In recent times there has been an imbalance in some biblical doctrines on which the pendulum of opinion has gone from one extreme to another, leading principles that had somehow been overlooked by most Christians to be the central dogma held by many ministries. In such a way, that these ministries tend to discredit anyone who disagrees with their extreme position. This does not mean there hasn’t been a previous lack of teaching on real issues of Holly Scripture, but the problem is that “fashionable” doctrine; seem to overwhelm those believers who spend their efforts seeking the latest revelation.
This reminds me of toothbrushes propaganda, in which every week appears the only brush that really cleanses teeth and makes the others totally useless. Beloved, this is only possible due to our lack of maturity as believers. However, my concern on this occasion, rather than the well-documented lack of sanity in the ministries that preach only one aspect of the gospel, be it prosperity, ministry, church growth, healing, and therefore incur in doctrinal imbalance; it is to teach something to those ministries that focus on sound doctrine.
It's good that we try to maintain sound doctrine, but for those who talk a lot about being advocates of sound doctrine I have a disclaimer: no one has the perfect doctrine. In theology we often categorize doctrines as first level and second level doctrines, which means that there are things that do not define us as Christians and others that do have such importance, so that we agree on those issues that are central to faith and salvation, and we agree to disagree on those issues that provide denominational identity but are not essential in order to be called Christians.
For example, Pentecostals and Baptists have doctrinal differences, but they all such differences deal with aspects that are not first level, not that they are unimportant, but still we consider each other brothers in Christ. 50 years ago the debate in Venezuela between these two denominations were so heated that bordered on the mutual excommunication, today we’ve overcome intolerance allowing us to work together on multiple initiatives.
This is something essential to be remembered when correcting brethren who hold different views from ours, where the law of love is what must prevail (1 Corinthians 8) above other biblical but secondary criteria, as was the case with the discussion that was raised in the early church about appropriate food, sometimes we are very confident that we are right (and possibly we are) but the issue is to let the law of love prevail in terms of tolerance to divergent opinions, since these opinions do not put our salvation at risk.
But, let us remember that the spirit of human religion is also to be considered a spirit of error since it causes believers to focus only on external and intellectual aspects of their faith and makes them neglect their personal life with the Lord, this results in pastors and ministers who persist in all kinds of sins and in parallel are mounted on a witch hunt against false doctrines. This is the leaven of the Pharisees Jesus spoke in Matthew 16:5-7.
Moreover as I said earlier, no one (except Jesus) has overall doctrinal perfection to always be right in each of the topics touched on Scripture, and sometimes we can be too proud by thinking that we know them all and Over time God shows us that maybe we were wrong. Maturity is the balance and sanity to keep biblical positions with humility, knowing that we are not infallible.
I'm not saying it isn’t right to correct erroneous or out of balance doctrines, but I have seen a greater danger in the Church which I mentioned earlier, and it is greater as it goes undetected. Boast, arrogance and hypocrisy. The Pharisees most times taught correctly divine law (Jesus told his disciples to obey what they said Mt 23:3) but they did not live properly that divine law. Though it is true that nobody knows and understands with absolute certainty all the doctrines of Scripture, there are many things that we can defend with big confidence but there are things we just can’t be dogmatic about and excommunicating our brethren over them is only an act of arrogance.
