Essential Doctrines vs. Secondary Issues

Let me establish a foundation and I think we see it in Acts chapter 2. And the reason why I go there that is the birthday of the Christian church. The first outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It's really the only place in the whole Bible where you have all 12 apostles at the same place at the same time preaching the same message ending with how to be saved and then following that you have description of the early church. And I don't think that's just meant to be a historical narrative. It's meant to be a theological narrative.

This is what the church is supposed to be like. And of course, the whole New Testament serves that purpose. But I focus there because of a statement, Acts 2:42. So right after the believers received the message and were baptized, it said they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers. So notice apostles doctrine. That was of prime importance. But right alongside of it was unity, fellowship, breaking of bread, which was communion, but also fellowship meals and prayer. So, and if you look, if you analyze that chapter, I think what we call the essentials you find here, but but notice verse 42 is putting an equal value on doctrine and unity.

So, that sets up a little bit of attention that might not be immediately apparent. Yes, we all should rally around the doctrine, but what if we disagree on some issues that are not essential? Well, we still have to maintain unity. So, that's the example of the early church. Now, if you look at that chapter and analyze it, I think what you can find is there was first the experience, apostolic experience. So, we need to contend for that experience. Secondly, there was the doctrine. We should contend for the doctrine. Well, what is the doctrine? You can see in a nutshell um the apostle Peter preached that Jesus was the Lord.

Jesus is a man approved by God. But whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved referring to Yahweh in the Old Testament. So you see the deity and the humanity of Christ in nutshell form. He preached the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. That's the gospel. He preached our response to the gospel, repentance, baptism, Holy Ghost. That's the new birth. And then he concluded with many other words saying save yourself or keep yourself from this perverse generation. There's the life of holiness. So if you want to know what is doctrine, you've got the experience of Acts 2. You've got the deity and humanity of Christ, his death, burial, and resurrection, the new birth experience, and the pursuit of holiness.

All that would be essential. It's all in nutshell form. So then if you keep reading Acts 2, they gave sacrificially. Um they they met in homes to worship to praise God. They also met at the temple. And so you see this and and they continued in prayer. So you can see this concept of unity, sacrificial giving, praying together, worshiping together. uh you might want to in make that a separate statement of your your horizontal relationship is is fellowship breaking of bread but your vertical relationship is your prayer and your praise. So both components are necessary you also see God confirm the word with signs and wonders.

So that would also be the gifts of the spirit must be operative to the church. So I've just identified depending on how you want to analyze it but here's what would be essential the original apostolic experience original apostolic doctrine which I've outlined um unity fellowship um prayer and praise and uh signs and wonders. So all that I would think are essential components of apostolic belief. However, you do get some indications in the Bible where the emphasis is on the right doctrine, emphasis on unity. you do get an indication there's some allowable differences. Now, sometimes you'll encounter people and you could break this down to the most even absurd example, but we're let's say we're debating the time of the rapture.

Well, if you have the wrong interpretation, that's false. So, if you teach something as false, that's false doctrine. If you teach false doctrine, you're condemned. You're going to hell. But if you think about that, you can reduce everything to that. Should you worship on Sunday or Saturday? Well, if you have the wrong view, you're in false doctrine. Should you eat meat or not eat meat? If you have the wrong view, you're in false doctrine. Well, obviously that's absurd because you're destroying the concept of unity. Now, what indications do we have in the Bible? In the book of Acts, Acts 15, they had a big dispute.

Should gentile believers, they already had gentile believers coming in the church. Do they need to be circumcised or not? And it's interesting. The apostles and elders gathered in Jerusalem. They had sharp dispute, sharp debate. They did reach a conclusion. Um, but in Acts 15:28, they wrote a letter to all the churches to say, "We decided not to require anything except these following necessary things and they listed some things." So, some things were unnecessary. Now, they didn't require circumcision. They didn't require the Jewish dietary laws, but the Jewish Christians continued those practices. I mean, just because I mean, if I tell you you're free to eat dog meat like has done in where I grew up in Asia, that doesn't mean you're bound to go do it, right?

You still might not want to for some reason. So, um, you know, a Jewish Christian, you can say, "Hey, you're free to eat pork." Well, that doesn't mean they're going to go eat pork. In fact, later in Acts um 21, you see Paul coming to Jerusalem and the believers there led by James says, "Look, I want you to go to the temple and offer these vows because all the people in Jerusalem think you're attacking Jew Judaism. You're attacking the law and that you're turning people against it. And so, please participate to show that you're not to help help the Jewish Christians here in Jerusalem with their witness." And Paul could have said, you know, I'm not bound to that.

That's not required for my salvation. But instead, he said, 'Okay, I'll cooperate. I'll take the vow. I'll do what I'm supposed to do or or what you advise me to do. So, he wasn't obligated to do it, but he willingly did it. So, they were they compromised. You might say compromise is a bad word when you're talking about essential doctrines, but compromise is a good word when you're just talking about get along with people. So, doing optional things to help people out. And so you see this example of course the entire chapter of Romans 14 talks about Christian liberty. Now these are matters that are not moral that are not explicit Bible commands and it says we can have legitimate differences of opinion and it uses the example that I've already alluded to eating of certain meats or certain foods uh observance of certain days.

So, you know, we can each make our own choice. And the one who will practice it should not condemn the one who abstains. The one who abstains should not condemn the one who practices. Let everyone be fully persuaded in his own mind. But whatever is not of faith is sin. So, if you're going against your own conscience, you feel like you're disobeying God, well, that would be wrong. But if you feel like God allows this and there's no scripture to the contrary, then don't be worried about what some other person's personal opinion is. So there's room for different opinions and even different practices, but not on essential matters, not on in matters the Bible teaches, not on matters that are of morality that's been established by the whole Bible.

Um, you also find Paul in Galatians 1:8-9. If anyone comes preaching any other gospel than what we preach, let him be accursed. So there are some essentials. The gospel, what's the gospel? You know, the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ and applying that gospel. But that implies he didn't say if anyone preaches on any subject, any disagreement whatsoever, then he's accursed. Um, and then we also have Ephesians 4:13 talks about till we all come into the unity of the faith. And we use that in as part of the fundamental doctrine of the UPCI that let's maintain the unity of the spirit until we all come into the unity of the faith.

Both of those phrases are based on Ephesians 4. So there's an understanding is it could to and in the context of Ephesians so we grow to maturity that the the church is built up to we grow to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So we're in the process of growing to maturity to be like Christ but until we get there let's maintain the unity of the faith. So there's an implication we might have differences of opinion on various matters or even different practices, but let's maintain the unity of the spirit and let's maintain the unity of the faith until we can all agree or until we all grow up or until at least you know the rapture takes place.

Uh likewise in second Timothy and in Titus there are warnings that Paul tells to his sons in the gospel. don't get involved in quarreling, vain discussions, gen genealogies, questions that aren't uh appropriate. And so there again, he's implying, you know, there's some discussions that we shouldn't argue over. You can have your own personal opinion. You can talk philosophically about them. You can talk to your friends about them, but don't get into arguments in the church over these things because they're not worthwhile. They just cause division and they don't have any eternal value. that the that people can have different opinions. And so I I'm not taking the time to read those, but you can read them for yourself in 2 Timothy 2:15-16, Titus 3:9-10.

There are some issues and some questions we shouldn't fight over. We shouldn't argue or quarrel. I suppose we could muse or express opinions or, you know, have a a a you know, a friendly discussion, but we shouldn't make these points of contention. So you do have a strain of teaching in the Bible that says we must agree on the fundamentals of the faith, but we also some room for personal interpretations and personal opinions and personal practices. Uh personal convictions as opposed to scriptural convictions. One other thing, second Peter 3, which I take comfort in, uh, the apostle Peter is writing about false teachers who twist the scriptures and and they even do this to the writings of Paul, which he says in which there are some things that are hard to understand.

So, if you've ever had struggled over trying to understand what Paul meant in a certain epistle, you're in good company. The Apostle Peter had the same struggle. Well, that indicates, it doesn't indicate they were antagonistic, but it does indicate Peter is saying, "I don't even understand what he's saying, much less agree." So, there could be some things you hear a preacher and you think, you know, I don't I don't understand that. That's okay. We can have a difference of opinion. We can think, you know, I don't really agree with that. I don't think that's what the Bible is saying. I don't really think that's important.

I'm not sure why you're preaching that, but I still think you're a great preacher. I think you're a man of God or woman of God and you're my brother, you're my sister.