The Building and the Builder
patience and teaching" (2 Tim 4:2). The phrase "in season and out of season" means when it is popular and when it is not. When the culture applauds and when it jeers. The antidote to a church with itching ears is a pulpit with a resolute commitment to "sound doctrine" and "teaching"— didache , the ordered instruction of biblical truth.
This is the calling of every local church. We are not platforms for personality or centers for entertainment. We are, in the words of 1 Timothy
3:15, "the pillar and buttress of the truth." A pillar holds something up. A buttress holds something back. The church is to hold up the truth of God's word for all to see, and to hold back the flood of error that would seek to overwhelm it. A church that abandons its commitment to sound doctrine for the sake of relevance will soon find that it has nothing relevant to say. It may draw a crowd, but it cannot build up a Christian. It may soothe itching ears, but it cannot sustain a soul in suffering. In the end, only the word of His grace is able to build us up and give us the inheritance. It alone produces endurance that leads to everlasting life.
The Building and the Builder We return to where we began: Acts 20:32. Paul commended the Ephesian elders to "God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up."
We have seen that this building is not random. It is structured. Sound doctrine shapes worship that is in spirit and truth, worship that the Father actually seeks. It shapes conduct that is fitting, that adorns the Gospel and silences the critic. It shapes endurance that is rooted in truth, that will not turn aside to myths when the pressure mounts.
To neglect doctrine is to attempt to build without a blueprint, to worship without knowledge, to live without direction, and to suffer without an anchor. The result will always be instability. But to receive and submit to the whole counsel of God is to be established. It is to have a life that is constructed by God, for God. The final goal is not merely that we would be well-informed, but that we would receive "the inheritance among all those who are sanctified." Doctrine is the means to an eternal end. It is how God prepares us for glory.
Therefore, let us be a people who love, learn, and live the doctrine of Scripture. In a day of itching ears, may we have ears to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. In a day of wandering after myths, may our feet be planted firmly on the truth. For the word of His grace is still sufficient. It is still able to build up the church. It is still the power of God for building
lives that worship rightly, walk worthily, and endure to the end. Let us be built by it.