[PleaseNoMore]

Doctrines are, for the most part, our attempts to explain a reality we are too shallow and limited to explain. Jesus didn't heal the sick and rescue the lost sheep by way of a doctrine. Rather, doctrines arose to better understand the freeing, the healing, the rescuing. Doctrine teaches. It enables us to identify the real from the fake, to understand which way to turn on the many matters of our life that Jesus did not speak on, and to prevent us from simply meandering away from our Shepherd. It frees us to spend our time living the faith instead of pondering the meaning of every little trifle. It gives us confidence to know we can go in a certain direction and not lose our love for God. Most of all, it is a way for each generation of Christians to pass along the most important parts of what they and their forebears learned about the faith over the course of 2000 years of living in it.

But doctrine itself gives no life at all. What gives life is that which the doctrine is about. For instance, what saves you is not a solid doctrine regarding how you were saved, but the actual work of Christ on the cross, from which any solid doctrine of salvation arises. If you get the doctrine right but don't put your life behind it, what good is the doctrine? The Reformers termed that frigida opinio , cold opinion, with which a person may agree with to the last detail but not have it touch them inside. It doesn't put them into action, fire up their passion, or change their attitude toward life. It is very much a dead letter.

Truth is not just something said or communicated or taught. Truth can also be in the doing, flowing out from a specific event in time and space. Truth can be discovered in what happens, and can be supported by other things that happen. Truth can be found not just in thought, but in deeds; not just in doctrine but in action, like the Spirit is in action. This is what happened at Pentecost -- the Spirit made an event of it, things happened, supported by fire and language miracles, and people took action. Through that 'happening' and those actions the truth of Christ was spread. We worship, we serve, we evangelize: we do the truth. When the Spirit is in us, so is Christ; Christ is truth, and so then collectively we embody something of that truth. This is one of the ways the Spirit relates life in Christ to our own lives.