Courtesy of Adam Poole

Is there a link between doctrinal understanding and passionate devotion?

It’s simple. Know God and know theological doctrines and out of that flows an ardent, fiery, zealous, passionate and loving pursuit and walk with God. Clear understanding corresponds to a burning devotion and embracing. Greater light shining in our minds leads to a greater kindling of heat in our hearts. Doctrinal understanding and passionate living are friends. Theye kin and they work together in cooperative relationship. Here’s why doctrinal understand is linked to passionate living.

Biblical evidences that doctrinal understanding promotes passionate living

1. The greatest commandment (Matt. 22:37).

What is clear from this verse is that God desires His people to love Him with the entirety of their beings. This includes knowing God with our minds, and using our minds for His glory. It also includes embracing God and His plans with our hearts, as well as serving God with our hands. The different aspects of loving God (head, heart, and hands) are not in contradiction to each other. Rather they are complementary avenues through which God is supremely loved and treasured with everything that we are.

2). Romans 12:1-2 

Romans 12:1-2 is probably the most important verse written by the apostle Paul on the subject of spiritual growth and transformation. Here, Paul combines the ideas of (1) a total and continual submission to God (12:1), (2) an exercise of our mental and cognitive faculties to think and reflect upon God’s truth (which Paul calls the renewing of the mind), and (3) the result of spiritual transformation (literally, spiritual “metamorphosis”). Genuine biblical transformation includes both a surrendered and devoted life and a renewed mind. The surrendered life is the basis for spiritual growth, and the mind is a primary means for spiritual growth. God’s design in Romans 12:1-2 is for spiritual transformation to take place by means of the renewed mind. So, it is not more holy, nor is it even consistent with the biblical pattern, to suggest that we should circumvent the mind in the process of Christian growth. There is a biblical union between thinking and establishing sound doctrine and igniting and fanning spiritual fervor; between understanding with our minds and embracing with our hearts; between developing a sharp and critical mind and cultivating a warm and affectionate heart.

3. The nature of the human soul that includes the faculties of the mind and heart (Gen. 2:7; Ps. 39:3; Luke 24:32).

The nature of human persons is such that we are composed of a material body and an immaterial soul (Gen. 2:7). The human soul is multi-faceted and includes the heart (Matt.15:19-20), the mind (Rom. 12:2), the conscience (Rom. 2:15), and the will (Rom. 6:12-13).

Two primary functions or operations of the soul are (1) understanding and (2) being affectionately inclined or disinclined. These two operations normally work in this order. Through our soul’s operation of understanding, we are capable of perceiving, discerning, categorizing, and clarifying. After the understanding is exercised, the soul can then be either affectionately inclined or disinclined toward the object of understanding. We are not unaffected spectators with a passive indifference towards the things that we know and understand; but we either like or dislike those things, we approve or disapprove of them, we are pleased or displeased with them. With the affections of our soul we either like or dislike the thing that we understand, but we are also capable of liking or disliking it with different degrees and measures of intensity. For example, it is possible for me to grow in my perception and knowledge of my wife. It is also possible for me to grow in my appreciation, affection, and lively love for my wife, so that my heart is more favorably and zealously inclined towards her. As we grow in our perception and understanding of God, we position ourselves to then be able to better enjoy and vigorously incline ourselves to like and delight in what we have clearly perceived. We must then take care then, to pass on what we (1) know in our understanding, (2) onto our affections, so that we can enjoy, embrace, and take increasingly delight in the God and the truth that we are learning. God is particularly glorified when we (1) further understand Him and (2) increasingly embrace Him.

4. The example of the Book of Psalms

The Psalms are unique in that they, like no other biblical genre, combine human experience and emotion with rich theology that centers upon God and His revelation. The Psalms strike the balance and capture the dynamic combination between intense human emotion (both good and hard) and God-centered theology. The Psalms are far from being classified as containing cold and sterile intellectual concepts; but by no means do they plunge into mindless emotional whirls void of doctrinal truth. Rather, they uniquely and dynamically combine God centered theology with heartfelt deep emotion and expression to God. What an example to us!