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timf -> RE: Where is our doctrine? Preachers please respond (9/23/2008 9:46:29 AM)
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Where is our doctrine? Preachers please respond
"Doctrine" just means teaching. There are many things being taught.
I see two different approaches to instruction. The first is the apprenticeship model and the other is the classroom model. The origins of the classroom can be found in the Socratic method which then evolves into the academy method and then into the classroom / university system.
In the apprentice model, the information that is presented is usually tied directly to the work that is being done. The information is also tied to how and why something is being done. Often the apprenticeship model is derided because there is variability due to the dependence upon the person who instructs. What is not often considered is what is lost when the connection with the "master" is severed.
Dessication is the process of removing water. However, a case can be made that the same process also removes life. When instruction is dessicated into packets of data, a case can be made that much is lost.
The storage of data in books and the measured retrieval in classrooms is a simulation of the instruction a student might receive from a master. What is lost is the personal connection with the master, his reputation, his character, his interaction with others, his values, and his wisdom. All that remains is data and information.
Another preliminary concept that I should describe is the difference between truth and being right. At first glance there would seem to be no difference between the two. However, as we give consideration, "being right" might be called the conformance to a standard. Truth is something more vital, pervasive, and elusive. Sometimes something is described as true and used as a standard for conformance. However, trying to use truth itself as such a measurement standard seems to rob it of something vital as if it turns truth into a club to use against others. As a result, people who want to "be right" can find themselvesat variance with truth.
The point at which truth and "being right" diverge can often be defined by the difference between the Spirit and the flesh. We can see examples these two approaches to God at the time of Jesus. The announcement by the angels of the birth of Jesus was not made to rulers, priests, or scholars. When Jesus was presented at the temple Anna and Simon were waiting for him, but where were the experts in law and "trained" religious people?
The Pharisees give a particularly good example of the flesh divorced from the Spirit. There were hardly any people more knowledgeable regarding the law, yet there was hardly a group further away from the truth. The ultimate example of this problem is Gamaliel. The most educated and presumable best teacher of the law in the nation and yet his great learning was more of a hindrance because he was unable to recognize Jesus as the truth.
I would contend that much of the scholarly work of seminaries duplicates the learning of the law performed by the Pharisees. While often motivated by good intentions, often what is produced are deductions and analysis for the establishment of "what is right". These lend themselves to standards of behavior and practice which then can become a type of Pharisaical legalism that can quench the Spirit.
Contentions over doctrine is often motivated by a sincere desire to correct some of the "error" found in the different seminary teachings of the day. I suggest that attempts at "correction" are a little like the tar baby in the Uncle Remus story. Offering an analysis of theological error can often draw you in to the same strictures that produced the error in the first place. This can suck a person into the same sort of contention that produces schisms in seminaries and and leads to the formation of increasingly divergent denominations.
In a list of works of the flesh listed in Galatians, the word for division is herisis. We get the word heresy from it, but at the time it only meant division. I think this is what happens to organizations as well as individuals when we approach God in the flesh. We get diverted away from truth into trying to define, list, categorize, label, and classify what is right. I suggest that when we try to correct error by using the same methods that produced it in the first place, we become vulnerable to substituting an alternative error instead of achieving the correction that we were striving for at the first.
I suggest that such error cannot be "corrected". The record we have of the Pharisees suggests a type of self-imposed blindness that prevents "correction". Jesus warns His disciples to beware of this "teaching" (leaven). It seems to be pervasive and not easily changed.
There is an alternative to approaching God in the flesh. We have the examples of Anna, Simon, the shepherds, and others who show a simple faith and hearts living by that faith. This is the way of the Spirit. They need little instruction in the minutiae of doctrine and theology. What they have is the living God directing them in their daily lives. They need little "protection" from false teaching because of their closeness to the Spirit of truth.
Jesus offered truth to the nation of Israel. They were not interested in truth because they knew that what they were doing was "right". I suggest that "Contending For The Faith" is not found in argument of doctrine, but in the advocacy of living by faith and seeking the leading of the Holy Spirit, and surrender to and trust in God. Exposure and condemnation of the evil in the world and the church might not bring hoped for correction of error, but the frustration symptomatic of an effort in the flesh.
In summary, I see the biggest problem in the Christian church today not as doctrinal error but the failure to walk by the Spirit. It is a "carnal" Christian life that makes us vulnerable to the influences of the world and keeps us from a closeness to our Savior.
My advice to Catholics is not first to abandon their doctrine, but to first study the Bible and get to know Jesus better. The Holy Spirit does a fine job of leading people where He wants them, all we have to do is encourage our brothers in Christ to drawn nearer their Savior.
Christianity often does better in hospitals and prisons that it does in country clubs. This may reflect what is needed to get our attention. The Bible often speaks of "crying out", "seeking after", and other expressions of heartfelt passionate expression of an intense desire for the Lord. What Christians need is a divorce from their attachments to the world and an infusion of desperate desire for their Lord. What Christians need is a closer walk with their Lord to achieve the answers to;
1. How to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, and strength.
2. How Christian husbands can love their wives.
3. How we can draw wisdom from God.
4. How to raise godly children.
5. How to keep ourselves unspotted from the world.
6. How to show the light and love of Jesus to all who know us.
7. How to be a "good and faithful servant".
The pastor who thinks he covered one of the above as a sermon lecture topic and thinks he has "done his job" does not understand the first thing about shepherding. Most pastors give classes and sermons because that is what they learned in seminary and what everyone else does. Most pastors are trapped in systems where even if they understood how to build relationships with others and minister at the level of the heart, their systems do not allow them to.
A scholastic understanding of dessicated "doctrine" is not the path to growth in the image of Christ. It is a heart that is turned to the Lord in surrender and dependence that is filled with the Holy Spirit which can receive the deeper things of the Lord. People do not come closer to God because of doctrine, they understand doctrine because they have come closer to the Lord.
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