What Every Teacher Needs: Doctrinal Integrity

One valuable ingredient to successful Bible teaching is for the teacher to have solid biblical doctrines firmly in place. Imagine a teacher who wasn’t sure if Jesus was born of a virgin; or a teacher that felt the resurrection was not that important an issue. Heresy is dangerous for so many reasons and doctrinal integrity is so valuable and necessary for the church to experience God’s blessing. Having our doctrine correct is vital to our success as teachers.

Imagine a teacher who conducts a class by saying, “Let’s just go around the room and share what each person thinks this passage means.” The problem to such an approach should be obvious. First, no one is accountable for inaccurate or false teaching and second, this approach may simply be a pooling of the ignorance people might have concerning the Bible.

Or let’s suppose a teacher starts a class by saying, “I found a book that spoke about this passage and it said…” Here there could also be a problem. The book may be full of teaching that is inconsistent with the Bible and the fundamental doctrines of the church. What if the book is published by Watch Tower, the publication house for the Jehovah’s Witnesses? Again, the problem with this approach to teaching should be obvious.

Suppose another teacher says, “I know what this passage says, but I just don’t see God the way He is portrayed here.” The teacher is elevating his thoughts above God’s Word. This is a very small, unbiblical view of inspiration and the inaccuracy of his Bible teaching could cause great damage to a Sunday School class and even the church. The teacher may think he is being intelligent and a free thinker, but he is sowing destructive seeds with such an approach.

When Jesus addresses the seven churches in Revelation, it is clear that the doctrinal purity of the church is of vital importance to Him. It is clear that the Lord is concerned about doctrinal integrity. We should also share this concern and do our part to make sure our church is resting upon the rock-solid foundation of God’s Word and our teaching conveys our Lord’s priorities.

In 1 Timothy 4:1-6, the Apostle Paul shares three very important reasons that our Bible teaching must be biblically sound. The first reason is the potential of a shipwrecked life. I know a young man brought up in the church by a Christian mother. He was at church whenever the doors were opened for a public gathering. Today his life is spiritually shipwrecked. He has bought into vain philosophies he heard in college and he has turned his back on the Lord. What we believe matters! Belief in false doctrines leads a person to spiritual shipwreck.

Paul also speaks of the intense attacks of Satan. We are in a spiritual battle and a weak understanding of the fundamental doctrines of the Bible can make a person very vulnerable to the enemy. There are many deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons still in our day. The fact that cults often take a good percentage of their membership from established churches, should burden every Bible teacher. This danger alone should motivate us to pursue doctrinal integrity.

Thirdly, Paul states that sound doctrine is vital to help Believers to have stability and steady growth in the Christian life. If we build our worldview on anything other than the Bible, we are indeed on shifting sand and have a terrible foundation for life. Christians with an inaccurate understanding of basic Bible doctrines will also have difficulty growing into a spiritually mature follower of Jesus. If the Great Commission is our purpose, doctrinal integrity is a priority.

The Miracle of Bible Teaching

I thank God for little miracles and precious events He brings into my life. You know, like the child that finally warms up to you and you know you have a friend for life. Or the day you see that guy walk into class who you have been praying for over the course of several years. One of my favorite miracles is when that lesson you prepared makes a life-changing connection to someone’s heart. It’s funny, you pray as usual, you prepare the same way you always do, but somehow on that day, at that moment, the message touches a life.

The miracle is a miracle of God’s doing. It isn’t you, it isn’t me, it isn’t the lighting in the room or the seating arrangement! God makes it happen! In fact it always amazes me that the lesson or message that I think is a total flop is the one He chooses to bless. I’m convinced that He does it just to show me that it is all Him! I cannot or would not take any credit for it. Somehow, through His divine touch, He takes my pitiful offering and uses it to convict a heart or transform a mind or melt away years of bitterness right before my eyes. It is absolutely amazing!

It’s a miracle of faithfulness. I’m convinced that God is using that preparation and desire in our hearts to learn and grow. He sees our faithful praying and our diligent study. He is aware of the phone calls and letters and emails we send out. There are weeks that it seems that all the work we put into a lesson is futile, but God sees our faithfulness and He is pleased to one day bless it with His supernatural touch and a life is transformed for eternity. Our faithfulness to Him is never wasted. We will one day reap of the faithful sowing of spiritual seed by His power and grace.

The miracle is a miracle of the Word. The Book we handle, the Book we pray over and weep over and study over, is God’s Book. It has power to crush hardened hearts like a sledge hammer crushes a rock. His Word has supremacy to comfort and guide and encourage like nothing else does. No book of mere mortals can make such a change. It has the muscle to wrestle with a man’s heart and come forth with the victory. What a joy and privilege we have of wielding the Sword of the Spirit and seeing it bring a person to that point of spiritual breakthrough.

I remember reading about two hardened criminals who were in prison. One day the inmates were given Gideon New Testaments. The man in one cell was mocking the little Gospel presentation he found near the front flyleaf of the Bible. He began to read the verses that told of God’s love. He sneered as he read about man’s sin and need for forgiveness. He laughed when he read of our need to repent and place our faith in Jesus Christ. He was about to throw the little Testament into the trash, when the man in the next cell asked, “What does it say you do next?” The scoffer’s reply was, “Why? You don’t believe that stuff do you?” “Just tell me,” was the reply, “what does it say?” Reluctantly the scorner read, “It says, ‘whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’ and then it says to pray a prayer to invite Christ in your life.” Even though the reader had no love for God or His Word, he was dumbfounded to see the man in the next cell praying to Jesus Christ, surrendering his life to the only one who can save from sin. In spite of the reluctance of the witness it happened again—the glorious miracle of Bible teaching!

Intimacy with God

Getting close to God and staying close to God should be a priority for every Christian. As we get ready to start a new year, I thought it might be good to think together about a few things that help us stay close to the Lord. I hope these reminders will bring value to your life.

I’ve found that intimacy with God is a constant joy and a constant frustration. The closer we get to the Lord the greater our joy. Yet there is a frustration because the closer we get to Him, there is this awareness of how much closer we need to be. Even the Apostle Paul dealt with this in his life (Phil. 3). It seems we can never arrive at perfect fellowship with God because of our sin and our pride. We always have room to grow and the moment we start to coast is the moment we start to drift away. But as we keep moving in the right direction, there is great joy and delight in His presence. I guess we have to keep living with that tension as long as we are connected to a fallen planet.

Intimacy with the Lord is never accidental, but rather intentional. No one gets close to God by mistake. We have to do it on purpose. We need to have the daily discipline to stay in the Word and linger in prayer if we ever expect to enjoy real closeness with God. Of course the biggest barrier for most of us is our busy schedules. To carve out daily time is a real struggle. We have so many responsibilities and deadlines to meet. I’ve been at this a while and I still wrestle with trying to fit my quiet time into my schedule rather than building my schedule around my quiet time.

Intimacy is enhanced by trials, not hindered by them. It is the high winds on the mountain side that rock the trees back and forth. But as the trees are being blown around, the soil deep beneath their roots is being loosened by the rocking motion the wind creates. The high winds actually make it possible for their roots to grow deeper. Friends, that is also true of those things in our lives that blow us around. Of course much depends upon our response to those high winds, but the winds are never wasted on those seeking intimacy with the Almighty.

Intimacy requires times of isolation. We all know the account of Elijah’s great showdown with the Baal worshipers on Mt. Carmel in First Kings 18. After the great victory, Elijah needed an intimate time with God to hear His voice. It was only in the sound of silence that he could hear from God. As you prepare for 2010, I hope you will be able to find a place of solitude to get direction from the Lord for the New Year.

Intimacy is a spiritual battle. I am convinced that Satan fears the weakest Christian who gets on his knees. He will bring us every kind of obstacle, distraction and hindrance to keep us from getting closer to the Lord. He fears the damage we can do to his kingdom, but he also hates to see God communing with His child. He knows what great joy God takes in our closeness with Him and the devil hates God so much, he seeks to rob God of that intimacy. Let us determine not the give our enemy any such pleasure.

The Foundation of Our Faith and Practice

There once was a man who had some terrible cracks forming in the walls of his upstairs bedroom. He called various contractors, who repaired the cracks, but the repairs would only last a few months and the cracks would reappear. He was very angry about the faulty workmanship and finally called a contractor that was supposed to be the best around. He explained the situation and the contractor arrived and asked to see the door to the basement. The home owner was convinced that he should go upstairs and look at the wall in the bedroom—after all that was where the cracks were. The contractor insisted on looking in the basement first and quickly spotted damage to the foundation of the house. It was the damage to the foundation that had allowed the cracks to form in the bedroom walls. When the foundation was repaired, the cracks in the bedroom stopped occurring.

It is clear that there are many cracks in the belief systems of many people in our world today. Many have accepted bizarre beliefs about reincarnation, haunting ghosts and “channeling” dead people. With such strange beliefs it is understandable how so many “cracks” can occur in so many lives. The foundation of their belief system is built on something other the Word of God.

One foundation many build upon is tradition. That is, they believe a certain thing because it was passed on to them through a relative or a teacher or even a church. Many belief systems are like this. That is way some people believe they need to take the Lord’s Supper in order to be saved, they need to confess to a priest to have their sins forgiven, or they need to eat certain foods in order to be right with God. They believe it because it has been accepted as truth based on human tradition.

Some build on the faulty foundation of someone’s experience. Many cults are built on some beloved spiritual leader’s experience. This leader claims to have had a vision or an out of body experience of some kind. He has received a new revelation from God, he claims. Followers are amazed at the new teaching and are drawn in. The people will build their belief system upon this charismatic leader’s experience, rejecting the concerns of family members and friends.

Others build their belief system on their own personal hodgepodge beliefs that they have gotten from Oprah, Dr. Phil, the parts of the Bible that they like and maybe a little something they heard from a yoga instructor. They feel proud of their sophisticated system that makes them feel good about themselves, while convincing themselves they are extremely spiritual and in tune with God. They will claim to be close with God and confident that they have discovered the spiritual path that is right for them.

Of course Satan loves it when people build their beliefs upon anything other than the Bible. They are easily deceived into thinking that they are spiritually safe and secure, when, in reality, they have been duped by the father of all lies. All false belief systems are of the evil one. We must not be deceived. Every spiritual teaching must be based on holy, inspired Scripture. Everything else will only bring collapse when the wind and the rain of life begin to descend.