A Bag of Doctrines
A bag of doctrines or body of truth? All truth from the Word, whether it’s as essential as the gospel, or as secondary as when the rapture will occur - because it came from the mind and heart of the living God - we should want to fully drink it in. There’s a sincere danger in subscribing to a bag of favorite doctrines and potentially ignoring the things we find uncomfortable or secondary rather than being constantly informed, challenged, renewed, and transformed by the body of truth that God has revealed in the Bible.
Even though any given passage only has one intended meaning, there indeed are “secondary” issues that can have multiple interpretations. How do we handle those conversations? Well, biblically. Reasonable, gracious, loving, generous, but humbly bold and flavorfully inflexible on things that scripture is clear about. But even with what we could call “secondary issues”, scripture - all of scripture - is God breathed, profitable, sufficient, living, active, interconnected, and important.
If anything God has said gets twisted, even unintentionally, there are natural consequences that accompany that because anything that isn’t pure truth is a lie. Not every false doctrine is damnable heresy, some are, but understanding and believing scripture correctly is important because of where it comes from - God. Not because it’s just some long list of random stuff we’re supposed to try and believe, but because altogether it’s a beautiful, deep, and rich explanation of who this Yahweh is, and how we can best know and serve Him as those who have been saved by faith in Jesus Christ. It’s freedom, not bondage.
The Holy Spirit does not contradict Himself. Some of us believe in a bag of doctrines which includes the essential that leads to eternal life, but also allows room to be hateful to others, or to justify all types of egregious sin that God Himself was clear about, or to elevate or dismiss things that God has in their perfect place in His Word - all because we arrogantly fail to recognize that the same Holy Spirit that instructs us to tell others to repent is the same one that says to teach others with all patience. It’s not a contradiction, it‘s already reconciled - we just have to humbly step into it. Can’t have one without the other. So instead, we often find ourselves using vague scriptures to fight with clear scriptures because what we prefer, or what we grew up with, or what we want to be true ultimately sounds better to us. I’m guilty of this, and it’s idolatry. It’s arrogance. It’s ignorance. It’s immaturity.
May we not pridefully take the essentials and then just interpret the other issues based on our own logic, reason, feelings, or culture, but instead, with deep humility and the understanding that we really know nothing apart from what God Himself has graciously given, for the rest of our lives, seek to know and honor Him the way He has revealed whether we like what He has set as a standard or not. We are in a war for truth in this world. If it’s from God, it’s truth. If it’s truth, it should under no circumstances be ignored.
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“The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.” Psalm 119:160
