The storms, chaos, and crises we face within and outside of the church offer unprecedented challenge and opportunity. Maximizing the opportunities of this season – including Christianity once again becoming the source of meaning and purpose in people’s lives – requires we address the problems created by our doctrines. Furthermore, the challenges we face will be exacerbated if we do not.
Let me say it again for emphasis: Doctrines are generally necessary, good, and serve an important function in the formation of Christians and the function of the Body of Christ. The problems with doctrines lie in the priority we give them, our restricted focus on them, and our misuse of them. The well-intended but flawed applications of our doctrines have truly damaged the Body of Christ and unnecessarily thwarted Jesus Christ’s purpose in building His church into His wife.
In summary, doctrines create problems for the Body of Christ in the following ways.
- They provide a ready substitute for faith, good works, truth, etc.
- They are used for the wrong purposes (e.g., defining and protecting our fellowships, relating to God).
- They unnecessarily divide the Body of Christ, delaying the Lord’s return.
- They inhibit us from spiritual growth in the truth, discourage stewardship of the mysteries of God, and lead to an ignorance of wonder.
- They encourage living from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, thereby trapping us in our heads and away from our hearts.
We will flesh out each of these assertions here and in subsequent articles. As always, your comments, concerns, and questions are welcomed and appreciated. We are also available to speak on this topic.
In Part One, we argued that there are things doctrines simply cannot be (e.g., faith, truth, the will of God). In Part Two, we presented the eternal purposes of God – reign, intimacy, habitation, and glory – that doctrines simply cannot accomplish. Part Three presented what is arguably the most damaging problem with our doctrines: our divisive use of them.
Here in Part Four, we will explore the detrimental effects caused by our restricted focus on our doctrines. But before we go there, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for pastors, teachers, and other related church leaders. As gifts of Jesus Christ to His Body, their importance cannot be overstated; nor their loving concern for those entrusted to their care. None that I know intentionally use doctrines in negative ways; the vast majority have no idea such a thing is possible. I love every one of them with the love of the Lord.
Adventuring Out of Our Doctrinal Boxes
I have ministered to Christian leaders – in the institutional church and the workplace – for over twenty years now, helping them find joyful, Spirit-filled ministry by becoming transformation agents in their spheres of influence. As we know from Romans 12:2, transformation comes by the renewing of our minds; meaning we must think differently and more deeply about the truths of God’s kingdom. Indeed, God invites us into mysteries only His redeemed people can understand.
He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.” Matthew 13:11-12
Paul challenges us further: To become faithful stewards of the mysteries of God.
Let a man so consider us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful. 1Corinthians 4:1-2
Moreover, the writer of Hebrews admonishes his readers for their spiritual immaturity with the word of God (vv. 5:12-13), encouraging them to leave the discussion of elementary principles of Christ and move on to perfection (v. 6a).
Back to the Christian leaders I have been blessed to disciple: The vast majority of my clients have struggled to venture outside their perceived doctrinal boxes for fear of falling into some form of heresy. They simply did not know to trust their Teachers – the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ – to guide them. Consequently, those who chose to be “better safe than sorry” failed to discover the mysteries of God and serve Him as faithful stewards. Tragically, the transformation offered by God for the good works He had created for them never happened.
For who in the heavens can be compared to the LORD?
Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened to the LORD?
God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints,
And to be held in reverence by all those around Him. Psalm 89:6-7
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
There is a wonder in these verses that extends far beyond the LORD being mightier and smarter than humans. There is something here that simply cannot be contained in our doctrines. Doctrinal boxes bound our conception of God to the limitations of words – bringing Him, in a sense, down to our level. We must blow the tops off our boxes, so that we and those entrusted to our care might wonder at God’s infinitesimally higher might, thoughts, and ways. A. W. Tozer encourages us this way:
A local church will only be as great as its conception of God. Our religion is little because our God is little. A. W. Tozer
Some Additional Thoughts
The following collection of thoughts related to this theme of suppressed spiritual growth, discouraged stewardship, and constrained wonder is intended to get the reader thinking about the constraining power of doctrines, when applied in a restrictive manner. You might not agree with all of them, and I don’t intend them to become your “doctrine.” However, I suggest and hope they mean something to you. You give meaning to them, and use them as best as you can to break free from any restricted focus you may have in the doctrines you hold.
Doctrines – particularly those which emphasize literal interpretation – mask the mysteries of God and heaven (e.g., rivers and breath of life, ears to hear and eyes to see, wise as serpents and innocent as doves).
The soul gets out of intimate contact with God by leaning to its own religious understanding (i.e., doctrines). The reason for this is the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus much deeper down, to get into the habit of steadily referring everything back to Him (and not our doctrines). O. Chambers
Citing Paul’s encouragement in 2Timothy 1:13 – Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus – A. W. Tozer encourages:
The modern gospel churches, almost without exception, have decided to modify the truth and the practice of it just enough to make more adherents and to get along with each other.
It is more than interesting that this move toward compromise and heresy has occurred inside our doctrinal boxes. Perhaps it is safer outside them.
One of the reasons that people leave religion, or never find it in the first place, is that the great immensities of the human experience such as wonder, beauty, grief and mystery can seem absent from it. In religion, they find a place that is great at pointing directly to what that religion says is God, but not necessarily a place that is helping them to be more fully human.
Without being lost in wonder, we’re just lost. Without surrendering to mystery, we are held captive by exclusionary dogma; without a connection to nature, we will remain forever a step removed from ourselves, and from God. Beauty is the grammar of the divine; God’s vocabulary is incomplete without joy—and grief, also, for there is no love without it.
Dogma stifles wonder, without which there can be no real reverence, and so no real devotion. The line “Dogma stifles wonder” is widely attributed to Abraham Joshua Heschel, the 20th‑century Jewish theologian and philosopher known for insisting that a living faith must preserve awe, mystery, and wonder, not collapse into rigid systems.
Conclusion
Not only are the mysteries of God “out there,” some are to be found in the “boxes” of other Christian traditions. We limit ourselves and harm those entrusted to our care when we refuse to check out the truths other traditions have discovered outside our doctrinal boxes and comfort zones. I say this as someone raised in the United Methodist Church who had no idea the Holy Spirit was a person until more than a decade into my faith journey. My Methodist teachers were not hiding this truth from me; it just wasn’t a focus for them.
It was not until I communed with more charismatic Christians that I learned the incredible responsibilities the Holy Spirit assumes for my spiritual growth. Since then, several other Christian traditions – including Orthodoxy – have contributed to my understanding of the mysteries of God. Just to be clear, I am not one to accept every wind of doctrine; in fact, I lean more towards a conservative Berean disposition (Acts 17:11).
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. Proverbs 25:2
One will never know what treasures they will find until they go looking; spiritual maturity requires that we venture out into the uncomfortable unknown. With God as my witness, His Spirit can be trusted to keep us safe out there.
God bless you with wisdom, discernment, patience, and courage for a life characterized by more than the doctrines you have been given – that you might spiritually mature, faithfully steward the mysteries, and be awed by the wonders of His thoughts and ways.
Have a strong day in the Lord,
Rob
#iamjustthepen