No Christian should ever consider doctrines as something secondary in the Christian walk. No Christian should ever think or say, “I don’t care too much about all that doctrine stuff. I don’t get caught up in all that knowledge of doctrines stuff that can puff people up, and cause division. I simply just want to love Jesus Christ, His people, and the lost.”
This is a very wrong way of thinking as a Christian. The entire Christian faith is concerned with doctrines. The entire Bible itself is a book of doctrines, and illustrations of those doctrines. Our entire conversion began with our “obeying that form of doctrine that was delivered to us” (Romans 6:17).
Doctrine comes in and captivates the mind by the power and illumination of the Holy Spirit. Then the mind that has been captivated by those doctrines moves the heart, and then the moved heart alters the will of the person and fashions it for loving obedience to God. And so the mind kindles or stirs up the heart. Our hearts are moved by our understanding. Our hearts are not moved by things our minds don’t know of. It is impossible.
A person cannot be moved in their heart for God apart from understanding doctrines, and so if it is true that all you want to do is love Jesus Christ, His people, and the lost correctly, you must learn doctrines.-- Joshua Arnold