How important is precision and accuracy to God, as it relates to gospel understanding and proclamation? Now we know that there are some doctrines and some passages of Scripture that are more difficult to understand and that which have little to no bearing on one’s position in Christ and therefore mature believers do, in fact, disagree about certain verses in the Bible. But nevertheless, having an accurate understanding of the truth is not only essential for the Christian life, it is the only way to honor God.
To prove that statement, think about the connection the pastoral epistles make between healthy doctrine and spiritually healthy living; for instance, 1 Tim. 6:3 If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, 4 he is conceited and understands nothing…
In spite of passages like that, we often minimize the significance if someone is just a little off about justification, sanctification, the purpose of baptism & the Lord’s supper or the necessity of the local church in a Christian’s life?
Furthermore, if all we just need to know is what is contained in some ancient creed or simply that God loves everybody and Jesus died on the cross, then why do we have 66 books of God-breathed, profitable Scripture? It’s true that we need to believe in any and every truth that is contained in the Scriptures, but generalities won’t protect you from the onslaught of erroneous teaching coming at us every single day from blogs, videos, articles, sermons and conversations with friends & family. This is why Paul instructs Timothy to guard the deposit entrusted to him and later to be diligent to present himself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. This, the apostle says, will prevent people from being led into more ungodliness. Then Jude tells Christians to earnestly contend for the faith once-for-all handed down to all the saints. Otherwise, ungodly teachers will pervert the grace of God into sensuality. There’s obviously much at stake in this endeavor of pursuing accuracy in the truth, which is why God is very committed to protecting his gospel in this way. Reason being, he is only glorified in those who possess a pure, unadulterated teaching of Christ leading to Christlikeness.