God has spoken to us through His written word, the Bible. (I use the King James Version.) If you read through the Bible, you will find that the scriptures go into great detail about God's plan with man, His salvation, His selection of Israel as His chosen people, their rejection of Him, the rebellion of God's people, and the destruction that comes with rebelling against God.
You can take all of those subjects, and consolidate them into one central theme... that God loves us, but our sin separated us from Him and doomed us to destruction. Therefore, He gave Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son to die on the cross, taking the punishment for our sin, so we could be reconciled to Him. The scriptures go into great detail, and give many examples of the proper response to that Gospel... which is repenting from Sin and Believing on Christ. That is what God spent most of His time telling us as the Bible was being inspired. If the Gospel is what God talks about the most, wouldn't it follow that it is what is most important to Him?
In my preaching at Grace Pointe Missionary Baptist Church, I tend to preach through books of the Bible. Once, I was confronted by a church member who complained that I was preaching on the Gospel and plan of Salvation too much. I was, in her opinion, failing to "move beyond the milk" of the word and "get into the meat." The truth is, I was preaching through the book of Luke, and the topic Jesus most commonly addressed in that book was repentance and faith. That's what the Lord wanted us to learn from the book of Luke.
Bible doctrines are important. Doctrines such as the security of the believer (once saved, always saved), sanctification (being set apart for the Lord), the nature of the church (local, visible body of believers), communion (restricted to the members of the church), baptism (by immersion as an act of obedience, not a work for salvation) are all important, and separate the true teachers from the false teachers. These are some of the doctrines on which it is appropriate to draw the lines of fellowship.
However, I am noticing that there are some lines in the sand that God did not draw, and some doctrines that many emphasize, that the Bible actually says very little about. For the followers of these doctrines, these doctrines are front and center, and determine whether they will fellowship with other believers. (Since many of these doctrines are foreign to the scriptures, these followers tend to be isolated.)
These doctrines include, but are not limited to, NewLightism (the belief that one does not get the Holy Spirit until one has been baptized and joined a church, a doctrine clearly debunked by example in the book of Acts), doctrines on the Bride of Christ (universal, or limited to the best faithful Christians), the rapture (pre-, mid-, or post-tribulation), and though it may cost me some friends, the doctrines of Grace (more widely known as the doctrine of Calvinism.)
I have spend the past nine years in deep study of the scriptures, and I have strong opinions of the aforementioned doctrines. I recognize that there will be differences. I also recognize that when I get to Heaven, I will find that I was right about some things, and wrong about others.While I understand that two cannot walk together unless they be agreed, I take issue with the fact that so many people take a second, or a third-tier doctrine, and elevate it to the status of Gospel.
The Gospel that Paul first delivered to the churches, the most important doctrine that he preached, is how Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, was buried, and rose again the third day, according to the scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). As I read that passage, and as I see it illustrated, shadowed, typed, and presented throughout the entire Bible, I have come to the conclusion that everything we do and believe should revolve around that Gospel.
If you feel that the Gospel is an elementary, entry-level teaching beyond which the believer must quickly mature, you have a skewed understanding of the Christian faith. The Gospel is the foundation of the Christian faith, upon which all true Bible doctrines are based. The deeper into the scriptures you dig, the more Gospel you find.
We violate the true meaning of the scriptures when we place improper priority on certain doctrines. Further, we do churches a disservice when we try to reconstruct them around our second and third-tier doctrines. Believe it or not, there are actually people who travel the country, visiting churches, with the intent to get them to convert to the NewLight doctrine, or to some sort of bride doctrine, or even the timing of the rapture. Some people even try to plant churches based solely on those doctrines. This is a practice in idolatry.
Our God is big. His love for us is beyond anything we can truly comprehend. His power and authority are without equal, and cannot be successfully challenged. God made the ultimate sacrifice. He gave His only begotten Son as a payment for the sin that separates us from Him, so that we could be with Him in eternity. His power, grace, love, righteousness and holiness are far greater than our understanding, and definitely bigger than our failures. Believe it or not, He is also bigger than this hidden nugget of a doctrine you've found that makes you think you are smarter than the rest of us.
God is bigger than these petty doctrinal differences. Get back to the Bible. Read the word, in context (which means you are staying true to the author's intent), and learn about our great and awesome Lord. You may just be blown away by how awesome God truly is.
