Our text is a good new year’s text for it is foundational to Christian living. Doctrine is for living, not merely for knowing, and those who study doctrine merely to know truth but not practice is are like tadpoles with ugly swollen heads and tiny atrophied bodies and limbs. Many have strong opinions about what they believe is right, but fail to practice even the basic disciplines of the Christian life.
Doctrine and theology are necessary for learning and understanding so that we may obey. Without knowing the truth, living becomes dangerous, for knowledge rejected merely increases our condemnation before God and makes us vulnerable to every wind of doctrine.