Truthlines • April 1, 2010

The Importance of Sound Doctrine

Dear Friends,

One of my favorite contemporary hymns is entitled “There is a Hope.” We plan to use it as our closing song on Easter Sunday. It breathes the reality of the resurrection and underscores 1 Peter 1:3:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…”

It is unlikely that we would ever have heard of Jesus of Nazareth if it weren’t for the resurrection. There’s not a page of the New Testament that was written apart from the conviction that Jesus Christ is the risen Lord, the ascended and coming King. Peter anticipated this truth becoming such a hallmark of the lives of those to whom he writes that he urges them to be ready to give an answer to any who ask a reason for the Hope they have.

Just as the doctrine of Christ’s resurrection is foundational to our faith, it is equally important that we invest time in studying and understanding the other key doctrines of Christianity. The book that we are offering this month, Know the Truth, helps us to discover what is of primary importance. I have used it with our leadership here at Parkside, and it has been a means of shaping our conviction that “the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things.” The fact that it was written by a Scotsman has in no way influenced my decision to offer it to you!

If it is not already in your library, I encourage you to obtain a copy for yourself and for a teenager in your sphere of influence. It is vitally important that we are conveying the foundational truths of Christian doctrine to our children and grandchildren (2 Timothy 1:5).

It is this same conviction that underpins our pastors’ conference May 10-12. When we began in 2000, we called our gathering, for lack of a better title, Basics 2000. Ten years later, we’re still with the Basics and purposefully so. The idea is that part of the key to effectiveness in pastoral ministry, as in many other things in life, is doing the Basics well most of the time. There is still time for you to encourage someone in pastoral ministry to attend this event.

In closing, it’s perhaps appropriate to let you know that it’s now been a year since we began offering our audio content for free, and we have given away more than 1.5 million free mp3 downloads to people around the world. The place of conventional radio is far from being ended by this change – it seems to be as important as ever, and we hear daily from people all across the country who are listening to us in that way as well.

As always, thank you for your prayerful support, and as we go into the second quarter of the year, let me remind you of how much we rely upon your gifts to sustain and develop the work of the Gospel via Truth For Life.

With my love in the Lord Jesus,
Alistair