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Preaching Today: What's the difference between a doctrine and all the other ideas taught in Scripture?

Haddon Robinson: In some ways, you could say all the ideas of the Bible make up doctrine. Usually when we think of doctrine, we think of the great affirmations in the Nicene Creed, the affirmations most Christians agree to and embrace. Different churches have doctrines that distinguish them from others, but on a basic level, when you talk about the great doctrines of the Christian faith, you're thinking of those expressed in the ancient creeds.

Do you resonate with the phrase "Doctrines are the most important ideas from the most important Book"?

Yes, I would agree with that very readily, though when you talk about the "most important" ideas, that begs for some definition. There are doctrines that most Christian groups agree with, and I would say they are the outstanding ideas from the Scriptures.

One of the problems people have with doctrinal preaching is that it is often done in an abstract way that doesn't seem to impact life. But ultimately, the most important things we embrace are ideas about God and God's relationship to us, and out of those flow things that affect our lives.

So I've got to realize these big ideas of Scripture actually do affect my life?

Yes, and they may affect what I think God is about in the world. If I believe the Bible is a book of remedies for practical problems, that's one approach. If I believe the Bible is a revelation of God and the major thing it's doing is to reveal God to us, that's another. Only as I clearly understand who God is and what God is doing can I say, "This affects my life." Those are two different approaches, and I think the second has far more validity than the first.

If doctrines are the most important truths from the most important book, and they affect everything we do, how should these ideas find their way into our preaching, practically speaking? How should someone who's committed to expository preaching preach doctrine?

There are at least two answers to that. One is, when we preach doctrine we are doing what I call a "subject exposition." If this is a great doctrine of the faith, then it appears in a number of places in the Bible. In order to preach this doctrine, I usually have an anchoring passage, but I also have to look at other passages in the Bible that speak to this doctrine. This is actually more difficult to do with validity than going through a book one passage at a time, because I have to take each of the passages I think refer to this doctrine and look at them in their context to be sure they are saying what they say and not what I want them to say.

A second way is, as you preach through a book of the Bible and come to a literary unit—a pericope—say to yourself, "What do I know about God from this passage?" If you ask that question, you will find that the same basic truths about God emerge again and again. So as you're preaching through a book, it's helpful to take time to see the doctrines in which the biblical writer is basing his thought. Both of those are legitimate doctrinal approaches.

Should I limit myself to the ideas within one large passage of Scripture, or should I branch out now and then? As you said, you often have to go wider in the Bible to embrace the whole doctrine. How do you do that well?

It's no use chasing through the Bible and looking up ten references, all of which essentially say the same thing. Sometimes it would be far better to stay in one passage. Years ago, Donald Barnhouse used to do that. He would preach through a book like Romans, and every so often he would stop and preach the doctrine that was behind this book. Jim Boice did the same thing. He felt two things: It helped his people see the doctrines and understand them, and it was a good thing to do for homiletical purposes because it gave variety to his preaching.

A while ago, I was working in 1 Corinthians 8, where Paul is dealing with the question of food offered to idols. He is arguing that there are two ways of deciding whether or not you should eat the offerings. One is through the knowledge of doctrine, and the other is through love—not love for your brother, love for God.

So you look at that passage and say, "What do you learn about God in this passage?" Paul says: We know that there is only one God, and if there is one God, there can't be five or six or seven gods. So an idol is nothing, and offering food to an idol doesn't change the nature of the food. It's just stone or wood.

In the course of that discussion, Paul talks about the fact that we have one Father who is the Creator of all things, and we have a Savior through whom all things are created. But it's clear in that passage that there is plurality in the Godhead, because he makes the major assertion that there is only one God.

Paul is saying that knowledge helps you in dealing with idols, but it would be helpful to stop the congregation and say that this passage points to a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith. It's pointing to the reality that there is a Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In the Corinthian letter, you have the Father, you have the Son, a chapter later you have the Holy Spirit, and it could be helpful to say: "Paul is dealing with a very practical problem. These Corinthians didn't know whether they could eat food that was offered to an idol. But he goes back to an understanding about God that helps him to answer this very practical problem. What was that understanding?" And then go from there. It would be helpful for Christians to realize that, while Paul is addressing some very down-to-earth questions, he does so out of a knowledge of God. We need to be sure we understand what the Bible is teaching us about God.

What is the traditional definition of doctrinal preaching, and is that a good way for us to understand how we do this?

There are denominations in which, every Sunday, at least one sermon deals with doctrine, and the doctrine is usually derived from the creed of that church. So the pastor will take a doctrine and proclaim it. It doesn't necessarily mean that the pastor is going to go to the Bible to help his people understand it—it's sort of, "We believe our creed, not in so far as it's true to the Bible, but because we believe the creed is the expression of the Bible." I think you're better off coming to it that way than to ground it in the biblical text, so the doctrine doesn't sound like something a group of theologians came up with in a smoke-filled back room to serve their own purposes.

The world doesn't need good advice—it needs the power, authority, and wisdom of God.

Why does doctrine have a bad name among Christians, particularly today?

It has often been preached in very abstract ways. It's often preached as though the purpose of it all was just the propositions we put up on a blackboard. "I believe that Jesus is the theanthrophic person"—what in the world does that mean? And if the preacher stays at that level, the fellow in the pew gets glassy-eyed. You have got to do better than that in order to establish the need for knowing what is true.

Other times, when people have preached the doctrine of their faith group or denomination, it has been preached with the smell of gun smoke: We believe this, but other Christians don't believe this (or other people who profess to be Christians don't believe this). We're right; they're wrong. They preach doctrine in this way because they have emphasized what I would call minor doctrines and have ignored the major affirmations that we all have about God.

I hear you saying there are a couple of things we can do to redeem doctrinal preaching. One: We need to show relevance early in the sermon. Two: We need to show that doctrine is practical to life. Three: We need to make sure we tie this to a text. Is there anything else you would add?

It's helpful to have practical applications. I think of the writings of someone like C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. He tried to set out the basic doctrines of the Christian faith—mere Christianity, essential Christianity. He did this for listeners to the British Broadcasting Company. And his book is an effective example of how you take the great affirmations of the faith and teach them in such a way that listeners will get it. He is excellent at using analogies and raising the thoughtful questions that a listener might have.

There are always the questions after you're through: "So what? What difference does this make?" It's better to start there, because you are trying to convince the audience that this is not just something incidental but something crucial.

If our sermons are light on doctrine, what do they have?

They end up being nothing more than moralisms: We should, we must, we ought. Or, here are three ways in which we can be better off financially. A sermon I heard a while ago on how to deal with procrastination had as its first point to get a Day Timer. You knew you were in trouble when you heard that. I have no doubt that when people left that church, if they were procrastinators, they thought it was a helpful sermon. But it was simply something that a motivational speaker could have done.

If people are raised on cotton candy, they are not going to grow as Christians. When Paul writes to his young associate Timothy, he says that "all Scripture is inspired by God," and that all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for teaching, for putting the fundamental truths in front of people, and for "reproof, for correction, for instruction in right living." We have ignored that first affirmation—that the Bible is given to teach doctrine. It's not the only thing it does, but doctrine is first, and out of that there is reproof and then there is correction and then instruction in right living.

Kevin Vanhoozer has written a book called The Drama of Doctrine. What does that title say about how we can or should preach doctrine?

That's an interesting title; most people have never thought of the drama of doctrine. One reality we have to deal with is, all doctrines about God and the Bible are held in tension—and in that sense doctrine is drama, because drama deals with tension. God cannot exercise his holiness apart from his love. He can't exercise his grace apart from his omnipotence. Our Lord was full of grace and truth—that's an enormously difficult tension. I know people who are big on truth but can be very, very ungracious. There are other people who are big on grace and are willing to sacrifice truth so they can be gracious. But our Lord was full of grace and truth—there is a drama about God. There are some things we can affirm, but we can never speak completely about, because we can't put God into a box, we can't put him into a formula. But it does give us a glimpse of what it means to know God. These glimpses are not tired affirmations when we are talking about the living God.

We need to ask ourselves, do I really believe that God gave the Bible merely for some practical advice on how to have a happy marriage, how to get along with people, or how to be healthy and wealthy? Do I believe it's merely a textbook on good behavior, on how to be moral? If I believe that, then I am going to go searching the Bible for practical truth, and what I'm really looking for is just good advice. We don't need good advice; the world's got better advice than it knows how to live up to. It needs God; it needs the power of God, the authority of God, the wisdom of God. Christians need sound doctrine, and it's out of that that we can live well, both eternally and temporally.

Haddon Robinson was a preacher and teacher of preachers all over the world. His last teaching position was as the Harold John Ockenga Distinguished Professor of Preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.