As I am afforded the opportunity to preach and teach the Word of God, there is one thing that is noticeable far above anything else: Christians do not know what they believe.There are very few Christians who understand their faith and consequently are not able to give a reasoned presentation of what they believe and why they believe it. This signals that we are lacking the knowledge of key essentials of the faith, particularly in this generation.
There's nothing wrong with not knowing something; it becomes problematic when we choose to remain in the darkness of ignorance.
This blog will focus on essential Christian doctrines; primarily from a Protestant perspective.
Let's simply start with some base definitions. What is doctrine? Doctrine means "teaching." It is a belief (or a system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative. For Christians the authoritative book of doctrine is the Bible which we believe to be God's infallible Word that has been preserved for us.
In his book, “Unmasking The Cults” - which addresses cults of Christianity (as defined by theology), Dr. Alan W. Gomes writes,
"Central doctrines" of the Christian faith are those doctrines that make the Christian faith Christian and not something else.
The meaning of the expression "Christian faith" is not like a wax nose, which can be twisted to mean whatever the speaker wants it to mean.
1. The Christian faith is a definite system of beliefs with definite content (Jude 3)
2. Certain Christian doctrines constitute the core of the faith. Central doctrines include the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the bodily resurrection, the atoning work of Christ on the cross, and salvation by grace through faith. These doctrines so comprise the essence of the Christian faith that to remove any of them is to make the belief system non-Christian.
3.Scripture teaches that the beliefs mentioned above are of central importance (e.g., Matt. 28:19; John 8:24; 1 Cor. 15; Eph. 2:8-10).Because these central doctrines define the character of Christianity, one cannot be saved and deny these. Central doctrines should not be confused with peripheral issues, about which Christians may legitimately disagree.
4. Peripheral (i.e. non-essential) doctrines include such issues as the timing of the tribulation, the method of baptism, or the structure of church government. For example, one can be wrong about the identity of "the spirits in prison" 1 Peter 3:19) or about the timing of the rapture and still go to heaven, but one cannot deny salvation by grace or the deity of Christ (John 8:24) and be saved.
5. All Christian denominations — whether Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Protestant — agree on the essential core. The relatively minor disagreements between genuinely Christian denominations, then, cannot be used to argue that there is no objectively recognized core of fundamental doctrine which constitutes the Christian faith.
- Source: Source: Alan Gomes, Cult: A Theological Definition, excerpt from "Unmasking The Cults" Zondervan Publishing Company (May 11, 1995)
Stay tuned for the next blog: Man's Problem, God's Solution.
6 comments:
D.A, you never cease to amaze me with your skills with the pen.
Great thought provoking post!
Keep cutting it straight,
DeAntwan
Brother Thomas,
Thanks so much for taken up this issue. I concur with you that many professing Christians aren't grounded enough in the core doctrines of the Christian faith. Too much shouting and not enough studying!
I do want to challenge you a bit though. I would encourage you to reconsider point #5. Particularly, that the Roman Catholic Church agrees with Protestants on core doctrine. They certainly do not. They deny the sufficiency of Scripture, the sufficiency of the death of Christ, and salvation by grace through faith -- just to name a few.
Keep up the good work. Looking forward to future posts.
Pastor Kidd
This is true Pastor Kidd. I'm not ready to begin an advocacy group for Catholics, however, I will say this: it's interesting how many Protestant ignore the contributions that Catholics have made to our dear faith, namely the globalization of it, not to mention there are some die hard Protestants in Catholicism who choose to work from the inside where more work can be done as opposed to attacking it from the outside.
Brother Thomas,
I certainly agree that God has used some from the Catholic faith, but as a system, would you not agree that it is apostate? And as such, exactly what is it that they're globalizing? Whole countries are in the grip of idolatry because Mary & Pope worship. Millions of people are "working" for their salvation trying to justify themselves because of the truncated gospel of the Catholic Church. This should be a cause of grief for us.
As for those who work from within -- may the Lord bless and keep them, for indeed they are laboring where Satan dwells.
Blessings to you!
Pastor,
I wholeheartedly agree, but I guess I'm seeing it from another perspective. If you look very closely at the Protestant movement (I won't draw up a list) you can still see vestiges of Catholicism.
The tension that we have to deal with as Protestants is that when people say the word "church" Protestantism doesn't even cross their mind. Catholics were the first to globalize the gospel. That's history. Whether they added the poison of pagan culture is immaterial to my point. Missions did not become important to Protestants until well after Luther.
Your points related to idolatry and the like are well taken, but in retrospect we have to recognize that God used the Roman empire to promote the name of Jesus.
D.A,
Another thought provoking post, keep up the good work.
DeAntwan
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