Principles v. Doctrine

Pastor Sonja Davis of Rock Church in Petersburg spoke this morning an excellent message on Family. She began by reading a prophetic word that was given at our most recent conference regarding the spirit of family with which God has and will continue to bless this congregation. Families are complex structures that are different in every case - no two families are alike. Each family has its own strengths and its own weaknesses, and really cannot be compared; however family structure can be and often is compared against a standard that we hold in our hearts. Some have allowed this standard to change over the years to accommodate modern society's lack of morals, but there are those of us who still cling to the pattern given by God of traditional marriage and family.

That was a very complicated introduction to the comparison of family to the church. A church is really structured like a large, loving, sometimes disfunctional family. Just like no two families are a like, no two churches are alike. This can be attributed to churches being made up of individuals, larger groups established on the strengths and weakness of the members.

Despite the acknowledgement that no two churches are alike, I still have a hard time understanding how any two churches doctrines can vary so drastically. We are all given the same exact standard - the Word of God. We have been blessed with the same revelations of truth - the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord. We have all been given the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, the fruits of the Spirit, the five-fold ministry, the writings of Paul, the four gospels; this list goes on and on. So if we have all been given the same basic structure of doctrine, how are all the churches so very different?

I understand completely the differences between the denominations. Doctor Eldon Wilson spoke eloquently about the process of allowing revelation to stop in our lives - God is alive, and so is His Word. Our revelation of Him should be continuously growing, constantly progressing, changing if you would - but He does not change. He is the same yesterday ... today ... forever. It is dangerous to allow our revelation become stagnant; by not allowing your definition of God to grow you are in fact causing it to become small. If something is by nature intended to constantly increase in size, becoming dormant is the same as shrinking back.

Where I tend to become confused is how two churches within the same denomination can be so different in the doctrine they preach? Or maybe it isn't the doctrine that varies at all, but the principles? And how is it that the same God who is the same always reveals different principles to different people?