What’s your doctrine like?

“Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure.”
-Proverbs 4:26

This verse took me a little by surprise. I mean, as many times as our Christian life has been described as a walk or a journey, I don’t know that I’ve ever had a pastor tell me to “ponder the path.”

Isn’t it usually the other way around? People will tell you it’s not about the destination, but about the journey. Or they will tell you to be passive in this walk, just moving by the Spirit. Or they will tell you to not be so single-minded about the path at all, but embrace other paths that people may travel.

Not so here. Solomon tells us to concentrate on where we’re walking.

Now, I’m a doctrine geek, but people look at me funny when I start talking theology. It’s not in the vocabulary of many Christians. Their theology goes only as deep as knowing John 3:16 and some of the Ten Commandments. A few will have graduated to knowing some praise and worship songs.

You mention a word like propitiation (a word that is in the Bible), and you’ll get blank stares.

But this path matters. The way we walk matters. Doctrine is not a bad word (check out Hebrews 6:1) – it simply means what we believe about God. We all have a doctrine. The question is only this – where do you get that doctrine? Do you get it from pop culture, a new book, a praise song? Or do you get it from the Bible with the interpretive help of the Spirit?

Some will tell you that what you do is more important than what you believe. That sounds good, but it doesn’t work that way. We should do good works, yes, and that is a form of worship, but our worship must be formed out of a proper view of God. John 15 talks about the fruit we bear when in Christ, but it is in Christ where we bear real fruit. God has given us that glimmer of Himself in His Word. He has taught us these creeds so that He may be honored in our worship and faith.

And before we think this creedal path is some sort of legalistic formula we must follow, we should be reminded that Jesus Himself is our way, truth, and life. Our path is forged by His righteousness, by His Blood. We should concentrate on our path, if for no other reason than to concentrate on Jesus. Any other thought, any other focus, any other step is one away from God, no matter how good and nice it may seem.

It is not a path you can walk alone, but only in Christ may we stand. We have no righteousness in us, but in His death He can impute His righteousness to us. By His Spirit He can lead us. And in the end, when we stand before the Lord on the Day of Judgment, we can stand by His sacrifice on the Cross.

Here is the true danger of not paying attention to doctrine – we will not know whether we are standing by the good idea of another man, or by Jesus. No matter how wonderful it seems, the former is the wrong path. And no matter how hard it gets, the latter leads to life.