The doctrine is not required in most high regard. Many evangelical churches there is such ignorance of the doctrine that even the basics of Christianity are not well understood. Even in churches that remain faithful in their teaching and preaching is often little interest in reading and understanding the doctrine. Young people are, for the most part, bored by it, and their elders are content with a superficial knowledge of the doctrines of the Reformed faith.
Very often the symptom of this lack of doctrine is a constant agitation for preaching and teaching more "practical" together with a greater emphasis on the liturgy and other parts of the worship service until the sermon is not reduced to little more than and nothing. By the preachers themselves, there is less and less exposure to biblical and more and more pictures, stories, and entertainment.
symptomatic of doctrinal indifference in the private lives of the people of God is the complete lack of interest in reading good books and periodicals Reformed. In some cases these are purchased but unread, in other cases there is even enough interest to buy them. If you just done some reading, it is superficial, almost always of the variety "how-to-a ..." Almost nothing is read to substantial, and most would consider a book of doctrine too deep despite the fact that their fathers and grandfathers, who had a 'much less education, were not only able to read theology, but the law widely and well.
If the church and the lives of God's people must be saved from the shallowness, decline, and from all ecclesiastical trouble that afflict us today, there must be a return to teaching. For proof we need look no further than that to the great Reformation of the sixteenth century. Above all else, the Reformation was a return to the doctrine-the doctrine of justification by faith alone, of sovereign grace, the church and the sacraments. Without an interest or a return to the doctrine, we can not even have hope for a revival and a renewal in the church.
In II Timothy 3:16-17 God's Word tells us that Scripture is profitable for many things, but for the doctrine first. In fact, if before the doctrine does not teach us, it is not profitable even to rebuke, to correct and for instruction in righteousness. For all these things, the doctrine is not only primary but also foundational.
Scripture emphasizes the importance of the doctrine in other ways. We read from John 17:3 that the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ is eternal life. Nothing is more important than that. The doctrine, properly taught, understood and believed, it is this knowledge of God and His Son. The Scriptures do not teach much. "... The Scriptures," Jesus says, "because ... they are they which testify of me" (John 5:39).
So, pay attention to the doctrine. Not only is the scope of activities of theologians but of anyone who wants eternal life. We do not doctrine aside for questions more "practical," but we understand that is the doctrine that rebukes, corrects, and teaches the way of justice. Above all, it brings us face to face with the living God himself, in whom we live and move and have our being. Being without doctrine is to be without God
Author: Ron Hanko. A chapter taken from Doctrine According To Godliness . Here you can find many other chapters in Italian taken from the same book.
