This fall we join Christians around the world as we explore the doctrine of the Trinity expressed in the Nicene Creed. First developed at a council 1700 years ago, The Nicene Creed defined Orthodox teaching and also unified Christians across the ancient world.
Everyone has doctrines; we all have a statement of faith we live by. Even if that statement of faith is "I believe you should not live by statements of faith."
In our world we avoid talking about beliefs because we think that doctrine divides people. Ironically, that statement is itself a doctrine. Which only shows us that doctrines are inescapable.
Christianity doesn't offer us beliefs in a world of facts. It offers us radically different beliefs.
Christianity teaches that at the heart of the universe, is not random chance but perfect love. That God as One being in Three perfectly loving persons, made the world - and us. And that this same God comes INTO the world to rescue us from the thing that really separates us from God & divides us from each other - sin. And that this God is even now remaking the world and inviting us into his very life.
Paul says, the great mystery of our faith is that when we place our faith in these doctrines, it makes us into the kind of people who overflow love, who endure in hope, who suffer with joy.
Which is why the New Testament and the early church were so insistent on watching over the truth and the doctrines that we have received. Because doctrines divide us from false beliefs about ourselves and the world, but they also unite us to the living God.
