Doctrine, the guide for indoctrination We cannot read hardly any text in the early church teaching, either from Christ or His apostles without realization of truth unveiled for us to understand the will of God through doctrinal truth. Christian doctrine means literally “teaching” or “instruction” and may be defined as the fundamental truths of the Bible arranged in systematic from. A study of doctrine is also called “theology.” Theology is also a “treatise or reasoned discourse about God.” Theology or doctrine may be described as the science which deals with our knowledge of God and His relations to man. It is a science because it is a systematic and a logical study, arrangement of certified facts. Sometimes doctrine is set forth as a dogma in the church. As a dogma, doctrinal teaching is the church’s statement of the truth placed in a church’s creed. There must be doctrine for the body of ministry in Christ to know its foundations, teachings, faith, order, etc. The Apostles, as headship in the church warned against underdeveloped believers. They warned against ignorance, indifference, coldness, apathy, sin and the failures to live up to the Lord’s commands in His doctrines. The early apostles were the first to experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They taught the empowerment of God’s spirit within believers to live up to the words of Christ and His Kingdom standard in this present world (Titus 2:11-13). 

Ignorance is a thief. Again, the Lord Jesus Christ is the owner of the Church and declared that He is building His Church. Christ did not give it to man to build but says He will build it upon Himself. However, Christ has called us to be co-laborers with Him in building the Church. Man could not be trusted to such a project to do alone. Although we are helpers and co-laborers, the master plan and blueprint is in the hands of the Lord and this plan cannot be enlarged or improved by man. The Church is the one program Our Lord placed in the world to carry out His mission, program and purpose. We look to Him for the strength to carry forth His mission, for He is our source. Christ did not say that He was building a college, a social center, a hospital, a homeless shelter, or any institution or agency of man to enhance something better for humanity though these administrations are good. But Christ insisted that His Church is the prime commission to His followers upon His leaving. Christ entrusted man with administration of the affairs of Christ’s Church. As Designer and Architect, God only has one pattern for the church. We know that God has firmly established in heaven, a pattern for all things (Hebrews 9:23). There is one blueprint, and all the laborers must build according to this blueprint. As laborers together with God we need to make sure that the pattern and the blueprint that we are following is truly the pattern and blueprint of God’s making? This being so, there is no science, philosophy, and art, social or political thought that can answer man’s explanation of himself. 

Man’s explanation of himself lies not in man but in God. At the very end or bottom of the line of all our solutions as mankind in this present world and eternity is theological and spiritual. Thus the solutions and answers of mankind are spiritual and found in scripture. God’s offers in His church doctrine the pillars of life for us. We were made for eternity and there is nothing temporal that can satisfy our eternal need. The true New Testament Church now stands as man final solutions in its Theology. True Christian theology is the Word of God and is remotely a teaching not bound by time or space, and incomparable to any other teaching of truth.