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Saturday, September 17, 2011

A Supernatural, Practical, Doctrinal Christianity - P1

2 Peter 1:3-4 seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

One of Jesus' twelve disciples, Peter, penned the above words as the Holy Spirit guided him by divine inspiration over 2,000 years ago.  In them contain a glorious summary of the Christian life.  In today's blog I want to explore the essence of this entire blog site, with the thought of laying out the Christian life in its three aspects: Supernatural, Practical and Doctrinal elements.

The Christian Life is Practical
Peter writes: "seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness".  This one verse covers all the bases.  We see how God has given to the Christian everything needed for the everyday demands of Christian living in the 21st century.  Now what do those demands entail?  Peter states that this "everything" pertains to two overlapping realms: "life" and "godliness".  For the believer, you can't have life without godliness, nor can you have godliness with no life.  Life without godliness leads you into the ditch of worldliness and compromise.  On the same token, godliness without life leads you into the ditch of legalism and religion.  The practical Christian walk is both "life" and "godliness". 

The Christian Life is Doctrinal
Peter goes onward by saying next: "through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises".  Is it possible to be effective in the practical Christian life without doctrine?  From the pen of the great Apostle, the answer is obvious - it is impossible. How I live hinges on what I believe.  What is "true knowledge"?  How do I know the difference?  The answer is doctrine.  The Bible of course is the source book to which I go in search of "The true Knowledge", and doctrine is the vocabulary I use in placing the Bible's teaching into my mind, my heart and my life.  

It is evident that what Peter is aiming at is not merely the "message" of the scriptures, but the very "words".  How do we know this?  Peter mentions the the term "promises".  Over 30,000 promises exist in the Bible.  When I study the scripture, I need to be answering some basic questions: Is there a command to obey?  A Principle to Apply?  An example to follow?  A promise to claim?  A sin to avoid?  An attribute of God to delight in?  It is in the realm of questions like these that I begin to mine the caverans of the Bible for gold, silver and precious stone.  Doctrine is the pearl necklace that is worn by the church and the saints of God. (Please compare Titus 2:10)

With these first two thoughts, we are well underway into establishing a better understanding of the Christian life.  Tomorrow we will look into that third aspect fo the Christian life - the supernatural.