◄ The Doctrinal Walk ►

Ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you" (c).

The purpose of doctrine is to produce the personification of truth. "The sublimest truths are still needed to enforce the simplest responsibilities. As the laws which mould the stars and move the gigantic orbs of Saturn and Uranus in their tremendous circuits, shape the dewdrop that glistens at the end of a blade of grass, so should everything in the Christian's life be regulated by the principles which lie in the Person and Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. To isolate Christian morality from Christian theology is to rend asunder the teachings of the New Testament, as to its deepest and most vital elements." -W.G.S.

"The knowledge of doctrine, essential as it is, gives no power. One might be very well up on the doctrine of deliverance, and know absolutely nothing of its practical reality. It is as our hearts are under the sway of that grace which is ministered to us through the Lord Jesus Christ, and as we are knit to Him in affection, that we touch and taste a new life, and are severed in heart from all that constituted the life of our old man. Thus the body of sin is annulled for our hearts, and we do not henceforth serve sin." -C.A.C.

"In the New Testament literature of the Church, creed and conduct are always related. Doctrine and practice, theology and morality, knowledge and action are inseparably connected, being related to one another as foundation to superstructure, as center to circumference, as cause to effect. Some expound without applying, and some endeavor to apply what has not been expounded, but the Apostles always do both. When revealed truth is divorced from Christian living it becomes an impotent abstraction." -W.G.S.

"Being, then, made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness" (Rom. 6:18).