When you hear the term 'Bible Doctrine' what do you think about? You probably think about some boring theological teacher droning on and on, giving you big theological terms that nobody can pronounce or understand.

You see people nodding off and falling asleep. The preacher drones on and on and spouts big high-level language that he learned at University.

You are supposed to learn this stuff, but quite honestly by the time he has finished you wonder whether you really have the call of God.

You wonder if you made a big mistake coming to this Bible School to learn this stuff, because how are you ever going to use this to minister for the Lord?

And if you have been fortunate enough to pick up a theological book, it is even worse. Most of them were written years ago by people who couldn't even speak the right English that we use today.

You have thick manuals of theological terms, and thousands of Scripture references that you would never have time to look up.

Theology is boring. Bible doctrine is boring and it is hard to learn. Well it has been up until now. It is going to change because we are going to do Bible Doctrine Made Easy.

The Need to Know Bible Doctrines

You see I have also suffered through those boring studies, and I have also bought and read thick theological books.

Fortunately I managed to understand some of it. And fortunately for you, I have done my best up until now to avoid even touching on the subject as much as possible.

But there are teachings in the Bible that we need to know. And that really is all the word doctrine means. Doctrine means teachings.

There are teachings in the Bible that every believer should know. And especially if God has called you into more of a leadership role and ministry in the Body of Christ, you need to know what the Bible teaches.

You need to know what exactly you believe the Bible teaches before you can minister effectively and with confidence to people out there. Because you see many people out there have studied some of these theological things.

Some of them have dug into the Scriptures and know enough to try and confuse you and to throw you off the track.

They will come with some great big theological doctrine that you have never heard of, and you will feel like an idiot next to them. They will be superior to you and reject every bit of ministry you are trying to give them.

I am going to try and take all of these difficult things for you, and I'm going to bring them right down and make it so simple that even a child can understand it.

So let's start by going through some of the main doctrines in the Bible. There is the Doctrine of God, the Doctrine of Man and the Doctrine of Christ. There is the Doctrine of the Church.

There are a whole lot of different doctrines. But since we are starting with God and man, I want to look at those ones first, because after all our spiritual life consists of God and man working together doesn't it?

The Bible says, 'In the beginning God…'

God always comes first. He was there from the beginning. But I don't want to go first through all the complicated doctrines about God and His nature and learn all about Him.

The Doctrine of Man

You see I think you really want to start closer to home and learn a little bit about yourself. So we are going to start instead with the Doctrine of Man.

What does the Bible teach about man? That is what the Doctrine of Man is about. If you are a woman you may be asking yourself, "Is there a doctrine of woman?"

Yes there is and I will be getting to that shortly. But obviously when I am speaking about the Doctrine of Man I am talking about humanity or the human race.

The Creation of Man

The Bible says that God created man. There was a whole lot of stuff that happened before God created man. He created the universe.

He created the earth, the stars, the plants and animals and all sorts of things. And the final, highest creation of all was when God decided to make man. The Bible describes it like this.

God said, "Why don't we make man in our image? Let's make man so that he is just like us."

What was God referring to and who was He talking to? That is a theological question I am not going to go into right now.

One of the common feelings was that God always spoke in the plural. It is called the Plural of Majesty, and it is still used in many places when somebody is in high authority like a king. The king is normally referred to in the plural.

Maybe God was just speaking to all the angels and everybody in the heavenly realm and saying, "Hey, why don't we do a new project here? Why don't we make man in our image just like us?"

Made In the Image of God

And so the first thing that you need to consider about the creation of man, is that the Scripture says that man was made in the image of God.

That little phrase has caused more arguments, confusion and misunderstanding through the years than many other passages of Scripture.

What does it mean to be made in the image of God?

Some people teach that God looks just like a man. Because you see man was made in the image of God. Man was made to look exactly like God.

They say, "God looks exactly like a man. He has a body, soul and spirit. He looks just like another human being, albeit a superior human being."

And so people make God to be exactly the same as man, and you kind of wonder whether God wasn't made in the image of man.

No, the Bible says that God made man in His image. The term image actually meant a lot more than just the physical likeness.

God is a Spirit

How do I know that? I know it because the Bible tells me that God is a spirit.

What is a spirit? Have you ever seen a ghost? Well if you saw a ghost you probably saw something that looked like a person, but it wasn't a person. It was a spirit looking like a person.

Does this mean that a spirit looks the same as a human? No it doesn't. A spirit actually has no form or substance whatsoever.

You probably want me to prove it right now. If you are an analytical you are likely saying, "Give me a Scripture to prove it."

First though I want to warn you that I don't want to quote hundreds of Scriptures. And when I do quote Scripture I am not going to give you the Bible reference. It is up to you to go into your Bible afterwards and find the things that I am talking about.

I am not going to give you hundreds of Bible references. But I will give you a passage that you should know about, that shows you that a spirit doesn't look the same as a human body.

When Jesus rose from the dead and He appeared among His disciples, they were all frightened and said, "It's a ghost. It's a spirit."

Jesus came to them and said, "I am not a spirit. Come and touch me and feel me, because a spirit doesn't have flesh and bones like you see me have."

The spiritual realm is another dimension. It is a realm that is invisible to us in the physical realm, so the Bible says that no man has seen God at any time. You cannot see God, because God is a spirit.

Man Has Something Extra

Now if God made man in His image, then how come we don't look like God and we are not just spirits floating around all the time? It is because part of the image of God that He made in man, is that He put something into man that the other creation didn't have.

When God made the plants, He made them to have very similar characteristics to our bodies. But plants don't have a personality do they?

When was the last time you had a chat with your plant? When was the last time your plant responded to you by reaching out and touching you, and licking your nose or something?

You see it doesn't happen. Plants only have what we have in our bodies. But then God made something higher. He made the animals, and He put something into the animals - a personality.

The Bible calls this the soul. So animals are like plants with a soul if you like.

Now because animals have a soul they actually have a personality. They are a little person living in that body.

You will see how animals get all excited. They show emotions and they choose what they want to do. They show all the characteristics of personality. But when God made man He added something extra.

Now we could go into a whole big debate here and discuss evolution versus creation.

You say, "Did God create man on the sixth day? Or did it take millions of years for man to evolve from the lower creatures and going upwards?"

Well it is very easy to see that an animal could not have evolved from a plant, because a plant doesn't have a soul. A plant may get very sophisticated, and yes there is evolvement. There is improvement over time with cross-breeding and all sorts of things that happen.

There was a gap that happened between the plants and animal where God put the soul into the animals. And there was a gap that came between the animals and man, when God put something different into man.

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