Doctrine Matters

291 - Today's Prime Time Devo comes from 2Ti 4:2, “ Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” (2 Tim 4:2) Pastors are to be proclaimers of the Word, and in that sense they are prophets. They are to stand on the Word much like Abraham, who in spite of the circumstances, believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness, and like Peter and John who in the face of persecution said, “we must obey God rather than men!”, and even Martin Luther who said while on trial, “My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God help me Amen.” The Holy Spirit will use that proclaimed Word to convict, rebuke, and exhort the audience, whilst the man of God perseveres in the essentials of teaching, (the proper word here is doctrine!) Doctrine, by definition, is any adequate statement of a divine fact, and in that sense ALL Scripture, which is full of religious facts is doctrine, and of course is useful as stated in 2 Tim 3:16. But I think Paul is zeroing in on that specific doctrine which he has been speaking of throughout these two letters to Timothy, that doctrine which was stated in the creed found in 1Ti 3:16 “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory.” As we have said many times in these devos, this creed is the forerunner of the Creeds we use in the church today, and though not taken word for word from the Scripture, they are reliable summations of what the Bible teaches about Jesus, and they are the first defense against false teachers. Pastors then are to not grow weary in presenting this doctrine to the sheep. It's what we believe about Jesus. He is God in the flesh, who was crucified, dead, and buried, He rose from the dead as witnessed by the Apostles, who were given the great commission, and then he ascended into heaven from whence he will come to judge the living and the dead. So pastors, preach the Word, for it contains all the divine statements of fact, and pay special attention to what we are to believe about Jesus. Doctrine matters!