Understanding Doctrine and Belief
A simple question this morning deserves a serious answer: If someone stopped you in the parking lot after church today and said, “Hey, what exactly do you believe?” — What would you say? Most of us who have been walking with the Lord for a while would probably say something like, “Well, I believe in Jesus.” And that’s true and good. But could you go further? What is your doctrine?
Doctrine in the Bible is defined as the authoritative body of teaching, instruction, and truth regarding God, humanity, and salvation, rooted in Scripture and the ministry of Jesus. It is not merely abstract theory or just Sunday school lessons, but functional, “sound” teaching designed to be followed, shaping a believer’s faith, lifestyle, and character. Could you put into words — clear, confident, Biblical words — the doctrinal core of what you actually believe? Not just a feeling. Not just a vague sense that God is real. But the substance of your faith, stated plainly.
You can do this if you have memorized certain things about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, found in the Bible.
The Early New Testament Church had this problem. They did not have copies of the New Testament and very few of the Old Testament. There were some letters circulating around, of Paul, Peter, John and others. As time moved from the first century into the second century, they also found that false teachings arose. Was God one person or three? Was Jesus a created being or the creator? Who was the Holy Spirit? How are we really saved? Gnosticism arose — false teachings that we are saved by knowledge instead of faith in Jesus. Another was Arianism — Jesus was subordinate to the Father, which became the basis of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. So, they had problems to deal with. What do we teach our converts? How do we train our children? The answers were found as they turned to Scripture and Scripture memorization. Creeds were developed for the easy memorization of doctrine and sharing.
The Shema: The World’s Oldest Creed
One of the earliest passages in the Bible was repeated by Jesus in Mark 12:29-30, which is called The Shema. A teacher of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”
A scribe comes to Jesus — and unlike a lot of the religious leaders in the Gospels who are trying to trap Jesus, this man seems to be asking an honest question. He asks, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” And Jesus answers him by quoting something every Jewish person in that crowd would have recognized immediately. Mark 12:29-30 reads “Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
That passage Jesus is quoting is Deuteronomy 6:4-5.
And in Judaism, it has a name — it is called the Shema. The word Shema is the very first word of the passage in Hebrew, and it simply means “hear” or “listen.” Hear, O Israel. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. This was the creed of Israel. Every devout Jewish person recited the Shema twice a day — in the morning and in the evening. Children memorized it. Faithful Jews whispered it on their deathbeds. It was the declaration that defined who they were and what they believed about God above all else. And notice what it does.
In just a few words, it establishes the absolute unity and uniqueness of God — there is one Lord, not many gods competing for your allegiance. And it establishes the total response that God deserves — all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. No compartments. No exceptions. All of you, for all of Him. This is the world’s oldest creed. When Jesus quotes it, He is doing something profound. He is saying: this summary of belief still stands. This is still the foundation. This is where it all begins. Now here is why this matters for us today. The practice of taking the great truths of Scripture and putting them into a memorable, recitable form does not start with church councils in the fourth century. It starts right here in Deuteronomy.
God himself gave Israel a creed, and He told them to teach it to their children, talk about it when they sat down and when they walked along the road, bind it on their hands and forehead, write it on their doorframes. In other words, God wanted His people to have His truth so deeply embedded in their hearts and minds that it shaped everything about how they lived. That is what creeds are for. And that same impulse — to capture core truth in words that can be remembered, repeated, and passed on — shows up all through the New Testament as well.
Creeds in the New Testament Church
Scholars who study the New Testament have long recognized that embedded within the letters of Paul and others are what appear to be early creedal statements — Compact summaries of Christian belief that were likely already in circulation when the letters were written.
Paul didn’t invent them. He received them, and he passed them on. Let me show you three of them today.
The first is in 1 Corinthians 15, beginning in verse 3. This is one of the most significant passages in all of the New Testament. Paul writes in the New Living Translation: “I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed down to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve.”
Notice the language Paul uses — “I passed on to you what was passed down to me.”
That is the language of tradition, of intentional transmission. Paul is saying: this is not something I made up. This was handed to me, and I am handing it to you. Scholars believe Paul received this creedal formula within just a few years of the crucifixion itself, likely during his visit to Jerusalem recorded in Galatians 1:18.
This statement — Christ died, was buried, was raised, was seen — is quite possibly the oldest creedal statement in the entire New Testament. And look at what it includes. The death of Christ. The burial. The resurrection. The appearances as evidence.
In four verses you have the entire gospel in creedal form. These are the nonnegotiables. These are the things on which everything else stands.
Now turn to Philippians chapter 2, verses 6 through 11. Most scholars believe this passage is an early Christian hymn or creedal poem that Paul is quoting. It reads in the NLT: “Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
This is breathtaking theology set to a creedal rhythm. The incarnation. The humiliation. The crucifixion. The exaltation. The universal lordship of Christ. All of it captured in a passage that the early church could sing, recite, and hold onto.
Now look at 1 Timothy 3:16. Paul calls this “the mystery of godliness,” and what follows reads like a six-line creedal statement about Christ: “He was revealed in a human body and vindicated by the Spirit. He was seen by angels and announced to the nations. He was believed in throughout the world and taken to heaven in glory.” Incarnation. Vindication. Angelic witness. Global proclamation. Universal faith. Ascension. Six lines.
The whole story of Christ. Here is what I want you to see in all three of these passages. The New Testament church did not just believe things — they put their beliefs into structured, memorable, transmittable form.
Why? Because they understood that truth under pressure needs to be instantly accessible. You cannot flip to an index when someone challenges your faith. You need the core of what you believe to be so deeply lodged in your heart and mind that it comes out clearly, confidently, and immediately.
The apostles gave us creeds because they knew that loose, vague belief would not hold up. Clear, confessional belief would and does hold up!
Why the Early Church Needed Creeds
To really understand why the early church leaned so hard on these creedal statements, you need to understand what they were living through. And I want to give you a picture of that today. In the first and second centuries, followers of Jesus faced two enormous threats that pressed in from very different directions. The first was persecution. The Roman Empire did not take kindly to people who declared that Jesus, not Caesar, was Lord.
That was not just a theological statement — in Rome, it was a political one. To say “Jesus is Lord” was to say “Caesar is not.” And that could get you arrested, tortured, or killed. When a believer was dragged before a Roman magistrate and told to renounce their faith, they did not have time to sit down and write a theological essay. They needed to know exactly what they believed, stated plainly and without flinching.
The creed “Jesus Christ is Lord” — three words in Greek — was a declaration that cost people their lives. They needed to know it in their bones. But persecution was not the only pressure. The second threat was false teaching — in many ways, it was more dangerous, because it attacked from the inside. Groups like the Gnostics were creeping into the early church and distorting the gospel. Some taught that Jesus was not truly human — he only appeared to have a body. Others taught that he was not truly divine. Some denied the resurrection altogether. And because many new believers did not have a thorough knowledge of Scripture, they were vulnerable.
One early church father named Irenaeus, writing around 180 AD, described how false teachers would come into communities and rearrange the “jewels of truth” — Taking words and ideas from Scripture and reassembling them into something that sounded Christian but was not. His response? Hold fast to the “rule of faith” — the core creedal summary of what the apostles taught. That is exactly the pattern we see in Paul’s letters. When he tells the Galatians that anyone who preaches “a different gospel” is to be condemned, he is drawing a creedal line in the sand.
When he gives Timothy that six-line summary in 1 Timothy 3:16, he is handing him a measuring stick to evaluate everything he hears. The early church needed creeds because belief without boundaries is no belief at all! And when the pressure of persecution or the confusion of false teaching came — and it always came — they needed something solid to stand on. Not feelings. Not opinions. Confessed, received, apostolically grounded truth.
And here is the thing — the pressures our congregations face today may look different on the surface, but they are not fundamentally different in kind. The culture around us is telling a different story about who Jesus is, what salvation means, and whether absolute truth even exists. And it is not always coming from outside the church. Sometimes the distortion is subtle, dressed in spiritual language, and sitting in the same pew with you. We need what the early church needed. We need to know what we believe, why we believe it, and be able to say it clearly.
Creeds Are Still Working Today
So what does this ancient practice mean for us in Craig County in 2026? It means this: the intentional, repeated articulation of what we believe is not optional for a healthy Christian life. It is essential.
Think about what happens when a believer does not have a firm grip on the core confessions of the faith. When doubt comes — and it comes for all of us — they have nothing solid to return to. When someone challenges their faith with a clever argument or a confusing theological twist, they are left fumbling. When the culture tells them that Jesus was just a good teacher, or that all religions are basically the same, or that the resurrection is a metaphor — They don’t know how to respond, because they’ve never had to put into words what they actually believe.
Now contrast that with a believer who has internalized creedal truth. When doubt knocks on the door of their heart, they can say: 1. Christ died for my sins. 2. He was buried. 3. He was raised on the third day. 4. He was seen by over 500! That is not what I feel right now, but that is what is true, and I am standing on it. That is the pastoral power of a creed. It is an anchor for your soul when the waves get high. It is a tether to truth when the fog gets thick. It does not replace your relationship with Jesus — it gives that relationship a firm doctrinal floor to stand on. For you as mature believers, you may have been walking with the Lord for decades. You have weathered grief, doubt, loss, and struggle. And I would guess that what has held you is not a feeling — what has held you is truth. Confessed, believed, held-onto truth about who God is and what Christ has done. You have been living creedally, perhaps without ever calling it that. What I am asking you to do today is to become more intentional about it. Know what you believe. Memorize the Shema. Be able to say it. Then, pass it on.
Pastor Scott Gabrielson