… 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