Where Do We Get Our Doctrines?
Matthew 7:21-29 (KJV)
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
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.
I have two more messages I hope to bring in this why series after tonight
What about the ordinances?
Why do we observe baptism and the Lord’s Supper as we do?
We do both of them differently than even most Independent Baptist Churches do them, and those other IBF churches can sometimes be very mean spirited toward us because of it.
What about the rapture?
Why are we so sure that the rapture of the Christians happens BEFORE the Tribulation?
But before I get to those, I want to prepare you a little bit by addressing the subject of where we get our doctrines.
· Do we get them from some sort of “Baptist handbook”? (denominationalism)
· Do they come to us from some really famous and powerful preachers? (Idol worship)
· Do we find them in the books of Christian writers in ancient years? (History)
Let me just say that, on the surface, it might appear we use all of these. I would go so far as to suggest that in some cases churches really do use one or more of them.
The question is, should we get our doctrines from these sources?
Look with me at Matthew 7:28-29 (KJV)
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.
This was at the conclusion of what we typically called Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and it’s all of chapters 5-7.
He finished the sermon and the people reacted in astonishment, the bible says, “For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”
· No pastor is Jesus or can come close to Him.
· But neither do we want to be as the scribes.
As you pastor, I want to be as much like Jesus and as little like the scribes as I can be in my teaching and preaching.
What I have to figure out then is, How to I teach as one having authority?
· Does it mean, because I am the pastor I have authority and what I say goes?
· Does it mean because I went to college and learned what I am supposed to teach I have authority?
We have two tools at our disposal:
· The definition of authority (in relationship to the context of the passage).
· The contrast with the teaching of the scribes
*The basic definitions of the word would be:
Privilege
There is an authority that is given due to choice. A group bestows upon a person a position of authority by election.
Mastery
A person with obvious skills, either natural or learned, is considered an authority due to those skills.
Power
Some people possess authority by sheer force. This might be positive or negative.
· A dictator gains and holds his authority by bullying those underneath him.
· Jesus has authority because He can do every thing,
While I was preparing for this message, I found out that this word, in the literature of that time, was defined as “from the mouth of God.”[1]
If you think about that, it makes good sense.
Whenever Jesus speaks, whatever Jesus says is from the mouth of God.
Jesus taught as one with authority and He did not teach as the scribes.
*What do we know about them?
Mark 7:1-8 (KJV)
Then came together unto him the Pharisees, and certain of the scribes, which came from Jerusalem.
And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen, hands, they found fault.
For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders.
And when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not. And many other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables.
Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands?
He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.
Notice what Jesus said. They, “[teach] for doctrines the commandments of men.”
They had their own scholars who had written books about the Bible and books about the books that were written about the Bible.[2]
Their scholars were not so much experts on the Bible, but experts about the books that had been written about the Bible.
What can we learn from all of this?
First, while we cannot claim that every word we speak is “from the mouth of God” we do possess something that is word for word “from the mouth of God” don’t we?
Second, while we may learn some things from the studies of others, the goal is to be an expert in the Bible, not an expert in the things written about the Bible.
Where do we get our doctrines?
We are supposed to get them from the Bible and not just by repeating what we heard or read that preachers in the past said or wrote.
· History is a tool
· The teaching of others is helpful in our understanding
*But the Bible, rightly divided, is the only authority we have for our doctrines.
That’s where the rub comes in.
· The Mormons claim to believe the Bible
· The Jehovah’s Witness claim to believe the Bible
· The Catholics claim to believe the Bible even
· The Muslims claim to believe the Bible
Our only authority is the Word of God. Our doctrines therefore must be:
*I. FROM THE WORD OF GOD
The Bible says, Acts 17:10-12 (KJV)
And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.
These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few.
This is to me an ironic passage of Scripture.
It is used all of the time to encourage Christians to search the Scriptures daily to see if what the preacher says is true.
But the very people who use this passage to encourage Christians to carefully search the Scriptures haven’t even carefully searched out this one.
This passage does not say that the Christians in Berea were more noble than the Christians in Thessalonica because they searched the Scriptures daily.
This passage says that the Jews in Berea were more noble than the Jews in Thessalonica because they searched the Scriptures to see if those things were so.
Because the Jews in Berea searched the Scriptures, many of them got saved.
And the Jews in Thessalonica heard, and came to Berea to run Paul out there as they had done in Thessalonica.
I am sure Christians ought to search the Scriptures.
Even those passages they think they know so well.
The point of the passage is that Paul’s preaching in Berea was so Scripturally based that the Jews in the synagogue, could look in the Word of God for themselves to see if the Bible really said what he was preaching.
It ought to be that our doctrines are the Word of God to the extent that you only have to study the Bible to find them.
Early on in my Christian life I met a pastor by the name of Ron Bissonnett.
Brother Bissonnett had grown up attending a Conservative Baptist Church, they believe in the Universal invisible church and, because of that, believe differently than we do about Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Brother Bissonnett’s job at the time moved him to a small town in Oregon called John Day, where the only Baptist church was one like ours, pastored by Richard Gosnell.
Brother Bissonnett approached Pastor Gosnell about joining the church, but he didn’t like the way Pastor Gosnell did baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
He asked to meet with the pastor and came with a stack of books written by men saying that the way Pastor Gosnell practiced baptism and the Lord’s Supper was unscriptural.[3]
Pastor Gosnell was a fiery little cowboy preacher.
He shoved the books aside and told Brother Bissonnett, “Come back when you can prove your arguments from the Bible.”
Brother Bissonnett said that once he put aside the books and just started looking in the Bible, he became convinced that Pastor Gosnell was correct.
Our doctrines must be from the Word of God.
And they must be from the Bible,
*II. DILIGENTLY STUDIED
2 Timothy 2:15 (KJV)
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Sound doctrine cannot be discovered by just finding a verse that fits what we already believe and clinging to it. That’s how the cults get started.
Sound doctrine compares Scripture with Scripture.[4]
· Is your doctrine supported all the way through the Word of God?
· Can you see where it is taught either intact or progressively through the Word of God?
· Are there any passages that clearly teach something other than what you see in the passage you think proves your doctrine?
There are, for instance, certain passages that seem to teach a Christian can lose his or her salvation. But there are others that seem to teach that the Christian cannot lose their salvation. Both can’t be right but the Bible never contradicts itself.
That means that every one of those passages needs to be reconsidered in their context until we can figure out the conflict.
When you do that you discover than none of the passages that sound like they have to do with losing salvation have to do with eternal salvation.
Our doctrine must come from the Word of God
Our doctrine must be the result of diligent study and not simply finding what we like.
And then our doctrine must come from the word of truth,
*III. RIGHTLY DIVIDED
2 Timothy 2:15 (KJV)
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
2 Timothy 3:16 (KJV)
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
All Scripture is profitable for all of us at all times, but it does not all apply to all of us the same way.
God is working a plan to bring man into perfect fellowship with Himself.
The plan has several different stages, or ages:
1. Adam and Eve began in the age of innocence
2. After their sin they were in the age of the fall
3. After the flood they were in the government
4. When God called out Abraham they were in the patriarchal age
6. After Moses they were in the age of the law
6. After Christ we are in the age of grace
7. When Jesus returns the world will be in the age of the kingdom
8. The eighth and final stage is eternity
Every Word of God is profitable, but you can’t apply what God did with Israel to what God is doing in the church.
That’s how the Catholics came up with their priest system. They believe that what God wanted the Jews to do, now applies to what God wants the church to do.
It’s why they led governments, had armies and killed people who disagreed with them. They did not rightly divide between Israel and the church.
*Conclusion
Our doctrines must,
· Come from the Word of God and not books about the Word of God
· Come out of diligent study of the Word of God and not just finding verses that fit what we already believe and
· Come through a process of rightly dividing and then applying the Word of God to our day and circumstances
Does anyone do all of this perfectly? No. But it ought to be something we consciously work at.
[1] Bullinger, authority: i.e. possessing Divine authority. Greek. exousia. In the current Hebrew literature of that time, it denoted = from the mouth of God
[2] Bullinger, Not as the Scribes, “Jewish teachers always referred to tradition, or to what some other teacher had said; and do so to this day.”
[3] Bissonnett was not using the Scriptures to prove that Gosnell was unscriptural. :-0
[4] 1 Corinthians 2:13 (KJV)
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
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