Doctrine Shapes Conduct: Truth Made Visible in Life
us feel to singing about who God is and what He has done. The word of His grace builds up our worship.
Doctrine Shapes Conduct: Truth Made Visible in Life The New Testament refuses to let doctrine remain in the realm of the theoretical. In the mind of the apostles, to learn Christ is to learn a way of life. Belief and behavior are not separable categories. What we know to be true about God inevitably works itself out in how we live before God and among men. The Apostle Paul made this connection explicit when he wrote to Titus, his co-laborer on the island of Crete.
Crete had a reputation. Paul even quotes one of their own prophets who said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons" (Titus 1:12). The culture was marked by deception, sensuality, and disorder. Into that context,
Paul did not first send a cultural strategy or a sociological program. He sent doctrine, and he expected that doctrine to produce a visible transformation of conduct.
"But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior... so that