Doctrine.
I love it. It's sexy. It's hot. It's rich. It's beautiful. Sadly, most people today don't really scartch beyond the surface of Christianity. Doctrine is something that seems not worth the effort, the work, the struggle.
That is unfortunate. The deep and weighty truths of God's Word are rich and beautiful. We have to move beyond this idea that we love Jesus simply because that is what feel like we should. You love Jesus? Great. Which Jesus? There are so many versions of Jesus we have to get after which Jesus the Scriptures talk about.
If I go up to my girl, Sarah and get on my knees and just lavish her with words of love and praise then that would be a good thing.
I could tell her that I love her red hair and her blue eyes, and that would surely be a compliment, but it would fall short on one key point. Sarah has brown hair and green eyes, not red hair and blue eyes.
I love Sarah because I know about her, I know the real her, not just some idea of her. We must recover this in the Church of Jesus. Before we go off and send people to go change the world and "serve" and become "disciples" we need to point them first and foremost towards Jesus Christ.
Who is this Jesus? What is He about? We must learn about Him before we can go off to the ends of the earth...otherwise we risk just telling people about some random Jesus that we know virtually nothing about except that we "love" Him.
Get into the Word. Read the great giants of the faith.
Read Augustine. Read Calvin. Read Luther. Read Wesley. Read Spurgeon.
Read men who are stepped in the Word, who love it, and who spent their lives protecting it and fighting for it. Then doctine, the great truths of our faith become real to us, they transform us. They are not just academic ramblings of professors and PhDs, they are truths which transform our hearts and our minds and move us toward a deeper understanding of Jesus the Christ.
So let's recover doctrine. Doctrine that dances. Doctrine that is not dead, but that right doctrine, right theology, right thinking that challenges us to move towards the cross of Christ with greater and deeper understanding of the Jesus revealed in the Scriptures.
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I love this post Dizzle. Something I need to be reminded of often. We have to know what we are representing and what we are fighting for. However, this is a hard message for me to hear sometimes as well because I am a go-getter and am always want to hyper-focus on the external part of being a Christ follower, the serving. And don't get me wrong, I love learning about Christ but what is the balance?
ReplyDeleteI could learn about Christ my whole life and will but still will only be scratching the surface of God's true character. How could we ever have time left to act on our faith when there is so much to learn? I guess where I'm coming from is a place where I see lots of Christians content to just memorize bible verses, lead small groups, read all the christian literature, and be essentially the quintessential member of the christian subculture yet no real action. Very few seem to be willing to step up to the plate and lay it on the line for Jesus.
So again I ask where is the balance? How do we reconcile action and service with seeking and learning? I know the answer must fall somewhere between the two because there is certainly room for both. However, I know that Alex and I have talked about this issue at great lengths and have encountered very opposing views on the matter, to the point where in the past it has been difficult to unite with other Christ-followers because we wanted to go do while others wanted to sit and seek.
When I was in high school I began what I thought of as preparation for college, more specifically for any encounter I may have with someone who was in need of Christ's redemption. So I sought to learn everything I could so that no question or doubt would stump me and therefore reflect poorly on God. However, as I'm sure you could guess, I figured out really quickly that I couldn't learn all of that and have all the answers for those in need of them.
I firmly believe you don't know Christ if you don't have a heart for His people and don't have a desire to serve, because His character cannot be separated from his service. And I don't think I have to convince either of you of that. However, we must make sure we are selling the right brand, revealing the true Jesus. So again, where is the balance?
Ok so I forgot to finish my story there. I realized once I got to college that I could spend my whole life preparing to change the world and would still not be ready. I thought, why not go ahead and start changing it now, if not just a little at a time. What are we waiting for? After all, the world is not going to change itself.
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