Chapter 6: But wasn't Paul a theologian? You may be thinking to yourself, "But that can't be true. Look at Paul—surely he was a theologian." In fact, secularists and liberal theologians often claim that Paul was the real architect of Christianity. They imagine this because what passes as biblical Christianity today in most churches stems primarily from Martin Luther's interpretation of Paul's writings. Luther's Gospel was not based on Jesus' teachings but on a misconstrued understanding of Paul's writings.
But if we must focus on Paul's letters to establish the Christian faith, then truly the servant has become greater than his master. The reason most of us read Paul's letters as though they are doctrinal treatises is because that's how they've been presented to us all our lives. In the chapters to come, we'll be looking at the Christian theologians over the centuries who hijacked Christianity. As learned theologians, they read their own concept of Christianity back into the Scriptures.
Because they imagined that theology is the essence of Christianity, they turned Paul into a theologian like themselves. In fact, they made him the ultimate Christian theologian. It's similar to what's happened with the teaching of evolution. Few people, from their own unbiased observations, would imagine that the complex biological systems on Earth got here simply through blind accident. Nobody will look at a beautiful horse and imagine that it had evolved over millions of years from a single-cell organism.
However, most non-Christians think in those terms today because everything they read about plants or animals always states that these things evolved over millions of years. The theory of evolution dominates every textbook, every encyclopedia, and virtually every book and magazine article produced by the secular world. Consequently, most people today see evolution in everything around them because they've been programmed to see things that way. A similar thing is true in Christianity.
The theologians have dominated Christian thinking and writing for so long that the typical Christian today reads the Scriptures through the eyes of these theologians. So Paul becomes the great theologian. Even the writings of the ordinary and uneducated fisherman, the Apostle John, become theological treatises. I know that I've read the New Testament writings through such theological glasses for most of my life.
Yet, even when I was overly focused on theology, a question always nagged me: if the New Testament epistles are so focused on theology, why aren't Jesus' teachings? Why does he primarily talk about the kingdom and living the kingdom life, and so little about theological doctrines? And how can it be true that God has hidden these things from the wise and prudent and has revealed them to babes if men have to train in seminaries and become wise and prudent to properly understand the Scriptures?
Somehow, all this never added up. But don't the Scriptures talk about doctrine? For example, Jesus said about the scribes and Pharisees, "In vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." Matthew 15:9. And that's true. When the church first got started, Acts tells us that the new believers continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Acts 2:42.
Furthermore, Paul said that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. Ephesians 4:14. Finally, the epistle to the Hebrews warns us, "Not be carried about with various and strange doctrines." Hebrews 13:9. Paul particularly talked a lot about doctrines in his pastoral epistles.
He told Timothy, "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons." 1 Timothy 4:1. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. 2 Timothy 3:16. He warned Timothy that the time will come when they will not endure such doctrine. 2 Timothy 4:3.
And Paul told Titus that one of the qualifications for an elder is that he is holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, so that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict. Titus 1:9. So you may be saying to yourself, "Well, David, doctrine is important after all." And I agree. But what is doctrine? When most Christians hear the word doctrine, they think of theological teachings or dogma. That is, how the word is used almost exclusively today in Christian circles.
But originally, the English word doctrine simply meant teaching, just as the word doctor originally meant teacher. That's how people understood those words in the days of William Tyndale and King James I. However, in the intervening centuries, doctrine has primarily come to mean theological dogma. So when Christians read the term in the New Testament today, they come away with an entirely different meaning than did Christians in the days of King James.
They also come away with a different meaning than did the first-century Christians. That's because the Greek words translated in our Bibles as doctrine, didache, didascalia simply mean teaching or instruction, and they have no connotation of theological dogma. Actually, the original meaning of doctrine becomes clear from the context of many Scripture passages that use the term. When Paul wrote Timothy about doctrine, he was primarily referring to teachings that affect the Christian life.
For example, he said, "We know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine." 1 Timothy 1:8-10.
So people who murder, lie, and live immorally are living contrary to sound doctrine. Again, Paul wrote Timothy, "If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed." 1 Timothy 4:6. So doctrine is not just something you believe, but something you follow. For example, being disobedient to believing masters was a product of false doctrine.
Those who have believing masters let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather serve them because those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing. 1 Timothy 6:2-4.
In one of his final exhortations to Christians, Jesus rebuked the church at Pergamum for holding to the doctrine of Balaam. Was the doctrine of Balaam some theological system? Not at all. Jesus explains, "But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality." Revelation 2:14.
So the doctrine of Balaam encouraged idolatry and sexual immorality. You may be asking yourself, can doctrine ever refer to theological teaching as well? Yes, it is occasionally used that way in Scripture. After all, because doctrine means teaching, it encompasses theological teaching as well as lifestyle teaching.
For example, the writer of Hebrews uses it in the sense when he writes, "Therefore leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment." Hebrews 6:1-2. Here the writer talks about fundamental theological teachings and uses the word doctrine.
However, did you notice how extremely simple these elementary theological doctrines of Christianity are? He mentions only five or six basic things, and these can be summed up in one sentence. Furthermore, even an unlearned person who reads the New Testament would have no trouble seeing those basic teachings.
Similarly, John uses doctrine in the sense of theological beliefs in his second epistle, where he writes, "For many deceivers have gone out into the world, who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward. Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son.
If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him, for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds." 2 John 1:7-11. Two things from this passage are particularly noteworthy. First, the doctrine mentioned is an extremely basic theological belief. Anyone who doesn't believe that Jesus came in the flesh simply doesn't accept the New Testament as true. This group to whom John was referring were the Gnostics.
They rejected all the Old Testament and so much of the teachings of Jesus and his apostles that they essentially created an entirely new religion. But it wasn't only their theology that John was concerned with, because they said that nothing in the material world matters. Most Gnostic groups taught it was perfectly acceptable to live an immoral, licentious life. So John was just as concerned about their evil deeds as he was about their twisted theology. Jesus never changes.
Jesus drove one final nail in the coffin of the theologians. And that final nail was this: he never changes. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13:8. Jesus is always the one teacher, the one scribe, because his teachings are final. His teachings didn't need to be reinterpreted in the second century or the twelfth century or the eighteenth century, nor did they need to be reinterpreted in the twenty-first century.
Whatever Jesus' words meant to his original hearers is exactly what they mean today. That's because Jesus' teachings are not mere human teachings like the U.S. Constitution. For a man-made instrument, the Constitution is a remarkable document, but parts of it get reinterpreted just about every year, whether that was the intent of the founding fathers or not. Nowadays, the Constitution has essentially been replaced by the Supreme Court as the final source of legal authority in the United States.
Anymore, the Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says it means. The nine justices of the Supreme Court are the theological class of the American legal world. But it's not that way with the gospel. Jesus didn't set up an ongoing institution of theologians to reinterpret his teachings to each new generation. He didn't need to revise his teachings so they would still be fresh and relevant in each succeeding generation. Only man-made teachings need such revision.
The gospel of the kingdom never needs updating. It's always fresh and it's always relevant to each new generation. People who think they need to make the gospel relevant by changing it are reducing Jesus to a mere human teacher whose teachings quickly get outdated. In short, the kingdom worked out exactly as Jesus said it would. The people whom the world looks down upon as foolish and ignorant are the very ones who have best understood the kingdom of God.
And the people whom the world looks up to as brilliant generally have been the ones who have had the hardest time grasping the simple truths that Jesus and his disciples taught.