1 Timothy 4:16
“Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
In a discussion about studying tough doctrines, a guy told me, “Man, I don’t wanna learn all this theology. I just want to love Jesus!” I could see what he was trying to say, but couldn’t agree with him.
In separate instances, I’ve seen people (including myself) be so absorbed with right teaching and calling out people who are false teachers, but then you found out about their abhorrent lifestyle in private or how they lacked love for other people.
This verse in 1Timothy sums up briefly the necessity of both believing and speaking rightly about God but also living rightly before God. We cannot stress one and not the other. The two go hand in hand.
We cannot be Christians who only care about "living and loving" with no concern for proper teaching of the Word. Wrong teaching will simply cause you to live wrongly. Grow out of that mentality of "I don't wanna do all that studying theology stuff. I just wanna love Jesus". Paul says we should "watch your doctrine closely" and “persevere" in this because it will “save yourself” and others. Your life depends on believing right things about God. False teaching leads to false living. Studying rightly about Jesus goes in hand with loving Jesus rightly.
However, we cannot be Christians who only care about proper teaching but do not go through painstaking lengths to live in accordance with that teaching. Jesus did not say that we would be known by our ability to speak right things about Him, but that we would be known by our love. He didn’t say, “If you love Me, know my commandments”, but that if we love him we should keep his commandments. To live a life that expresses, “Jesus cares about my doctrine but not my actions” is heresy in itself. Loving and living rightly before God expresses proper doctrine about Him.