Paul the apostle once wrote, "Knowledge puffs up but love edifies." These days, Paul's remark is made to mean that believers who wish to be loving need to back off the doctrine stuff. The idea that many modern pastors are putting forward is that love and truth are at odds with each other. Now, they don't say this quite so directly and plainly. They teach instead that concern about biblical accuracy is just nit-picking, it shows a "spirit of contentiousness" that is harmful to the Church. A Christian who really wants to serve God needs only to love others. Love is the key, not Truth. Besides, no one really knows what the Bible means anyway. There are all sorts of conflicting ideas about its "truth." It's better just to ignore all the fighting over what the Bible says and do the thing every Christian would agree is good to do: Love everybody. Who can argue with this? Only those puffed-up no-goodniks who want to fuss over Christian doctrine, that's who.
Well, here's one problem with this sort of thinking: It is putting forward truth. What truth? The "truth" that concern for doctrine is wrong and love is right. This "truth" is itself a kind of doctrine, however - the very thing that is supposed to be avoided. As soon as one says, "You ought to do/think this and not do/think that," one is making what philosophers call a "truth proposition." You are asserting what you - and, presumably, those to whom you are speaking - ought to believe. Only puffed-up doctrine nazis do this, though, right? No, we all do this; it's an inevitable, unavoidable aspect of being a thinking being with convictions about things.
Another problem with ignoring doctrine in favor of love - godly love - is that we cannot know what sort of love we ought to express without the biblical doctrines that define it. What does Christian love look like? Is it exactly the same as the love the World expresses? We can only know by searching Scripture for its teachings on the love of God. But this is to be concerned about doctrine! Only those argumentative doctrine-freaks are concerned about doctrine. No, doctrine is vital to understanding everything about the Christian faith - even, and especially, what it means to love.
The Christian who becomes ignorant of the doctrines that give structure to his faith is highly susceptible to false teaching, to being led astray into "damnable heresies," that will bring him ultimately to spiritual and eternal ruin. Paul warned of the "puffing up" effect of knowledge but his letters were nonetheless jammed with knowledge. He wrote copiously to the Church about doctrine, about God's truth, and he repeatedly spoke against those who dismissed or warped his teachings. Was Paul just a doctrine nut, ignorant of the supremacy of love and the danger of getting caught up in truth-wrangling? Surely not - though, there are some modern pastors, I suspect, who would like to say he was.
It turns out that, in God's economy of things, love and truth go together.
1 John 3:18
18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
Love that is not bounded and shaped by God's truth is not love. Not godly love, anyway. Those who urge you to think of truth and love as opposites or contradictory to each other are being neither rational nor biblical. The apostle Paul, who warned us against becoming puffed up by knowledge, also warned that taking up the antagonism of some modern preachers toward truth comes with very serious consequences:
2 Thessalonians 2:10-12
10 ...they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Well, here's one problem with this sort of thinking: It is putting forward truth. What truth? The "truth" that concern for doctrine is wrong and love is right. This "truth" is itself a kind of doctrine, however - the very thing that is supposed to be avoided. As soon as one says, "You ought to do/think this and not do/think that," one is making what philosophers call a "truth proposition." You are asserting what you - and, presumably, those to whom you are speaking - ought to believe. Only puffed-up doctrine nazis do this, though, right? No, we all do this; it's an inevitable, unavoidable aspect of being a thinking being with convictions about things.
Another problem with ignoring doctrine in favor of love - godly love - is that we cannot know what sort of love we ought to express without the biblical doctrines that define it. What does Christian love look like? Is it exactly the same as the love the World expresses? We can only know by searching Scripture for its teachings on the love of God. But this is to be concerned about doctrine! Only those argumentative doctrine-freaks are concerned about doctrine. No, doctrine is vital to understanding everything about the Christian faith - even, and especially, what it means to love.
The Christian who becomes ignorant of the doctrines that give structure to his faith is highly susceptible to false teaching, to being led astray into "damnable heresies," that will bring him ultimately to spiritual and eternal ruin. Paul warned of the "puffing up" effect of knowledge but his letters were nonetheless jammed with knowledge. He wrote copiously to the Church about doctrine, about God's truth, and he repeatedly spoke against those who dismissed or warped his teachings. Was Paul just a doctrine nut, ignorant of the supremacy of love and the danger of getting caught up in truth-wrangling? Surely not - though, there are some modern pastors, I suspect, who would like to say he was.
It turns out that, in God's economy of things, love and truth go together.
1 John 3:18
18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
Love that is not bounded and shaped by God's truth is not love. Not godly love, anyway. Those who urge you to think of truth and love as opposites or contradictory to each other are being neither rational nor biblical. The apostle Paul, who warned us against becoming puffed up by knowledge, also warned that taking up the antagonism of some modern preachers toward truth comes with very serious consequences:
2 Thessalonians 2:10-12
10 ...they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
