Category: Bible Study

Study to show yourself approved unto God… rightly dividing the word of truth. – 2Ti 2:15

There’s nothing wrong in extracting teachings (doctrines) from scripture. The doctrine of brotherly love (“royal law”, “golden rule”, etc.) helps confront the ills of our selfish generation; the propositions of Black Liberation Theology have played a critical role in addressing the social injustice and inequality that has historically plagued the black man, and we have all been blessed by the teachings of marriage extracted out from scripture.

Nevertheless, we must always remember that the Bible has its own doctrine. So, while we’re free to formulate our doctrines, we must make sure they do not contradict THE doctrine. For example, we’re free to frame a doctrine of demons and deliverance; but when the propositions of such doctrine is inconsistent with the message of the finished work of Christ on the Cross, then the statements of that doctrine shall to the extent of the inconsistency, (to borrow the legal language of the Nigerian constitution) be void.

Similarly, if a particular Eschatology (doctrine of the End Times) or Misthology (doctrine of Rewards) proposes that Believers in Christ go to Hell for not paying tithes or for not taking Communion; then that doctrine – to the extent to which it contradicts THE doctrine – is null and void.

Beloved, the doctrine (message) of salvation through faith in Christ Jesus is not an incidental message of scripture; it is THE message. It stands head and shoulders above every other truth we may find or propose. Therefore, we must place it at a premium and defend it whenever it is being trivialised, bastardised of done away with altogether in the presentation of a doctrine.

In that sense, the doctrine of salvation through faith in Christ Jesus becomes our canon – our standard or rule – with which we test each new doctrine that comes our way; (1Co 15:1-3).

THANK YOU.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

… rightly dividing the word of truth. – 2Ti 2:15

There’s a reason why several of our doctrines have to rely on incidental, discontinuous Bible references for their presentation. It’ll have been ideal if we had whole Bible books devoted to just one particular doctrine: explaining them in full details and such. But there’s none; not even a single chapter. The closest one can get are 1Corinthians 13 (for “LOVE”) and Hebrew 11 (for “FAITH”); even then, these chapters do not comprehensively cover their subject matter.

The reason why it’s like this is because the Bible has its own story that it’s trying to tell. In order words, the Bible has its own “doctrine”.

What is the doctrine (message) of the Bible? John the Beloved is one of the few of the Bible authors that explain the purpose of scriptural writing. At the end of his Gospel, he says, “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through his name, (John 20:30-31).

This would explain where the priorities of the inspired Bible authors lay. They’re not trying to educate us about angels, even though that’s not wrong; they’re not trying to tell us how to be prosperous in life, even though their writings contain that information; they’re not trying to teach about the spirit world, about cosmogony, philosophy, mentorship, entrepreneurship, dietary regulations, or even “Black Liberation Theology”!  The fact that we find words in scriptures that appropriately address such matters must not make us forget they had their own message.

The purpose of the entire body of scripture is FAITH IN CHRIST JESUS. The genealogies, the histories, the rituals, the prophecies, the psalms, the proverbs… all have at their background the message of the Christ and faith in Him. That’s why Paul says that the purpose of the scriptures is to make us “wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus,” (2Tim 3:15); and also why when Jesus taught the entire scriptures after His resurrection, all He extracted out of the whole body of writings was Christ, His Sufferings, and His Glory (Lk 24:25-27; see also 1Pt 1:10,11).

Though we sometimes say that the Bible teaches EVERYTHING, that stance can make us try to squeeze out thoughts the original authors never intended from it. The Bible does not teach everything; it teaches, however, everything we would ever need to know about salvation and faith in Christ Jesus.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

…rightly dividing the word of truth. – 2Ti 2:15

The term “Doctrine” as being used in this series refers to any systematic collection of biblical propositions. So, while it includes classical doctrines such as “Trinity”, “Eschatology”, etc.; it’d also include other bodies of teaching that may not be technically considered “doctrine” in a typical School of Theology, e.g. the doctrines of “faith”, “discipleship”, “holiness”, “social justice”, etc.

As already seen in the previous post, doctrines are indispensable to Bible study. If you want to know about  the Trinity, for example, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel by reading from Genesis to Revelation to see what the Bible says about it. The doctrine has already done the hard work for you; all you need to do is take the cited verses (and sometimes accompanying explanations) and continue your study from there.

Doctrinal formulation, however, comes with its own hazards, which is why a Believer should not swallow every “wind of doctrine” that comes his or her way (Eph 4:14).

Firstly, doctrines use a pattern of Bible study that we normally frown upon: taking verses out of their immediate context. Doctrinal presentations usually come as a string of Bible verses; whole chapter are rarely cited. Thus the verses cited may or may not be talking about that subject. Of course, the diversity usually helps to correct that issue; (For example, the deity of the Holy Spirit was not the subject matter in Acts 5:3&4 but with the collection of other Bible passages we can safely say we’re not misquoting Peter there).

Secondly, studying a particular doctrine can give the impression that that’s what the Bible is all about. For example, someone studying “prosperity” who notices that it’s mentioned from the very first page of the Bible (Gen 1:26-30), continues all through various characters and events in scripture, and up to the very last page with glorious, Edenic life for the Believer (Rev 22:1-5) may be tempted to think that the Bible is all about Prosperity.

The same would go also for almost any other body of teaching, like “mentorship”, “fatherhood” or even “marriage”. As long as you’re studying it specifically, you’ll find it mentioned throughout the Bible – from Genesis to Revelation. But you can only conclude that’s the message of the Bible if you forget that you’re not literally reading from Genesis to Revelation but skipping entire bodies of scripture that are currently not relevant to the subject matter.

This leads us to the third drawback, which is that it can make one to see the Bible in one colour where everything being said is about that topic. A classic example is the “prosperity” doctrine where Abraham’s blessing is always cited as proof that God wants us wealthy (Gal 3:14).  Nevertheless, the “blessing of Abraham” which was to pass on to the gentiles was not physical riches but justification by faith (Gal 3:6-9, Rom 4:3-17).

AMEN.

GREG ELKAN

Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. – 2Ti 2:15

Sceptics sometimes point out to Christians that things like “Trinity” and “rapture” are nowhere to be found in the entire Bible. In a sense, they’re right. “Trinity” is not a Bible passage, it’s a doctrine. There’s no Bible book, even Bible chapter whose subject of discuss is “Trinity”. In fact, if we observe, the existence of God is taken for granted in the Bible. The inspired writers speak of His existence as an already established fact. No Bible book has “God” as its subject; so if you want to know about God – His existence, His power, His attributes, etc. – you will have to read through all of the Bible, Genesis to Revelation, to get it.

This is where Doctrines (in the modern sense of the word) come in handy. A Doctrine does the hard work of combing through the Bible to find – from the words of different authors and through different stories – all references to a particular topic; and from that collection, create a comprehensive picture.

Take angels for example.  No Bible book or even chapter has angels as a topic. Any time we see “angel” in the Bible, something (or someone) else is the subject being talked about and angels are only mentioned because they happen to be part of that particular story. Nevertheless, a good theologian can gather all such incidental references and use them to develop a holistic doctrine of angels (which is actually how we get “Angelology”J).

In this sense, doctrines are similar to scientific Theories. The World we live in did not come with a user manual explaining how things work. So it’s left to Man to observe and posit explanations of what he sees around him in nature. It is from these observations that we get things like the “Theory of Relativity” in physics, the “Big Bang theory” in astronomy, the theory of “continental drift” in geology, and so on.

This understanding of “Doctrine” is vital as it will help us in proper study of the Bible and will eliminate the much confusion that some Christians have over doctrinal matters.

[TO BE CONTINUED…]

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN