Goals for Studying Doctrine

I elaborated on the first goal in an earlier post. Let me develop the second goal I gave last Sunday. Since it is Friday, it looks like this will be the last goal I deal with. However, I will list the other two at the end of this post for those of you who love to take notes, but didn't "get down" everything on Sunday.

2. Studying doctrine aims at impacting our evangelistic endeavors. I Pet. 3:15 says, "but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence." This is a call for all Christians to have the ability to articulately, intelligently, and most important of all biblically communicate to people the reason your hope is in Christ alone. The Greek word translated "defense" is where we get our English word "apologetics". It literally means a "verbal defense, answer, or reply". In other words, every believer ought to be able to give an impactful (yea verbal) response to someone who might ask them about the Gospel. The more one knows, yea, the more one understands doctrine (and all doctrine is centered around the plan and purposes of God in Christ Jesus!) the more he or she will be able to give a biblical, articulate, intelligent, and impactful response to an unbeliever. Of course, the Spirit of God is the one who determines who will be saved, not us (John 3:1-8). Nevertheless, can this honestly give us the excuse to be ignorant about the riches of the Gospel? Of course not. A proper view of God's sovereignty in salvation will actually encourage one to possess the desire to give the best explanation possible regarding the Gospel when given the opportunity. When one knows for sure that God has an elect people for sure, then he will seek to give the Gospel to others for sure! His confidence will be rooted in God's sovereignty. On the other hand, if one does not have confidence that God has already marked His people out, then what encouragement is their to share Christ, and possess the ability to give good responses to those who ask us about our hope in Christ? Simply put, knowing doctrine better will impact our evangelistic endeavors.

3. Studying doctrine aims at understanding the Gospel better in order to fall more in love with Jesus Christ.

4. Studying doctrine aims at recognizing that the New Covenant era (the one in which we are citizens if we are truly believers in Christ) brings with it a greater knowledge of God. We must take advantage of this privileged position (Jer. 31:31, 34).