passages rather than on the historical ones.
4. Base doctrine on all the relevant passages, not on just a few.
- Do a word study to learn some doctrines.
- There are doctrines which have no one word in the Bible to describe them.
- There are passages in which a doctrine is presented but the actual word does not occur.
- Some doctrines have more than one word to express them.
5. Be sure that each passage is understood through the general principles of interpretation.
6. Be cautious in formulating doctrine by inference.
7. Beware of doctrinal speculation.
8. In forming, holding, and teaching doctrine, emphasize what the Scripture emphasizes.
9. Seek the practical import of the doctrine.
Disproportionate Zeal
One of the most eloquent admonitions I have ever encountered along these lines is in Bishop Burnet’s preface to the classic work The Life of God in the Soul of Man, written by Henry Scougal in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Here is what Burnet wrote:
“There is scarce a more unaccountable thing to be imagined, than to see a company of men professing a religion, one great and main precept whereof is mutual love, forbearance, gentleness of spirit, and compassion to all sorts of persons, and agreeing in all the essential parts of its doctrine, and differing only in some less material and more disputable things, yet maintaining those differences with zeal so disproportioned to the value of them, and prosecuting all that disagree from them with all possible violence; or if they want means to use outward force, with all bitterness of spirit. They must needs astonish every impartial beholder, and raise great prejudices against such persons’ religion, as made up of contradictions; professing love, but breaking out in all the acts of hatred.”
Confirmation Class
A pastor I know, Stephey Belynskyj, starts each confirmation class with a jar full of beans. He asks his students to guess how many beans are in the jar, and on a big pad of paper writes down their estimates. Then, next to those estimates, he helps them make another list: their favorite songs. When the lists are complete, he reveals the actual number of beans in the jar. The whole class looks over their guesses, to see which estimate was closest to being right. Belynskyj then turns to the list of favorite songs. “And which one of these is closest to being right?” he asks. The students protest that there is no “right answer”; a person’s favorite song is purely a matter of taste.
Belynskyj, who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Notre Dame asks, “When you decide what to believe in terms of your faith, is that more like guessing the number of beans, or more like choosing your favorite song?” Always, Belynskyj says, from old as well as young, he gets the same answer: Choosing one’s faith is more like choosing a favorite song.
When Belynskyj told me this, it took my breath away. “After they say that, do you confirm them?”
I asked him. “Well,” smiled Belynskyj, “First I try to argue them out of it.”
Godly or Learned
A minister must be learned, on pain of being utterly incompetent for his work. But before and above being learned, a minister must be godly. Nothing could be more fatal, however, than to set these two things over against one another.
Right or Left
Recruiting officers do not dispute whether it is better for soldiers to have a right leg or a left leg: soldiers should have both legs.
Barna Report
The report indicates a great deal of ambivalence among Americans with regard to their beliefs. For instance, while 62 percent of the respondents said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ, 65 percent said the term “born again” does not apply to them; fewer than 50 percent strongly agreed that the Bible is the written word of God and is totally accurate in all it teaches.
Blurred Puffs of Gray
We have gotten accustomed to the blurred puffs of gray fog that pass for doctrine in churches and expect nothing better. From some previously unimpeachable sources are now coming vague statements consisting of a milky admixture of Scripture, science, and human sentiment that is true to none of its ingredients because each one works to cancel the others out.
Little by little Christians these days are being brainwashed. One evidence is that increasing numbers of them are becoming ashamed to be found unequivocally on the side of truth. They say they believe, but their beliefs have been so diluted as to be impossible of clear definition. Moral power has always accompanied definite beliefs. Great saints have always been dogmatic. We need a return to a gentle dogmatism that smiles while it stands stubborn and firm on the Word of God that lives and abides forever.
Young Pastor Bate
“You’re just out of date,” said young pastor Bate
To one of our faithful old preachers
Who had carried for years in travail and tears
The gospel to poor sinful creatures.
“You still preach on Hades, and shock cultured ladies
“With your barbarous doctrine of blood!
“You’re so far behind you will never catch up—
“You’re a flat tire stuck in the mud!”
For some little while, a bit of a smile
Enlightened the old preacher’s face.
Being made the butt of ridicule’s cut
Did not ruffle his sweetness and grace.
Then he returned to young Bate, so suave and sedate.
“Catch up, did my ears hear you say'
“Why, I couldn’t succeed if I doubled my speed,
“My friend, I’m not going your way!”
