Honour God Through Sound Doctrine

by Adam Ramsey

On the opening page of his classic, The Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer famously wrote that, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us”.^[1] God is honoured when his people think thoughts about him and teach truth about him that is consistent with how he has revealed his character and nature to us—otherwise known as sound doctrine.

And, in case words like “doctrine” or “theology” make your eyes glaze over a little, just remember this: doctrine is a set of beliefs about God. Theology is simply what we think about God, or “the study of God”. Both matter deeply, because what we believe and think about God deeply matters. When someone asked Jesus about the most important commandment of all, the response that he gave included loving God with all our mind, as well as all our heart, soul and strength (Mark 12:28-30).

After encouraging Timothy to faithfully pass on what he has taught to him, the apostle Paul declares, “If anyone teaches false doctrine and does not agree with the sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the teaching that promotes godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing” (1 Timothy 6:3-4, CSB). The elders of a church are to “give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9), and are commanded: “But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine (Titus 2:1). We need simply to see that God is honoured when we think and speak the truth about him.

Conversely, God is not honoured when we think or teach things about him that are not true—when he is painted as other than what he is. Consider it at a personal level: do you feel honoured when you hear of someone saying things about you that aren’t true? Of course not. At best you feel misrepresented. At worst, you feel slandered. Dishonoured. That’s what false teaching is: a misrepresentation and slander of God. And that gets to the root of humanity’s fundamental problem: a failure to rightly honour God by exchanging the truth about God for a lie. In Romans 1:21-25, Paul writes:

For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.

Our churches honour God when, with open Bibles, we refuse to believe what is not true about God and hold fast to the sound doctrine of what is true about him. In the same way that a blurry or discoloured photo of my wife fails to accurately represent her beauty, so too does false teaching fail to accurately portray the beauty of God. Good theology is like a high-resolution photo that reveals God’s likeness. In this way, sound doctrine honours God because it reflects who he is.

Listen to our interview with Adam Ramsey on SBE here!

This article is an adapted excerpt from Honor: Loving Your Church by Building One Another Up by Adam Ramsey. In the book, Adam encourages believers with a fresh understanding of true honor in our churches. Adam leads Liberti Church on the Gold Coast, Australia and also serves as the director for Acts 29 Asia Pacific.

^[1] Aiden Wilson Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (Authentic Media, 2016), p 1.