What Exactly Is Christian Doctrine?

Have you ever wondered what someone means when they ask you what doctrine you follow? Well that is exactly what happened to me, and to be honest...I had no clue what she meant. So, I set out to figure out for myself what exactly is Christian doctrine!

So back to the original discussion about doctrine. Canadian Theologian, Tim Challies, says doctrine is “the way the central themes of God’s revelation in Scripture are summarized and taught”. The Oxford Languages Dictionary definition of doctrine is; a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a Church, political party, or other group. Using Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, basically an alphabetical listing of every word in the Bible along with its biblical reference address, I can find what the Bible says about doctrine. Doctrine comes from the Hebrew root word leqah, meaning mental instruction. So therefore the English word doctrine in the Bible means to teach or instruct. Some examples include:

Job 11:4, For thou hast said, My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in thine eyes.

Proverbs 4:2, I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law.

John, 7: 16-17 Jesus answered them and said, my doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself.

And the last verses that I want to mention are;

Revelation 2:14-15 But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolatians, which thing I hate.

I can go on, there's over 50 references in the Bible for the word doctrine. So I'm not going to go into all of them. These verses tell me there is both right & wrong doctrine! So all of these verses speak to doctrine, as a type of teaching. And for me, the only type of teaching/doctrine that I want to follow will be that which I find in the Bible. So I guess in the answer to the question that my friend initially asked me, which was: what doctrine am I following? I am going to say that I am following the doctrine of Jesus Christ! Biblical doctrine! One of the passages that I have found here in regards to doctrine that just really, to me, sums up why I want to follow the doctrine of Jesus Christ is…

Matthew 7:28, And it came to pass when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: For He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

You see, the doctrine that matters is the doctrine of Jesus, who has the authority to teach.

Recently, while going through a course on C.S Lewis, who by the way, is called “the greatest apologist of the 20th century”, J.R.R. Tolkien & Hugo Dyson point out to him that Christian doctrines are not the main thing about Christianity. They explain that “doctrines are translations into our concepts and ideas, of that which God has already expressed in a language more adequate, that is the actual historical lived language.” (Michael Ward) This really makes sense to me. Although I know there are other examples of what they call Christian doctrines, I believe that this is an area in which we, as prodigals, must be careful. As Pastor Brian Jones frequently says, "don't just take my word on these things, compare them to what is in the Bible, and see for yourself if I am sharing the truth". There are a multitude of different "Christian Doctrines" out there! A quick Google search brings up these examples of doctrines. Doctrines such as: the Trinity, the virgin birth and atonement. The Salvation Army Handbook of Doctrine. Transubstantiation and Marian teachings in Roman Catholic theology. I mean, What in the world?? Just remember that they are of this world and therefore subject to error. Only the Bible, God's living word is the truth which we should use as our guide.

While I know what some of these teachings are, the rest I will need to look into, and that will be the topic of some of my next posts. I will just follow this through and see where it leads me. I hope that this has been helpful. And that you all have kind of gotten an understanding as to what I am looking for. When I look at biblical teaching. I want what is coming from Jesus. I want Jesus and God's teachings. I don't want the teachings of man to rule my heart and to rule my journey back to the Father. Because if I'm following doctrine or teaching, that is not of God, or that is not of Jesus, then all I'm doing is hindering my journey back to the Father.

And I think part of what my friend was trying to get at when she asked me about the doctrine has to do with false prophets. In the Bible,

Matthew 7:15 Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves.

Matthew 24:11 And many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many.

There are also a couple other references of this kind in the bible which warn us about false teaching. I think that might have been the point of her question. I think I'm going to follow up with her on that too, and find out if I am correct in what I think. So stay tuned and I will keep posting on my journey back to the Father.