Quotes About Doctrine

Throughout the first five centuries people understood Christianity primarily as a way of life in the present, not as a doctrinal system, esoteric belief, or promise of eternal salvation. By followers enacting Jesus's teachings, Christianity changed and improved the lives of its adherents and served as a practical spiritual pathway. This way—and earliest Christians were called "the People of the Way"—bettered existence for countless ancient believers.

We have adopted the convenient theory that the Bible is a Book to be explained, whereas first and foremost, it is a Book to be believed (and after that to be obeyed)."1

Discipleship means adherence to Christ, and, because Christ is the object of that adherence, it must take the form of discipleship. An abstract Christology, a doctrinal system, a general religious knowledge on the subject of grace or on the forgiveness of sins, render discipleship superfluous, and in fact they positively exclude any idea of discipleship whatever, and are essentially inimical to the whole conception of following Christ.

Freedom for the Church comes from the necessity of the Word of God. Otherwise, it becomes arbitrariness and ends in a great many new ties.

Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian "conception" of God.

So many people come to church with the genuine desire to hear what we have to say, yet they are always going back home with the uncomfortable feeling that we're making it too difficult for them to come to Jesus. Are we determined to have nothing to do with all these people? They are convinced that it is not the Word Jesus himself that puts them off, but the superstructure of human, institutional, and doctrinal elements in our preaching.

But because Jesus is the Christ, it has to be made clear from the beginning that his word is not a doctrine . Instead, it creates existence anew.

The proper relation of the Church to the world cannot be deduced from natural law or rational law or from universal human rights, but only from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian 'conception' of God.

Christianity has always embraced both reason and faith.

Christians today and for many centuries have assumed that the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2-3 is the source of the belief in original sin. Adam

Spirituality is inseparable from theology. Indeed, it could be defined as the living out of theology.

Everyone can understand how salutary it [the rosary] is, especially in our times wherein sometimes a certain annoyance of the things of the spirit is felt even among the Faithful, and a dislike, as it were, for the Christian doctrine. ~ Pope Pius XI

Those who teach by their doctrine must teach by their life, or else they pull down with one hand what they build up with the other.

Nowhere in Scripture do we find doctrine studied for its own sake or in isolation from life.

A preacher's life should be a commentary upon his doctrine... Heavenly doctrines should always be adorned with a heavenly life.

I have said it many a time, and am surer of it than ever, that the life and death issue of Christianity is the inspiration and authority of the Bible.

A religion without mystery must be a religion without God.

You didn't learn the Bible as a Fundamentalist. You learned fragments of Old Testament legalism mixed with Behaviorism & Nietzschean ethics

Often unwilling to accept the fact that God is working because they don't understand how He is working, they have chosen to substitute the doctrine of chance for the doctrine of divine providence.

So while the Bible asserts both God's sovereignty and people's freedom and moral responsibility, it never attempts to explain their relationship.

First, we should never use the doctrine as an excuse for our own shortcomings.

Second, we should not allow the doctrine of God's sovereignty to cause us to respond passively to the actions of other people that affect us. We should take all reasonable steps within the will of God to protect and advance our situation.

A lot of Christians are doing that for God today. Often unwilling to accept the fact that God is working because they don't understand how He is working, they have chosen to substitute the doctrine of chance for the doctrine of divine providence.