Leaving Beyond – Grounded In Scripture

The Purifying Power of God’s Word

The most purifying effect on the church is the Word of God faithfully exposited. It produces godliness, holiness, purity, love, and unity. The Holy Spirit works through God’s Word, rightly opened and proclaimed. Sound doctrine leads to sound living. Sound doctrine leads to high doxology. Sound doctrine is what the children of God crave, for it is God who has given them such a craving.

John Owen wrote:

“A right understanding of God’s Word is the chief instrument the Spirit uses to sanctify the soul.”

Love and Unity Rooted in Truth

If we seek love apart from truth, we can do nothing but corrupt it. If we seek unity apart from truth, we forsake truth for counterfeit unity.

From her inception, the early Church faced attacks from without and false teachers and false doctrines from within. We should not pretend that unity, love, and holiness come from ignoring doctrine or theology. Rather, we embrace the truth so that our unity is in the truth and our love is genuine, not counterfeit.

As R. C. Sproul reminds us:

“Love without truth is sentimentality; unity without truth is compromise.”

Warnings Are for Our Good

The “negatives” in Scripture are purifying for the church. Some of the most helpful passages about the early Church are what many today would call “negative.” Those passages bring clarity to the more “positive” passages. Those warnings are for our good. They help us recognize that the way to love and unity is not through abandoning doctrine, but by desiring truth that produces genuine love.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 says:

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

Embracing Contrasts in Scripture

I have come to love the contrasts—not only in the early Church but also in the Old Testament. There is beauty in those verses that we miss when we treat doctrine as the enemy of love and unity rather than the purifier of the church that produces authentic love and unity.

As John MacArthur notes:

“Doctrine is not a barrier to love—it is the foundation upon which true love stands.”

Psalm 119:105 reminds us:

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

Grace and peace, y’all.

Soli Deo Gloria

April J. Buchanan