Holding Fast the Faithful Word
throughout the New Testament. Doctrine is the standard by which teaching is evaluated. Experience, popularity, or apparent results are insufficient.
The church is therefore called to vigilance. Elders must be able not only to teach sound doctrine but also to refute those who contradict it. This refutation is not a call to quarrelsomeness, but to courageous protection of the flock. Wolves do not announce themselves as wolves. They come in sheep's clothing. Without a robust commitment to apostolic doctrine, a congregation has no defense against the doctrines of devils, however attractively packaged they may be.
Holding Fast the Faithful Word We return to where we began. Doctrine is not a peripheral matter for specialists. It is the very heart of the Christian faith. Didaskalia is the truth teaching from God that shapes belief, nurtures soundness, and produces conduct that accords with godliness. It is marked by uncorruptness, gravity, and sincerity. It is the word of His grace that builds up the church and secures its inheritance. And it stands in continual opposition to the doctrines of devils that seek to seduce and destroy.
The ministerial charge to Timothy is the charge to every generation of Christian leaders and to every believer: hold fast the faithful word. To hold
fast implies there are forces that would cause us to let go. The pressures to compromise, to soften, to adjust doctrine to the spirit of the age are relentless. Yet the cost of loosening our grip is catastrophic. A church that loses its doctrine will soon lose its distinctiveness, its power, and its message.
Holding fast is not achieved by human grit alone. Paul locates the power in the Holy Spirit: "That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us" (2 Timothy 1:14). The "good thing" is the good deposit of apostolic doctrine. The Spirit who inspired the Word is the same Spirit who illuminates the Word and empowers the believer to guard the Word. Doctrine and devotion to the Spirit are not in opposition.
The Spirit leads into all truth. Where the Spirit is present, there will be a love for the truth He has revealed.
This chapter has laid a foundation. The chapters that follow will build upon it by examining the specific content of Christian doctrine: the doctrines of God, Scripture, man, Christ, salvation, the church, and the last things. But without the grounding provided here, the study of specific doctrines can become an academic exercise detached from life. Let it be settled in our minds that doctrine matters. It matters for the salvation of souls, for the health of the church, for the glory of God, and for the resistance of the devil. Let us then be nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, and from that nourishment, let us live, teach, and defend the truth which alone can make us free.
The foundation of didaskalia is not laid so that we may admire its stonework. It is laid so that a building may be erected upon it. That building is a life of godliness, a church of truth, and a people prepared for the inheritance that the word of His grace promises. To that end, we commit ourselves to the study, love, and proclamation of sound doctrine, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever.
Chapter 9: The Characters of Sound Doctrine The Weight of Heaven: Four Marks of Sound Doctrine Doctrine is not abstract speculation reserved for scholars in quiet libraries.
Doctrine is the measured weight of heaven brought to bear on the earth. It is the substance of God's revealed mind, delivered once to the saints, entrusted to faithful men, and proclaimed for the health of the church. When the Apostle Paul wrote to a young pastor named Titus in Crete, he did not merely suggest that good teaching would be helpful. He commanded it. He located the vitality of the church and the credibility of its witness in the presence of sound doctrine.
The term "sound doctrine" appears with strategic repetition in the Pastoral Epistles. It is not a casual phrase. It is a diagnostic term. In the language of the New Testament, "sound" translates hugiainō , a medical word meaning healthy, wholesome, uncorrupted, and free from disease. Doctrine can be sick. Teaching can carry a virus. And when the teaching is diseased, the body that feeds on it becomes diseased. Therefore, the call to sound
doctrine is a call to spiritual health. It is a call to words that build up rather than tear down, that clarify rather than confuse, that anchor rather than destabilize.
For the law is for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.
1 Timothy 1:9-10 Here, Paul places "sound doctrine" as the standard against which lawlessness is measured. Doctrine is not devoid of ethical force. It defines the boundary of godliness. Whatever lies outside the perimeter of sound doctrine is, by definition, contrary to the life God approves. This means doctrine is not disconnected from conduct. The health of one's theology determines the health of one's life. A corruption in the former will, in time, produce a corruption in the latter.
To Titus, Paul was explicit: the task of a pastor in a difficult field is to silence contradiction by establishing affirmation. The Cretans were known
for disorder. The remedy was not stronger personality or better programming. The remedy was doctrine that could bear weight.
Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.
Titus 1:9
But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine.
Titus 2:1
What, then, gives doctrine this capacity? What makes it able to exhort, to convince, to nourish, and to guard? Paul's letter to Titus provides a framework. In Titus 2:7-8, the apostle identifies four marks that must characterize the man who delivers doctrine, and by extension, the doctrine itself. These four marks are uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, and sound