Doctrine Is Essential

2Co 11:3  But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be

led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.4  For if one comes and preaches

another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not

received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.

Doctrine (teaching) defines beliefs and practice, that's why it matters. Biblical doctrine leads to sound thinking and obedient lives as one grows in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Unbiblical doctrine, especially anti-biblical doctrine, leads to unsound thinking and rebelliousness.

"Do you see how the new philosophy necessarily undermines sound doctrine? It discards Jesus' own methods---preaching and teaching--as the primary means of ministry. It replaces them with methodologies utterly devoid of substance....In fact it avoids dogma or strong convictions as divisive, unbecoming,, or inappropriate. It dismisses doctrine as academic, abstract, sterile, threatening, or simply impractical. Rather than teaching error or denying truth, it does something far more subtle, but just as effective from the enemy’s point of view. It jettisons content altogether. Instead of attacking orthodoxy head-on, it gives lip service to the truth while quietly undermining the foundations of doctrine. Instead of exalting God, it denigrates the things that are precious to Him. In that regard, pragmatism poses dangers more subtle than the liberalism that threatened the church in the first half of the century."

~ John MacArthur in “Ashamed of the Gospel” 





Mat 28:19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

1Ti 6:3  If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words,

those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness,4  he is

conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and

disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions,5  and

constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that

godliness is a means of gain. 

Rom 16:17  I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create

obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. 

2Tim. 4:  ^3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit

their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching

ears want to hear. ^4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

1Tim. 1: ³As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge

some that they teach no other doctrine

Titus 2: 1 You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.

1Jn 1:6  If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do

not practice the truth;