Why Study Doctrine, Free Course, Chapter 2
Why Study Doctrine, Free Course, Chapter 2
Bible Doctrine Is Captivating
One reason why many shudder today at the mention of Doctrine is that they were taught by unskilled teachers, and are bored to death.
I use the word "unskilled" in a broad sense. These are men who simply mug up all the possible details about Bible doctrines and then throw it up in front of a congregation. Dead it went into their minds, dead it goes out of their mouths. Their body, soul, spirit is not involved in this mechanical process. These men have never dynamically related with the great doctrines. They simply memorized the theological facts but they never interacted with them. For them doctrine is a bunch of dead facts, and when they teach they render it as much more lifeless as possible. The problem here is not with the topic, but he who teachers. Bible doctrine is interesting and exciting, but these teachers take the flavor out of it and serve only the hide.
Teaching is not just throwing up a series of mutually linked facts. It is a dynamic activity into which an effective teacher is submerged body, soul, and spirit. He knows his subjects, is often madly in love with it, knows the importance of it, and also knows the historical perspective about it. For him teaching his subject is a love affair. Any other kind of person teaching a subject will only make a mess out of it.
Witness the number of students for whom the very mention of mathematics, physics, or chemistry triggers mental trauma. I am not referring to ordinary students but about many who are above-average yet who shudder at the name of these subjects. The problem is not with these subjects but rather with the way in which they have been taught (or, mistaught). The same is the problem with the teaching of Bible doctrine.
In the generation that follows any spiritual reformation, people who teach the Bible know its historical importance. They teach facts but they can make it apply to everyday life. They can thus teach doctrine in a manner that creates a passion for holy living. However, as generations pass away, new teachers arrive on the scene who have very little clue about the links between fundamental doctrines, practical life, and the historical developments. They present facts, but are unable to use it to prescribe a course of life. Their preaching becomes increasingly descriptive and decreasingly prescriptive. They simply cannot related doctrine with life. They are clueless and leave the audience totally in the dark, making them dislike Bible doctrine.
All genuine Biblical teaching is prescriptive in nature. It tells people how to live and how not to live. It is this kind of teaching where the Word of God acts as a two-edged sword. It is such teaching that becomes profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction in righteousness. Bible doctrine in their hands becomes a dynamic entity which excited the audience and creates in them a passion for holy living. A generation that has been exposed to this kind of Bible teaching simply loves Bible doctrine. However, very few of that kind of teachers are now active in Christian ministry.
Every subject in this word can become captivating, provided it is handled by a person who is in love with it, who knows how it interacts with the rest of life. The great teachers of the past and present are good example. C H Spurgeon, H A Ironside, John McArthur, S Lewis Johnson and Haddon W. Robinson are some examples. Similarly the Dallas Theological Seminary, Grace Theological Seminary, and Talbot Theological Seminary in the twentieth century produced writers who knew how to expound Bible doctrine. Generations of students were attracted to their doctrinal writings. The same was the period when doctrinally oriented publications like the Good News Broadcaster (Theodore H. Epp, Editor) and Sword of The Lord (John R. Rice, Editor) reached their heyday. The same was the period when the Radio Bible class kept producing doctrinally oriented publications under M R DeHaan and R W DeHaan. The same can happen today.
In India great teachers like KV Simon, Y. Ezekiel, KG Kurian, VT Mathai were able to mesmerize an audience for hours together in one go. The same was true of Sam Kamalesson, John Paul and many others. KB Tan of Singapore used to speak for two hours at a time and yet even children would not get up from the chairs.
There are some dynamic teachers of Bible doctrine even today, as I mentioned before, but their numbers is not sufficient to meet the needs of the present population. This is why there is a rise mediocre teachers who have destroyed the love of people for Bible doctrine. They fill the pulpits but empty the minds of their listeners.
Why Bible Doctrine: A glance at a today’s Christendom worldwide will give the impression that all is well even without an emphasis on Bible doctrine. The sales of Bibles and devotional material is on an all-time high, Christian ministers are having a good time preaching in large conferences, and all types of camps, conferences, and Christian crusades are attracting capacity crowds. Christianity looks alive even without the old emphasis on doctrine. However, this is a totally wrong way of assessing the health of the church.
The health of a community is to be assessed not by superficial factors like number of conferences held, or by the ‘appearance’ of growth but rather by actual growth. A healthy church should demonstrate a healthy growth through missions and church planting. it should also be demonstrated by a holy and sanctified life, and people of the world should be able to recognize that these Christians are a special group of people. This is what happens after each and every reformation and revival, but this is not what we see today in the abundance of camps and conventions.
True, there is a lot of missionary activity taking place in the developing world, and the number of Christians there is swelling up every day. However very little of this work is indigenously supported. Though there is a very large missionary-enterprise today in the developing countries, this is mainly the result of the heavy inflow of easy funds from USA and Europe. The moment the foreign funds stop coming in, the majority of mission activities in these countries will stop because the missionary activities do not have their roots in the hearts of the native population. It is an imposed activity, and not something that has grown out of the desires of their hearts. This is not indicative of spiritual health. The presence of health-insurance for all in a country does not automatically indicate that everyone is healthy. For health, each person in that country will have to take care of health and hygiene. Similarly, missionary activity in developing countries these days is not an indicator of spiritual health of the church there because the bulk of such activities do not have origin in the hearts of the local populace.
Researchers worldwide in the last two decades have shown that the distinction between the daily and practical life of Christians and non Christians is diminishing. Premarital sex is approaching the same level in both communities, and so is the divorce rate. Personal choices in questionable matters also are increasingly becoming similar. If non Christians are embracing relativism in morality, the evangelical church is not far behind either in morality or their attraction for the vices that once they considered the mark of the depraved.
Obviously, the current emphasis in the Christian world on life at the expense of doctrine is not resulting in things intrinsically good. On the contrary, this misplaced emphasis is leading the Christian community to increased levels of hollowing out from the inside. On the other hand the generations closer to reformations with their emphasis on doctrines produced Christian communities that were vibrant, self sustaining in missions, and holy in their life and choices. We need to go back to the attitude of those generations and with that in mind let me list a few answers to the question, ‘why Bible doctrine’.
Why Study Doctrine, Free Course, Chapter 2
Bible Doctrine Is Captivating
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