The Importance of Biblical Doctrine

On April 5th Kevin DeYoung posted blog about knowledge. In his post he said: “Instead of saying ‘Knowledge of God is important, but…’ let’s say, ‘Knowledge of God is important, so that…’”

This really hit home with a topic that I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. At Penn State I have very few Christian friends who actually want to discuss theology in a biblical context. A much much greater number of my Christian friends want nothing to do with the topic: “if you’re not talking about Jesus dying for my sins it’s not important”. This frustrates me. I’ll explain why.

DeYoung says “Doctrinal knowledge is to the Christian life what blood is to the human body. If the blood flows through vessels, it literally gives life to the whole body.” Doctrinal knowledge isn’t meant to simply be collected in our minds for regurgitation when someone starts an argument about Limited Atonement. Rather, I am excited about learning about God because doctrine points to (a) how awesome God is and how perfect his planning is (b) it presents a model that He wants us to live by – or at least try to and (c) it keeps us from forming our own doctrine without a biblical basis. We are all theologians, the difference is just a matter of if we chose to base our theology on the truth of the Bible or if we accept what our culture tell us as truth. If you aren’t willing to have the discussion you are probably in severe danger of the later.

DeYoung mentions how often times the Christians who avoid theological discussion at all cost are “quick to point out that ‘knowledge puffs up’”. We may not need to preface our discussions with our groups of friends who enjoy discussing theology. But for people outside these small circles, who don’t readily see it, we need to emphasize how the topic at hand magnifies Christ and gives Him glory. I’ll be the first, I usually assume that everyone’s first thought when discussing theology is how the topic applies to the gospel – and I’m usually wrong.

If you're interested, it was a 2 minute video promoting Josh Harris's book Dug Down Deep that initially got my thoughts flowing on this topic: http://theresurgence.com/we_are_all_theologians