About Jesus     Steve Sweetman

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Pet Doctrines

I’ve met many people over the years that have their one pet doctrine and that’s all they talk about and that’s all they see in the Bible. They manipulate Scripture in the hope that we’ll see their pet doctrine in verses where it isn’t.

The pet doctrine may well be a Biblical based teaching, but even legitimate teachings can’t be found in every verse of the Bible. Over the years God’s grace has been big in my thinking, and in my younger days I found grace pretty well in every verse in the Bible, and maybe that’s one topic that’s almost in every verse, but of course I’d say that because that’s a pet doctrine of mine.

In the 1970’s we bought our first Honda, and soon after we noticed Hondas all over the place. They were in parking lots, drive ways, and on the roads. We used to point them out as we drove by them until we almost got into an accident while looking at Hondas instead of the car ahead of us. We soon figured out it was time to stop counting Hondas and pay attention to the car ahead of us.

You can get in a doctrinal accident by seeing your pet doctrine every time you turn a page of the Bible. I think back in the 1970’s we saw shepherding and discipleship in many verses where they weren’t. By doing this we taught everyone to be shepherds or pastors. Well, the idea that everyone should be shepherding others isn’t New Testament thinking. We further confused the issue when we saw the concept of shepherding in discipleship verses. "Go and make disciples" doesn’t mean "go and shepherd". The end result of this was a doctrinal accident which caused some spiritual injuries. Many people were shepherding others when they had no business doing so, causing damage to some along the way.

Good hermeneutics is bringing a balanced approach to Bible study and leaving our pet doctrines in the particular verses where they belong.

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