Dancing to Doctrine: Knowing What You Believe

“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.”—Galatians 1:8

Today, the popular idea in the world is that it’s okay to believe whatever you want to believe, provided you’re sincere. And while such logic seems nice, it doesn’t work. Imagine a pilot was to say, “It doesn’t matter where and how I land this plane, as long as I am sincere.” We don’t want him or her to guess how to land a plane, or land wherever he or she wants to land it—we want them to do it exactly according to the flight manual, right on the runway, not too short, and not too late, but right on—no exceptions.

Or imagine you were driving and came to a four-way stop. You want to obey the law and expect everyone else at the stop sign to obey it too. You don’t want one of the other drivers to say, “Oh, it doesn’t mean stop for me. It might mean that for you, but for me it just means slow down.” We all know that to do anything else than stop is to invite disaster. Nevertheless, that is exactly what people do with Christ. Some say, “It doesn’t matter what you believe about Jesus, provided that you believe in Jesus.” And while such a statement sounds true, it’s not. It overlooks Satan’s strategy, which gets people to follow a different Jesus. Satan attempts to masquerade as an “angel of light” and wants to create a different Jesus in an attempt to turn people away from the one true Christ. Which is why Paul wrote, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.”—Galatians 1:8. For Paul, the Gospel is serious business. To distort even one part of it invites destruction. When Paul writes, “let him be accursed” he evokes very strong language. The word “accursed” basically means, “sent straight to hell.” Paul’s not mincing words. He’s saying that if anyone tries to teach a different gospel than the one he preached, let that person be sent straight to hell. For those of us in the twenty-first century, such language seems harsh. But for Paul, anything that attempts to add to or take away from the Gospel deserves damnation.

Doctrine is serious because doctrine helps us see Jesus. Satan attempts to distort the Gospel, counterfeit miracles, and create false christ’s so that people will be turned away from the real Jesus. Knowing doctrine means knowing what you believe so that you won’t be fooled by Satan’s schemes, and can accurately and wholeheartedly follow Jesus. To tolerate anything else is to invite destruction. None of us would tolerate a little rat poison in our coffee, so must we not tolerate any false teaching to spring up to turn us away from Jesus.

Are we following a different Gospel? A different Christ? Are we learning doctrine so that we might evade Satan’s schemes? Are we learning more about our Lord and Savior Jesus (which is doctrine) so that we might joyfully walk with Him? Are we trying to learn more about Him and what He desires so that we might change our lives and do what pleases Him? That is what it means to dance to doctrine—learn what our Savior wants from us, and do it, so that we might experience the joy of following Him. Amen.