WWUTT 566 Sound Doctrine?

The Apostle Paul told Timothy to teach right doctrine, and don't let anyone teach any different doctrine. What do we mean when we use this word doctrine? Well it's simply a teaching or a collection of teachings, in this case, that pertains to the gospel, when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt .com.

Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Paul’s Charge to Timothy to Teach Different Doctrine

Thank you, Becky. We continue with our study of the book of 1 Timothy. I'm going to come back to chapter 1 here and begin reading in verse 3. Paul, writing to his servant Timothy, says, As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus, so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations, rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.

The aim of our charge is love, that issues from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying, or the things about which they make confident assertions.

So Paul is telling Timothy here to teach right doctrine, and don't let anyone teach any different doctrine. That word doctrine comes up more in the pastoral letters, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, more than it comes up in every other book of the Bible combined.

This is hugely important. For Paul to instruct his pastors, Titus and Timothy, on how they are to shepherd the flock of God, and it begins with teaching right doctrine. We have the first pastoral letter, and right at the very beginning of this letter, from Paul to his most trusted servant, he is telling Timothy to know right doctrine, and teach right doctrine, and don't let anyone teach any different doctrine.

So what are we talking about when we use this word doctrine? What is that? Well, a doctrine is simply a teaching or a collection of teachings on a particular subject, and may also include creeds and confessions, as it pertains to the church.

So when you go to your church website, or maybe your church has a welcome packet that they give, you know, new visitors, incoming visitors, or something like that, you click on the About Us section on your church webpage, and maybe you have a What We Believe tab.

So what does your church believe about God? That might be the first thing listed on there. What do we teach about God? Well, we believe that God is triune, the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is one God, three persons.

Well, that is called the doctrine of the Trinity. What does your church believe about Jesus Christ? Well, we believe that he is very God, very man, born of the Virgin Mary. That's the doctrine of the Incarnation.

You believe that Jesus died on the cross, was buried in the tomb, and rose again from the grave, and that he was seen and observed by his apostles, by his disciples, and also 500 other witnesses, according to 1 Corinthians 15.

This is all tied up in the doctrine of the Resurrection. You know that Jesus is going to come back again, and that also according to the scriptures. This is a doctrine of eschatology. Now, your church might be a little bit more open about eschatology.

We believe that he's coming back. We don't necessarily have to agree on the manner and order in which those events are going to take place. Or maybe your church does make a particular confession related to end times teaching.

Your church might be premillennial, or amillennial, or postmillennial, and you have that written into your statement of faith. So those are doctrines. Those are all different doctrines pertaining to different views on the end times.

You might also even have something written down about what you believe about the Bible. It is inerrant. It is the inspired word of God. It is our complete authority in all matters of faith and practice.

That is a doctrine pertaining to your understanding of the scriptures. And my church as a Southern Baptist church, that's actually the first thing that we have listed on there in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, our belief and understanding according to the scriptures.

Because then, what we believe about God, and Jesus Christ, and the Resurrection, and his coming again, and salvation, and the sinfulness of man, and all of these other things, they are all derived from the scriptures.

So we lay out first what our belief is about the Bible, because every other doctrine is going to come from that. The London Baptist Confession is the same way. It begins talking about what our belief is concerning the scriptures.

We understand what the Bible is first, and then the rest of our doctrines come from that. Now every once in a while, you might go to a church website, and you click on their We Believe section, and it's really vague.

They might say something like, no creed but the Bible, or no creed but Jesus. I get it. I understand where they're trying to come from. They want to say that they don't adhere to any man-made doctrine.

All of our doctrines, everything that we believe comes straight from the Bible. But the reality is, there are doctrines that that church holds to, and they do have creeds, even if they haven't written them down.

They just might not have put it in creed form or say that they believe a creed or a confession according to historic orthodoxy, but they do have creeds. Do they believe in the Trinity? A oneness Pentecostal is going to say that they believe the Bible.

They just interpret it completely different than a person who is Trinitarian. They believe that God is one person, rather than being one God and three persons. And it's heretical for them to think of God that way, because they believe in a different God than the God of the Bible, if they think that God is simply one person.

So see how an understanding and a clarification of doctrines helps to distinguish your church from a false teaching church. These things are important. Creeds and confessions are important for us to understand and study, even as Christians, when it comes to looking over church history, when it comes to narrowing down what it is that we believe and teach, all of this is wrapped up in right doctrine.

Sound Doctrine and the Teaching That Accords with Godliness

So another instruction that Paul gives to Timothy in both 1st and 2nd Timothy is to not just teach any kind of doctrine, but to teach sound doctrine. Now what are we talking about when we use that term, sound doctrine?

Well, I think that our best understanding of sound doctrine comes from 1st Timothy 6 .3, where Paul says, if anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing.

So sound doctrine is that which flows from the gospel of Jesus Christ, the message that was preached by our Lord Christ himself. And furthermore, that doctrine is so solid, so sound, active and working in the Holy Spirit and decreed by God that it works.

It is actually producing something. It is active in the hearts of those who have heard it and are applying it. So here in this definition given to us in 1st Timothy 6 .3, it accords with godliness. So it produces godly living in the hearts of those who adhere to right teaching, adhere to sound doctrine.

Godly living is the product that is produced in the life of a person that holds to sound doctrine. So don't just teach any kind of doctrine, but teaching sound doctrine. And these are the instructions that Paul has given to Timothy.

Now, typically when we use the word doctrine, for us who are believers, we use that word in the context of right teaching, of teaching the word of God, of teaching the creeds and confessions. But you hear this word come up also in politics, for example.

It's another common area in which the word doctrine is used. I think one of the most famous doctrines in American history is the Monroe Doctrine. When James Monroe put an end to European colonialism so that European nations wouldn't be able to strategically take control of any independent state.

So he and his cabinet, they wrote out what was called the Monroe Doctrine. This implementation of preventing European nations from potentially taking over the U .S. There's also the Reagan Doctrine of the Cold War, which was Reagan's strategy to overwhelm the Soviet Union and bring an end to the Cold War.

I also have read a little bit about World War One and World War Two, and there are different doctrines pertaining to warfare, like, for example, the trench warfare doctrine of World War One, which was basically the strategy of digging trenches to be better protected from small arms fire and artillery shrapnel.

So whenever you watch those documentaries of World War One and Two and you see soldiers hiding in trenches, it's not just something that was randomly done like soldier. OK, well, let's start digging a trench because maybe if we set ourselves lower in the ground, we'll be able to protect ourselves from, you know, this enemy fire that's going on.

This was actually a teaching. It was a strategy that was developed and written down the trench warfare doctrine. So this is another way or other ways in which we might see teachings or collections of teachings compiled even in the world around us.

We operate day by day according to doctrines, the laws, the traffic laws that you follow. Those are doctrines that have been assembled and laid down to make sure that everybody is driving safely and following the rules of the road.

We are governed regularly by doctrines. And so when it comes to being a Christian and when it comes to living in a godly way, we are governed by doctrine. And it is important for every believer to read and study doctrine and adhere to right doctrine.

If you don't study doctrine, if you're among that group that would say, oh, I don't I don't want to read about doctrine or hear about doctrine, doctrine divides or theology. You know, it might substitute the word doctrine in with theology.

Well, I don't want to read about theology. We can't be talking about theological subjects up here because it just ends up dividing people. Well, like I said, maybe you don't use the word doctrine or you don't use the word theology, but your church does believe and teach some kind of doctrine, even if they haven't assembled or compiled or laid out exactly what they believe about these particular subjects.

And I tell you, if we do not learn doctrine, it's very, very possible that you're going to end up believing the wrong doctrines. So that's why it is important that our theology be grounded in historical Christian orthodoxy.

What has the church been teaching over the course of the centuries since the church began two thousand years ago? And our understanding and study of these things helps to keep us on the straight and narrow path, according to the words that Christ preached and understanding them in a way that is right and meaningful.

So as to produce godliness in the hearts of believers, which the Holy Spirit has been doing in the church of Christ for the two thousand years that we've had the Holy Spirit dwelling within the hearts of man since Pentecost.

So this is this is a spiritual work of God to teach and understand right doctrine. And Paul says to Timothy, don't teach any different doctrine. Don't go away from the sound words of our Lord Christ, the stewardship from God that is by faith.

What does that phrase mean that we see there in verse four stewardship from God that is by faith? Well, it's teaching the Bible the way that God has said that his word is supposed to be taught, not straying off into myths and speculations that are apart from the right and sound teaching of our Lord Christ.

So this stewardship from God that is by faith is basically synonymous with the term sound doctrine. It would it would be the same. We are instructed to handle the word of God rightly. Paul said to the Corinthians, first Corinthians four, six, do not go beyond what is written.

And in the Corinthian church, you had, you know, folks in there that thought that God was giving them new revelation and some of the stuff that they were saying and proclaiming was probably apart from or in addition to stuff that the apostles had taught them or even that Apollos had taught them when they came to Corinth and that church was was planted there.

And Paul sets himself before the Corinthians as an example. How did we teach you when we came to you? That's the way you need to teach. Don't go away from what it is that you've been instructed in. And and when Paul says, don't go beyond what is written, he's talking about the proclamation of the Old Testament scriptures and how Christ is the fulfillment of some of those Old Testament prophecies, but also other letters that had been written to them by the apostles.

First Corinthians is actually Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. So there would have been some very deep and probing theological doctrines that Paul would have laid out for the Corinthians in a previous letter, which we don't have record of.

We call First Corinthians the first because it's the first one that appears in canon. But it's the second letter that Paul wrote because he makes a reference to a previous letter in First Corinthians.

So he says to them again, First Corinthians four, six, don't go beyond what is written. Very similar to what he's saying to Timothy here, hold fast to right doctrine. Don't let anyone teach any different doctrine.

So in the assignment that Paul is giving to Timothy to go to Ephesus and make sure that right doctrine is being taught there, he's also being given authority by an apostle to silence anybody in that church, any elder or any teacher or even any lay person who might be teaching anything that is apart from sound doctrine, apart from the stewardship from God that is by faith.

This word of God, this message of the gospel that we have been entrusted to handle rightly. You're talking about a message that has the power to save a person's soul from death and transfer them from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, a kingdom of that is going to be destroyed from that kingdom into a kingdom that is going to be imperishable and will last forever.

That's the power of the message of the gospel. Romans 1 16. I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes this message that Jesus Christ, the son of God, died on the cross for our sins, shed his blood as an atoning sacrifice for us, was buried in a tomb, came back again from the grave so that all who believe in him will be forgiven their sins and will receive his everlasting life.

Furthermore, we will become fellow heirs of his eternal kingdom. This is the message of the gospel, the good news of what Jesus Christ has done for us for our sins so that all who believe in Christ Jesus will be rescued from the wrath of God on that day of judgment.

This is there's no other way to teach that message. It's plain. It is clear. You might use more words. You might use less words. But this is the clear message of the gospel of Christ. And only this has the power to save.

Don't teach any different doctrine. Everything else that we teach must flow from that message, from the soundness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that essentially is sound doctrine. So everything else that is taught in the scriptures, even if it's a secondary doctrine or a tertiary doctrine, it all flows from the gospel.

So you think of a secondary doctrine as being like baptism. We might disagree on manner and methods of baptism. Is it sprinkling? Is it dunking? Can babies be baptized? Is it only meant for believers?

And we disagree on some of those secondary issues. But the teaching of baptism is a particular doctrine, one that the Lord Christ has commanded that we do. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Therefore, go and baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as part of the Great Commission, that we would teach all that Christ has commanded and we would baptize those who become believers.

This is a symbol, an outward symbol of a change that has happened in the heart of every person who has turned from sin and believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. They show that they have been washed of their sins and transgressions.

They have been buried with Christ in his death and risen again to new life, to life in Christ. So this is an example of another doctrine that we teach, but something that might be more secondary. But yet the teaching of that doctrine flows from the gospel.

You hear that the gospel message is even coming out in the way that I am explaining it, that Christ died for us, was risen again. So we likewise would be buried with him in our baptism and risen again to new life.

And that's what baptism kind of symbolizes. It symbolizes a washing, a purity that has been given to us by the Holy Spirit, by the of God, the washing of water through the word Paul talks about in Titus three and in Ephesians five and other places.

So see, even as we teach other doctrines, it's all going to come from the gospel. It all points back to Christ. It all comes. It points back to the salvation that we have been given in the finished atoning work of Christ alone.

So when we deviate into moralism or into legalism or into self-help messages or like five successful ways to balance your finances and all these other kinds of things, that's when we start getting into different doctrines.

We get into myths and speculations rather than that which flows from the sound doctrine of the teaching of the gospel of Christ. All of it is meant to point back to the gospel if it points back to you, the self.

So like here's how God has empowered you to make your life better. Well, then that becomes a self-help issue and the subject of that message becomes you rather than Christ. If it's not pointing back to Christ and the gospel, then it's a different doctrine.

And we're going to explore some examples of that a little bit more tomorrow. I was kind of hoping that I was going to get to that today, but I felt it necessary to really narrow down what we're talking about when we use that word doctrine and what the meaning and importance of sound doctrine is.

So now we'll look at some examples of deviating from sound doctrine, those things that Paul is encouraging Timothy to correct in the church in Ephesus, and we'll look at more of that tomorrow. So let's pray.

Our Lord God, we thank you for your word that was given to us, the sound doctrine of Jesus Christ that was proclaimed in the gospel so that we who have heard the gospel of Christ proclaimed would turn from our sinfulness.

We would walk in his righteousness and we would desire to grow in the knowledge of these things all the more. Hearing the word of God proclaimed, having it written on our hearts, transforming our thinking so that we might be kingdom people of God, being less like the people of this world that we were before we heard the gospel and more like Jesus Christ who has saved us.

And by his spirit, we are being modeled more and more into his image and into his likeness continue to sow the seeds of this doctrine into our hearts so that it produces fruit and an abundance which will lead to a plentiful harvest for God's kingdom on that day of glory.

Lead us to do all things to your glory and service. In the name of Christ we pray.

Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text. Pastor Gabe is the author of several short books on the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. Topics include the deity of Christ, original sin, resurrection, Christ's incarnation, and many more.

Find these books in our bookstore when you visit www .wutt .com. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in God's word when we understand the text.