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 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.