"Relationship Over Doctrine"? Why Doctrine Really Matters.

Thoroughly Equipped

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I hear it all the time from people saying, I'm not interested in doctrine, I'm interested in relationships,

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I'm interested in Jesus. Doctrine divides. Paul charges

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Titus, you must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. Titus chapter 2 verse 1. Such a mandate makes it obvious that sound doctrine is important, but why is it important?

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Does it really make a difference what we believe? Sound doctrine is important because our faith is based on a specific message.

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The overall teaching of the church contains many elements, but the primary message is explicitly defined.

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Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, 1

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Corinthians chapter 15 verses 3 -4. This is the unambiguous good news, and it is of first importance.

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Isaiah says, all we like sheep had gone astray. Each of us had turned to his own way. We're ruined.

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We're ruined. But what happens? God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, in order that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

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Christ died for sin, once for all, but just for the unjust, in order that he might bring us back to God.

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This is why doctrine matters, because without it, you can't square this circle.

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Sound doctrine is important because what we believe affects what we do. Behavior is an extension of theology, and there is a direct correlation between what we think and how we act.

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I think one of the implications of sound doctrine, of faithful bible teaching, of a good grasp of the gospel, is that vibrant fellowship, is transparency among the members, a willingness to confess sin, a willingness to care for each other, because we realize we are a blood bought family, the family of God.

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Sound doctrine is important because we must ascertain truth in a world of falsehood. Many false prophets have gone out into the world, 1

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John 4, verse 1. There are tares among the wheat and wolves among the flock. The best way to distinguish truth from falsehood is to know what the truth is.

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If Jesus is just good man, I don't care how good a man he is, a good man who is born of ordinary generation inherits

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Adam's sin, and because he inherits Adam's sin, he inherits Adam's sin nature, and he cannot obey the law of God.

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And therefore, because it is appointed unto man once to die and then face the judgment, even the best of men will be condemned.

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Even if he's a good teacher, being a good man is not enough, being a good teacher is not enough.

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Jesus is a good teacher. That is excellent. Praise God for good teachers. But riddle me this,

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Batman, what can you teach me that will take away my sin nature? What can you teach me that will enable me to keep the law when

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I am completely and utterly bent against it? When I hate God's law and I hate

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God's righteousness, what is it that you can teach me that can overcome my sin nature? What is it that you can teach me?

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Sound doctrine is important because the end of sound doctrine is life. Watch your life and doctrine closely.

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Preserve in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. First Timothy chapter 4 verse 16.

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Notice the contrast. The contrast is the man who gives the scripture only fleeting attention and the man who literally bends over and peers into the gospel, spoken of here as the perfect law of the world, and he peers into it until it makes such an impression upon his soul that it transforms his behavior.

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James is emphasizing for us the critical need to make practical application of the scriptures, which results in spiritual growth that produces behavioral change.

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That's the linkage. And we're to keep gazing until it does its work.

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Conversely, the end of unsound doctrine is destruction. Certain men, whose condemnation was written about long ago, have secretly slipped in among you.

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They are godless men who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny

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Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. Jude chapter 1 verse 4. Changing God's message of grace is a godless thing to do, and the condemnation for such a deed is severe.

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Preaching another gospel, which is really no gospel at all, carries an anathema. Let him be eternally condemned.

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See Galatians chapter 1 verse 6 -9. And by the way, if you boil every other religion in the world down, you boil it down to this.

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It's an oversimplification, but not by much. You need to have a religious experience, and then from that moment on, do more good things than bad things and hope for the best when you die.

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Of course doctrine divides. When didn't it divide? I'll tell you what the first division that doctrine produced was when this fellow came into the

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Garden of Eden and he came to Eve and he said, did

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God say that if you eat of the tree, you will surely die?

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What kind of doctrine is that? You won't die?

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What difference does it make? Do you realize that the fall of the human race was a profoundly theological, doctrinal issue?

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Who's telling the truth, God or the serpent?

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So I beg you, don't ever be cavalier about the truth of God, but it does matter because Christ matters, and because God matters, and because we matter too.

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Welcome to the Thoroughly Equipped podcast, where we compare the teachings from popular women's ministry, books, conferences,

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Bible studies, etc. to Scripture. Our focus is 2 Timothy 3, 16 -17, that all

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Scripture is God -breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so the man or woman of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

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I'm your host, Melba Toast. May this episode bless you and bring glory to God.

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Hey ladies, welcome to Thoroughly Equipped. If you are new to this channel, welcome. For those of you who are regulars to the channel, welcome as well.

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The next couple of episodes will be the last episodes regarding the Discerning Female Teachers series that I have been presenting on this channel.

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And for those last couple of episodes, we're going to talk about doctrine. What is doctrine? Why is it important to receive good doctrine and discern false doctrine?

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This way, then, I can make the argument for why it is important that a female teacher that we want to learn and glean from actually exercises discernment herself and can differentiate between good doctrine and false doctrine and helps the women that she is encouraging to do the same.

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So, let's get started. Paul urges Titus to direct the older women to teach a younger one what is good and then describes why they should learn what is good because teaching what is good will cause the younger woman to love husbands, love children, be self -controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their husband.

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So, we see that these actions are an actual result of teaching that which is good.

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Now, immediately, my thoughts go to, or our thoughts should also all go to, what is good?

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And, of course, we should think immediately that Christ, when he talked to the rich young ruler we see in Scripture, who called him a good teacher, he responded by saying,

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Why do you call me good? There is no one good but God. So, since there's no one good but God, then all his words, all his teachings are good.

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And that's why I feel it's necessary to discuss this topic, the topic of doctrine and God's good teaching.

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Now, you have perhaps heard at least once in your Christian circles or from your

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Christian friends that doctrine divides, that doctrine doesn't matter, or such statements as, you know, no creed but Christ.

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And surprisingly, as we will see, these statements are actually a set of beliefs in themselves.

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And the question is, well, is that true? What does God's word say? Does doctrine matter?

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Should Christian women study and know about doctrine? And if they should, why study doctrine?

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So, let's dive in. What is doctrine? Doctrine basically is a set of beliefs.

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Maybe you've heard people say that doctrine divides. I have, of course, that they don't focus on doctrine.

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They focus on relationship. And really, this is just a false dichotomy. Because if we actually think about it, really, relationships are built on what we know and believe about a person.

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Intimacy in a relationship cannot be built on first impressions or presumptions, but it's built on truth and knowledge.

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And when I say intimacy, I don't mean, like, a romantic intimacy. I mean just what the word means, closeness.

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It means being close to somebody. We all have probably had an experience where we thought we knew someone only to find out that we actually didn't.

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So, what we end up believing about them wasn't true and therefore resulted in a lack of intimacy because of a lack of true knowledge.

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It's the same with God. So, when someone makes this type of claim that they focus on relationship instead of doctrine, or they have no need for doctrine, that they have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ, then you know that they actually can't.

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They can't have real intimacy with God without knowing and trusting what he's already revealed about himself.

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Within any religion, there are fields of study, such as theology, which is the study of God, anthropology, the study of man,

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Christology, the study of Christ, ecclesiology, the study of the church, hermetology, the study of sin, soteriology, the study of salvation, and there's many more.

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But these studies are where we gather information or they're the kind of science, the hermeneutical science that we've learned, we drew out from scripture.

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These things from scripture inform us about each of these type of theological studies.

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And each of these theological studies actually expound upon God's character.

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Doctrine surrounding anthropology, for example, tells us about our creator. It tells us about the fall, tells us about the nature of man.

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And these things will either, what we've gleaned by studying the

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Bibles in context and interpreting it correctly, hopefully, will either magnify the glory of God or will detract from it.

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So even ecclesiology, the study of the church, expounds upon or will expound upon God's character.

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It will tell us about his holiness, his righteous requirement, and how we bring worship to him, etc.,

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etc. So there is a right doctrine and there are false doctrines.

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So we can either have a true set of beliefs or a false set of beliefs.

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Either way, true or false, we put our faith and trust in these teachings, these doctrines, and they inform us on the character of God, Christ, and the

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Holy Spirit. And then they guide us in how we walk in relationship with this

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God. So the question that is of most importance, really, to a

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Christian woman should be where does one get their sets of beliefs or doctrines from?

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Do we get it from man's observation, man's experience, man's tradition and teachings, or do we get it from God's word?

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But, Houston, we have a problem. We cannot know God and therefore have right beliefs apart from God.

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We have this problem of sin. Sin has corrupted our nature and causes man to believe falsely about God, to know and trust in that which is not

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God, that which is not good, that which is evil. The Holy Spirit tells us through the

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Apostle Paul that no one honors God, no one understands, no one seeks for God.

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That's Romans 3 .11. And that we love darkness, John 1 .19.

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Unregenerate men suppress the truth and do not honor God, and therefore they become futile in their thinking, causing their hearts to be darkened,

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Romans 1 .21. In their unrighteousness, they suppress the truth, Romans 1 .18.

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They believe false doctrine. This was us.

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We too were in darkness, believing false doctrine before God called and saved us. All men, you and I included, were born with this curse to love darkness and suppress the knowledge of God.

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And like all men, because of our suppression, we did not seek God, nor were we able to accomplish good works then, because without faith, it's impossible to please

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God, Hebrews 11 .6. But God, Ephesians 2 .1

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-10 says that while we were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

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But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace, you have been saved, and raised up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

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For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

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For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

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God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. God calls those he has predestined.

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Romans 8 30. He draws us to him. John 6 44. Giving us faith to go to Christ and know

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God through this effectual call and gift of the

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Holy Spirit, regenerate man now acknowledges God, trusts in who he is and what he has done, and through the word that was with him, through the word that became flesh,

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Christ Jesus, John 1 14, we hear and study this word and get to know

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God more and more. His word not only tells us about him, but also what he wants to teach us, what to believe and how to live.

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This is God's precepts and teachings. This is his doctrine. Titus 2 10.

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What he teaches about himself, about his son, about the Holy Spirit, about humanity, about the church, about salvation, et cetera, et cetera, is all very important.

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It has implications on the way we live now and what happens to us when we die.

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The more we come to understand the right set of beliefs or doctrine of God and his character, the more we understand that he cannot lie, the more we see his word as truth, the more we therefore trust and obey it.

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The more we do this, the more we see that all other doctrines apart from his word are lies.

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This is why Christians need to make a distinction between God's word and man's word.

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We hold God's word to be our only teaching for salvation, holiness, faith, and right living.

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This is the over -encompassing issue in American evangelical women's ministry today and really all of American Christianity even, is where do we receive

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God's word? Where do we receive his teachings? Because if we know where God gives his good doctrine, then we can identify where he doesn't.

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So, where do we get doctrine? Now, I know most of you will know the answer to this, you know, scripture.

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We know that God's word was given by the prophets and the apostles. The question is, are there still prophets and apostles today?

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Believe it or not, many prophets and apostles today are, whenever they are receiving a word from the

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Lord and are teaching from the stage or the pulpit or really even on YouTube, they are giving

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God's word and they are teaching us something about God. They are teaching something about God's character.

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This is why we need to be very careful and false prophecies and false apostles who teach falsely, they basically transgress the third commandment and I hope to dive into that a little more in another episode here.

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But for today's episode, let's look a little more at what is a prophet and what was their purpose?

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So, in essence, a prophet was one who was a servant of God who would reveal his secrets to the prophet so that he can reveal himself to the people.

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And this, we get this from Amos 3, 7. Revealing to his prophet himself, putting his words into the prophet's mouth so that he would speak all

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God commands of the people, Deuteronomy 18, 18. The revelation and instruction were doctrine, whether they were words of comfort, words of warnings, word of instruction, words of destruction, words of the future or words of salvation and deliverance.

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Ultimately, they were words that God's people were to trust in and believe in.

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And in that belief, therefore, they were called to obey. Take Noah, for example.

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The first prophet we see in scripture is told of a flood to come, yet God will save.

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This is the words given to Noah, which he is to believe and which he does.

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And then he's instructed because of this word to proclaim the coming wrath and build an ark, which he does because he believes.

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And we see this over and over again in scripture. Prophets being given words from God to the people to believe and then in belief to obey what

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God commands. That was the roles of the prophets and the purpose of the prophets in the

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Old Testament. Now, here's a side note. God was very strict about his word to use his name.

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Again, we're getting into the third commandment here to use his name to back up man's word, back up his dreams, his inclinations and heart nudges was and is a transgression of the third commandment.

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It was to be punished with death. Deuteronomy 13, 5. To be a prophet, to claim to be a prophet, to speak for God.

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This was no light thing. And neither was there any question as to whether they heard God or were unclear on what was meant or said, or even how to relay it.

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To get God's word wrong was to risk their very life. But continuing on it.

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Now, if you've ever done a study on Old Testament prophecy, you will find something very interesting.

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You'll find that, like I said, the prophets brought God's revealed words, usually of warning or wrath due to sinners, and then his grace of the deliverance of his people.

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You start to see as you study a pattern, a pattern that ultimately, a pattern that ultimately points to the final wrath to come and God's complete deliverance of his people.

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Christ is prophesied and the Messiah is prophesied as to be the one who would save us from the final wrath to come.

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All prophecy points to this. These prophecies and all other histories and genealogies were foretelling about the coming

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Messiah, the chosen one who would save God's people from their sins and God's wrath.

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This is why we see Jesus saying in Luke 24, 44 to 47, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the

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Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them,

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Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

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And now that Christ has come and done all that was needed to save his people. He has revealed and had revealed to us the father,

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John 14, 9, and has revealed to us his second coming. What more then is there to be revealed for as the

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Holy Spirit says through the writer of Hebrews stating in chapters 1 verses 1 to 2,

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Long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

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But in these last days, he had spoken to us by his son whom he appointed the heir of all things through whom also he created the world.

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Now, what about the apostles? Well, what made one an apostle? An apostle had to be chosen by Jesus himself and had to be one who had been an eyewitness of the

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Lord. In Christ's instruction to the remaining 11 apostles to replace

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Judas, there were certain qualifications. In Acts 1 20 to 22, we read these qualifications.

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Let another take his office so one of the men who have accompanied us during all that time that the

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Lord went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.

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So anybody, take note of this, anybody, such people like Catherine Crick, who says and claims, self -proclaims to be an apostle, doesn't meet the requirements, let alone she's a woman who says she's been given a certain amount of authority as an apostle of Jesus Christ, that right there should tell you to stay far, far away.

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But all other so -called apostles within the

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NAR, we should understand that, one, the requirement to be the big A apostle, to direct churches in a certain area, one of those requirements was to actually have been alive when

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Christ was alive, to have seen him and walked with him from the beginning, from the baptism of John until the day that he ascended into heaven.

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And I highly doubt that any of those self -proclaimed apostles can actually claim that for themselves.

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Anyway, so maybe, just maybe, there are no more apostles or prophets today, but does

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God now speak to all his children individually? Well, yes and no.

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Yes, if we say he speaks through the apostles and prophets and through Christ as found in scripture.

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Christ himself says, speaking to the apostles, whoever receives you receives me and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.

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That was Matthew 10, 40. God has spoken and speaks to us today through scripture.

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But the answer is no, if you mean God speaks and it's giving new revelation individually or even corporately.

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We have Moses, the prophets, the apostles, and Christ himself in scripture.

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We have God's teachings through the writings of the prophets and we have the gospel's eyewitness accounts, their recording, we have their recording of Christ's work and teachings.

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And then we have the epistles that expound upon doctrine and what we should believe and how we should live.

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And those are writings from the apostles, God's chosen apostles. And because of this, then, we can understand why

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Paul exhorts Timothy in 2 Timothy 3, 16 to preach and teach from the scriptures, to preach and teach good doctrine.

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And that all that comes from the scriptures, because it says that the scriptures are sufficient enough to equip man, the righteous man or woman of God for every good work.

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And because of this, we have all the doctrine or sets of beliefs that we need to know about the

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Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, salvation, and godliness. Now, what does scripture, therefore, itself say about doctrine?

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So now that we've laid the groundwork of what doctrine is and where we get it from, what does scripture actually have to say about doctrine?

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The first thing that we can see in scripture is that there is true doctrine and then there are all others, which is just commandments of men.

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I'm going to specifically appeal to Christ here because Christ in Matthew 15, 1 to 9 states this.

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Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?

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For they do not wash their hands when they eat. He answered them. And why do you break the commandment of God? For the sake of your tradition.

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For God commanded, honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.

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But you say, if anyone tells his father or his mother, what you would have gained from me is, in other translations,

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Corbin or given to God. That's what Corbin means, given to God. He need not honor his father for the sake of your tradition.

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You have made void the word of God. You hypocrites. Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

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In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. So the

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Pharisees taught the precepts of men. In this case, the necessity of washing hands before they eat

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Matthew 15, 15 to 20 and urging men to dedicate what they would have given to their parents to give it to God instead.

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Now that sounds like a very pious thing to do. You see this a lot with, you know, false teachers and prosperity teachers is this idea of constantly giving to God as the ultimate highest thing.

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When in fact, God has called us. He doesn't need our money. He doesn't need any of that.

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He owns a thousand cattle, you know, on hell on the thousand hills. He owns everything.

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And what he requires and is instructed from for us to do is to love our neighbor and honoring our parents and in their need is one of the ways that we love, love our neighbor and obey

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God and therefore God. So the Pharisees taught as a set of beliefs or doctrine that pushed men to washing their hands before eating was the way that they were holy in presenting themselves to God.

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They believed that or they feared that what they touched during the day defiled themselves.

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And so by defiling their hands, they touch their food and then would defile themselves inwardly because they would eat it.

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They also mainly taught what they thought God wanted instead of what

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God actually commanded. So we can understand from scripture that there is a right doctrine that needs to be taught.

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God's precepts, which Christ contrasts with men's precepts. The precepts of men may seem to honor

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God, dedicating service or money to what they believe God wanted, calling it, you know, a service to God or Corbin, but the heart was actually far from worshiping

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God and it ended up producing a vain, worthless worship. These precepts of men are traditions of men that result in basically an invalidation of God's word.

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They do what they deem as good instead of simply obeying what God had commanded.

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It puts a conflict. Therefore, what they did put a conflict in the individual to put aside

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God's word, God's precepts, God's instructions, and instead follow man's precepts and instructions.

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And this is what false doctrine and false teaching ends up doing in the long run. Scripture also says that doctrine should be proclaimed, taught, and exhorted.

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Since God has given us words that determine what we are to believe and how we are to live, the first thing we should recognize is that God has instructed that his doctrines be taught.

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You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand.

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And they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise.

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You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the

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Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth. For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I commanded you to do, loving the

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Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him.

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Deuteronomy 11, 18 to 20. Why must good doctrine, the doctrine that comes from God, from Scripture, why must it be proclaimed, taught, and exhorted?

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What is the result of good doctrine for the life of a female disciple?

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The doctrine that God has given to us in Scripture needs to be taught to God's women for, well, several reasons, and I'm sure there's more, but these are just a couple that I can think of.

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One, it's the power of God unto salvation. The gospel is the first good doctrine.

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It, God's word, proclaims the gospel, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, the

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Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

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As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Romans 1, 16 to 17.

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The second reason is it trains women into godliness and causes us to devote ourselves to good works.

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So there are three epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, which were written by the apostle

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Paul that theologians call the pastorial epistles.

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These epistles give instructions on what a shepherd of the flock's role is, what pastors are to focus on, what they're to train their congregations to actually strive for, and how they, by doing this, they save both themselves and their hearers.

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In 1 Timothy 4, 1 to 16, we see Paul advise Timothy. Now, the spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

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For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

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If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.

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Have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths. Rather, train yourself for godliness, for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

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The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end, we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living

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God, who is the savior of all people, especially of those who believe. Command and teach these things.

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Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

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Until I come, devote yourselves to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.

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Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.

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Practice these things. Immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.

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Persist in this, for by so doing, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

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Paul instructs Timothy to give attention to public reading of scripture, exhortation, and the teaching of it.

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Because in the last days, people will depart from the faith. God's word is that which reveals and teaches all we need to believe, so we may pursue godliness.

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The preacher is to take pains in these things, to be absorbed in them, to pay close attention to himself and his teachings, to persevere in them, because the scripture, the exhortation of it, and the teaching of it saves not only

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Timothy, but all those who learn from him. In Titus, we have more from Paul on the purpose for teaching sound doctrine.

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Paul writes, Insist on these things, and that's the doctrine that Paul had given in the two chapters before this one, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

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Titus 3, 8. Paul is saying that when these things are insisted upon, it causes believers to devote themselves to good works.

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What are these things? God's doctrine, which he mentioned in Titus 2, verse 10.

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Basically, all of Titus is a letter from Paul urging Titus to teach and exhort, which means to strongly encourage or urge sound doctrine or right doctrine, and to refute those who contradict it.

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Titus 1, 9. Paul here is explaining that there is a relationship between doctrine and practice, and it's within this context that we have a specific connection between sound doctrine, the good teaching, and its effect on women.

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Titus 2, 3 to 5. Informs Titus that older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine.

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They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self -controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

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This is the purpose of women's ministry. It is not to disciple women into leadership or help women find their purpose or calling, nor is it to help women grow in their identity.

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Its goal is to take the good doctrine that the pastor should be exegeting from the scripture and apply it to womanhood, to their roles as wives, mothers, friends, and servants of God.

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The older women should not only exhibit what putting the good doctrine into practice looks like in their own lives, but should be mature enough to differentiate between good teaching and bad teaching and encourage the younger to walk in the good.

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To the one who has faith, knowledge, understanding, and trust in sound doctrine, it causes good works.

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It brings forth fruit. The specific doctrine that Paul is talking about here that causes the child of God to do good works is the doctrine, ultimately, and all that surround it, the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

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That was verses 4, 1 to 7. Other passages that express this relationship between right doctrine and good works are 1

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Corinthians 6 passages. Paul is pointing out certain acts that he identified as being sinful and not good.

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Instead of merely saying, you need to do better and just stop sinning, he appeals to them reminding them of what they should know, what they had been taught, sound doctrine.

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Notice what this sound doctrine points us to. Not us. It does not point to what we should know about what

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God has to say about us, but what God says about himself and what his son has done for us.

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He states over and over again, do you not know? Do you not know? This is his remedy, to remind them of the sound doctrine that was taught to them, the sound doctrine that urges them and causes them to trust

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Christ and produce good works, to produce fruit. In fact, as you read more and more of the epistles, you'll see that it's a common prayer among the writers that the church grow in not their identity or their calling or their purpose, but to grow in wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and discernment.

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James 1 .5, Colossians 1 .9, and Ephesians 1 .17 are examples of that.

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All of this comes from good doctrine because this knowledge and discernment causes our love to abound more and more.

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Philippians 1 .19, the extremely popular false gospel in women's ministry today, wants us to focus on what

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God says about us and how much he loves us, hoping that that doctrine, those teachings, all that comes from knowing, understanding, and trusting in our identity in Christ, is hoping to bring us to walk more in love and good works, but that's not what scripture points us to.

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Scripture continually points us to Christ. The third thing that good doctrine does for a woman is that it matures a woman, that it matures a female disciple.

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It matures her to be more like Christ. Ephesians 4 .11 -16,

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Paul explains why God has given apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to equip the saints for the work of service, to build up the body, the goal being to attain to a unity of the faith, a unity in the knowledge of the

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Son of God, to mature a man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

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In essence, to become more like Christ. As a result of maturity, being like our

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Lord, we will no longer be tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine.

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This is discernment. Discernment is a sign of maturity, which is why that is the last question that I want to present in the discernment series.

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We can ask, does she have discernment? That way we can assess any female teacher to determine whether we should listen to her.

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In knowing right doctrine, we will no longer be led away by trickery of men or craftiness of deceitful scheming, but we are called to speak the truth and love to each other.

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And in this, speaking truth and love, we will grow up in all aspects unto

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Christ. The purpose of our salvation is to glorify

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God through the good works that God prepared for us to walk in. There is a connection from the doctrine or teachings which

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God gives us in scripture and the works that God has for us to do. This is why doctrine matters.

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Because right living, God's teaching, equips us for all the good works God prepared beforehand for us to walk in.

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Ephesians 2 .10 False doctrine does not equip us to walk in good works.

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Believing false doctrine is believing false teachings about God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit and their work in and for us.

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Therefore it hinders our good works, for it is faith that pleases

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God. Place your faith in the wrong things and the wrong knowledge of God is, may seem you have outer good works, but if it's the faith that pleases

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God, the faith and the true knowledge of who He is, and trusting in that true knowledge, which is what faith is, then that makes all that we do a good work, right?

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Because we'll want to please Him out of the knowledge that we've gleaned about Him. It's our faith that basically makes our works good.

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So I desire that women know and believe right doctrine because the typical

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American evangelical women's ministry of today, there's a lot of teaching about law.

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And they won't say, they won't call it law, but basically popular women speakers preach and teach law.

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Law -lite is the way I describe it. Not law as given to us in scripture, but law like self -help law.

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Five steps for this. Ten steps for that. How to pursue your calling.

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How to hear the voice of God. Teachings revolving around identity and things like that.

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And it's all with the hope to push women to love God by loving themselves so that therefore they can love their neighbor more as they pursue their purpose.

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But I constantly saw in scripture that the prayer among the apostles was for the church to grow in knowledge, grow in understanding, and discernment, and faith.

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And then walk in it. This was their desire for the church so that their love would abound more and more.

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But knowledge, understanding, discernment, and faith about what?

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That's the question. Faith in Christ. Paul desired to know nothing among the church but Christ and him crucified, 1

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Corinthians 2. To know Christ and him crucified, this is doctrine.

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And either one can come to know and believe rightly of Christ and his work on the cross or wrongly.

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Is that a good grammar phrase? I don't know. But it is clear that through scripture, 1

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Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, 2 John, and other epistles, that right doctrine was the driving force behind love.

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And this is why Paul says that we do not need the law to teach us, 1

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Timothy 1 10, because it's written in our hearts as God promised to give. And because we know

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Christ, we know God. We therefore have the Holy Spirit who guides us into this knowledge.

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John 14 17, John 16 13, 1 Corinthians 2 10.

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This is the knowledge that causes us to love others and love God more and more.

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Our popular American women's ministry of today is missing God's doctrine.

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It's teaching about himself, it's teaching about the Son, and it's teaching about the Holy Spirit. It especially misses

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God's wonderful teaching of the gospel. All God's teachings cause women to devote themselves to repentance, godliness, to Christ likeness, to becoming women who reflect and exhibit

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Proverbs 31 and Titus 2. My conclusion for today.

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So I hope I've laid out for you what doctrine is. It's a set of teachings that a person believes and how

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God has given his teachings that we are called to believe and then therefore walk in these teachings.

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I hope I have shown from scripture how right teaching or doctrine produces godliness, maturity, and good works.

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And so let's look at this practically. My question is, and it can be a tough one, it was for me.

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Are you spending time and effort to learn what God wants you to learn? To know what

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God wants you to know about him, about Christ, and about the Holy Spirit? Do you have a hard time abounding in love for family and friends?

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Are you having a hard time while working at home or being self -controlled or kind?

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Are you having a hard time submitting to your husband? We saw clearly that it was the teaching of what is good, the good doctrine,

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God's very word to us in scripture, that produces good works.

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And it will produce these exact good works. It will produce submission to our husbands.

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For those of us who walk in faith, it'll produce a centering on the home for our children and hospitality and other good works that women do in the ministry of the church.

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It will help us be pure. It guides us in discernment and maturity.

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It helps us to love our family and friends in truth.

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So we can see that doctrine really does matter. So maybe there's a set of beliefs as we think about where we're struggling, that these are a set of beliefs that we need to correct.

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Maybe it's just, you know, finding joy in Christ. That can be a hard thing for us too. Joy in the gospel.

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A lot of anxiety and doubt that we deal with and emotional turmoil that we deal with can be guided and curtailed by good doctrine and trusting in good doctrine.

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Especially when we think about what he did for us on the cross. Maybe these need to be our focus.

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Instead of merely focusing on how to live, which is important. But if we study why we love, that being because of Christ, because he first loved us.

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When we study and focus on Christ and what he's done, I think a lot of our issues that we deal with on a daily basis can be guided.

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And we can at least know that where we have failed, we are set free because of Christ and his work.

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And it is that faith, even in the failures, that pleases God. And that is really a freeing thing.

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So next time in the next episode, I want to talk about false doctrine.

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We have seen today what good doctrine does in the life of a woman of faith, a woman who's pursuing

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Christ and good doctrine, the results that come from it. Now we can focus a little more on false doctrine, what the effects are, how to discern it, the importance of discerning it.

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And finally, whether we can, and I hope to do this in the episode after that, how we can discern whether a female teacher has discernment or not.

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But until then, I pray you are searching the scriptures to learn right doctrine and teaching on who

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God is and what Christ has done and the work of the Holy Spirit in all of it.

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Um, all the promises that they give. I pray like Paul that you grow more and more in knowledge and discernment.

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So your love may abound more and more. I pray you are in God's way.

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Don't click off the episode just yet because I got a surprise for all of you who watched this episode all the way through.

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I recently interviewed Pastor Jim Osmond about his book, God Doesn't Whisper, which tackles the hearing the voice of God teaching that is prevalent in evangelical

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Christianity today. He has graciously donated five copies of his book to Thoroughly Equipped for a giveaway.

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To enter the giveaway, go to podcast .strivingforeternity .org forward slash whisper, or click on the link in the show notes.

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Enter your email and you will receive ways to earn points by watching that episode, sharing that interview on social media and visiting the websites and social media pages.

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You can continually earn points by daily participation from July 1st, 2024 to August 5th, 2024.

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Just want to give a great big thanks to Pastor Jim Osmond for his donation and a great big thanks to those who participate in a giveaway.

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God bless you guys. Ladies, thanks for listening or watching this episode of Thoroughly Equipped.

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If this episode blessed you, would you give it a rating or a thumbs up? If you think

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Thoroughly Equipped is a much -needed ministry, consider subscribing. It helps spread the word.

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If you are interested to know more about Thoroughly Equipped, check out the blog or just find some other great

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Christian resources, you can go to my website at ttew .org.

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You can connect with me on Facebook and Instagram, links in the description below, or email me at melbetoast at ttew .org.

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Thoroughly Equipped is part of Striving for Eternity's Christian Podcast Community, a one -stop resource for solid podcasts that can assist you in your

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Christian walk. Check that out at christianpodcastcommunity .org. I pray the

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God of all grace grants you more and more knowledge and understanding of Jesus Christ as the

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Holy Spirit thoroughly equips you through His written word for every good work.