What is theology? What is doctrine? Why do they matter?
I’m excited to begin this new series, Doctrines for Life. We will be using the Georgia Plain Baptist Church Statement of Faith as a template for learning basic Christian theology and doctrine.
If you missed the introductory sermon, “Doctrines for Life,” click here to listen.
Theology means literally “discourse about God” (theos, God + logos, word). Our theology is what we believe about God, mankind, sin, salvation, the church, and everything that God has revealed in his Word. Doctrine means “teaching.”
Our church’s statement of faith shows what we believe are the essential teachings of the Bible for us to understand and believe. To use an analogy, these doctrines are like the edge pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Getting these edge pieces in place is needed for having a good grasp of what biblical Christianity is all about. And once they are in place, it is much easier to make sense of all the rest that the Bible teaches.
Statements of faith—and ours is no exception—tend to highlight the doctrines most frequently rejected or disputed. In a sense, these are the points of Christian theology that are hardest to understand (i.e. the Trinity) or to accept (i.e., the doctrine of hell). However, our reading of Scripture “inexorably leads us to believe” these things—that is to say, we can’t take Scripture seriously and not believe them. Another analogy for the statement of faith is that it functions like guard rails on our faith to keep us from drifting off the road into heresy. This is why our statement of faith does not highlight certain foundational but non-controversial doctrines, such as God’s love or God’s identity as Creator. During this series, I will try to show the importance of the “guard rail” doctrines without missing the purpose of the road itself.
In the series we will be asking questions like:
What does it mean that the Bible is the inspired Word of God?
What is the doctrine of the Trinity and how does it change our understanding of God?
What defines our humanity? What does it mean to be made in the image of God?
What is sin? How does it affect us? Are people basically bad or basically good?
What does it mean that Jesus is “begotten” of God?
Who is the Holy Spirit and what does he do?
How does Jesus save us? What are the biblical concepts of atonement, justification, and sanctification?
What is really happening when we take communion?
What does the Bible teach about the final judgment?
What are heaven and hell like?
My prayer is that our minds would be renewed in the truth, and that the doctrines we learn (or re-learn) would change the way we live.
Two ways to go deeper in this series:
Each week on Tuesday or Wednesday I will post some extra resources for going deeper with the previous Sunday’s topic. Take some time each week to read/watch/listen.
Over the next few months, read the book Knowing God by J.I. Packer. This is a classic of basic Christian theology and faith. You can order it on Amazon or Abebooks.