Teaching Tuesday | Lesson 6: Theological Triage with John Cueto

Welcome to the June 2025 session of Teaching

Tuesday. Now bear with me, because I'm going

to introduce tonight's topic in a slightly different

manner than normal. In the 1980s, the comedian

Emo Phillips told a joke that has been repeatedly

voted as the best religious joke of all time.

It goes like this. Once I saw this guy on a bridge

about to jump. I said, don't do it. He said,

nobody loves me. I said, God loves you. Do you

believe in God? He said, yes. I said, are you

a Christian or a Jew? He said, a Christian. I

said, me too, Protestant or Catholic? He said,

Protestant. I said, wow, me too, what franchise?

He said, Baptist. I said, that's incredible,

Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist? He said,

Northern Baptist. I said, wow, me too, Northern

Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?

He said, Northern Conservative Baptist. I said,

me too, Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes

region or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern

region? He said, Northern Conservative Baptist

Great Lakes Region. I said, geez, me too. Northern

Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council

of 1879 or Northern Conservative Baptist Great

Lakes Region Council of 1912. He said, oh, Northern

Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council

of 1912. I said, die, heretic. And I pushed him

over. Now that's a great joke, because it takes

a kind of Christian that many of us have had

the displeasure of meeting to an absurd extreme.

You've met them before. I know I have. There

isn't one bit of Christian doctrine that they

won't argue about. These are people who lead

to denomination, church, and family splits over

doctrine. But the opposite extreme is just as

damaging to the church in a different way. These

are the Christians who refuse to fight about

anything, and in doing so ignore the fundamentals

of the faith. When these people make it into

leadership, they threaten the salvation of those

under their care. So if we fight about everything

and divide over every minor difference, we shatter

the unity of the body of Christ. But if we fight

about nothing and stand for nothing, Christianity

becomes something else entirely. These are two

terrible options. But Jesus founded one church

with one mission, to save souls. So we've got

to find a solution somewhere in the middle. We've

got to figure out what's worth fighting about

and what we can agree to disagree about. We find

the answer to that question in tonight's topic,

a tool called theological triage. Now, there

are several books on theological triage, but

the one we're using tonight is called Finding

the Right Hills to Die On by Gavin Ortland. Dr.

Ortland runs a ministry and YouTube channel called

Truth Unites, which is meant to create and foster

unity in areas which Christians have historically

diverged. This book condenses decades of his

work into a manual. It's a short, easy read that

you can finish in an afternoon. But it's one

that's going to permanently change how you interact

with other Christians for the better. We'll start

by answering the same question we answered about

apologetics. The same question you need to ask

anytime anyone prescribes some practice related

to the Christian faith. Is it biblical? And again,

the answer is yes. There is clear biblical precedent

that some parts of Christian doctrine are more

important and more urgent than others. One example

comes from 1 Corinthians 1 .17, in which Paul

writes, For Christ didn't send me to baptize,

but to preach the good news. In other words,

the sharing of the gospel shouldn't be hindered

by debates over baptism. We'll learn more about

that later. Then, in verse 15 -3, Paul writes,

Now, having established that the concept of theological

triage is biblical, Dr. Orlin lays out several

goals and priorities that will help us understand

his methods. Spiritually speaking, the church

is described as the body and bride of Christ.

These terms are always singular, never plural,

and that's important. Our identity as Christians

comes from Christ and the gospel, not any church

-specific doctrines. Practically speaking, unity

gives us resources, manpower, reach, and makes

a good impression on the world. Think of the

backpack giveaway we do each fall. It's a community

effort with about a thousand people donating

money and supplies, volunteering, or both. It

creates an economy of scale where we can help

hundreds of children in the community. But imagine

how much less effective it would be if we were

to split into 10 churches of 100 people all running

their own backpack giveaway. Now imagine the

global church pulling its resources and doing

the same thing, potentially ending poverty and

homelessness worldwide. How powerful of a witness

would it be to see people from every country

and denomination setting aside their differences

to serve the world? So our guiding principle

in doing a theological triage is unity when possible,

peaceful coexistence when not, and conflict only

when necessary. To accomplish this goal, Dr.

Ortlund divides Christian beliefs and practices

into four categories. Unfortunately, I couldn't

find a graphic with only four steps on the podium,

so just pretend that bird is totally blocking

the number five. The first category, which we'll

call first rank or primary doctrines, are those

which are essential to the gospel and salvation.

These define what is and isn't Christianity.

Second rank... or secondary doctrines, are essential

to the health and practice of church. You might

say they define how we do church. These are doctrines

which lead to denomination and church splits.

Third rank, or tertiary doctrines, are important

but not worthy of division. In other words, these

may be things of great eternal importance, but

they don't affect sharing the gospel or the practice

of church. And if you get nothing else from tonight,

at least you'll get to learn a fancy new word.

Apparently the ordinal name for fourth rank is

quaternary. And these are doctrines that are

unimportant to the gospel, salvation, ministry,

and eternity. I hate to say that they're totally

unimportant, but they're often denomination or

church -specific doctrines that have little to

no scriptural basis, and frankly, they're silly

to divide over. And I'll give you a few examples

of that later. So, given a particular doctrine,

how do we determine its rank? Dr. Ortlund gives

us four questions to ask. First is how clear

the Bible is on a topic. Consider the claim of

Jesus' death on the cross being the way our sins

are forgiven. This is supported in dozens, if

not hundreds, of verses. It couldn't be any more

clear. On the other hand, there's a lot of debate

over the timing of Jesus' thousand -year reign

in Revelation 20. It's not mentioned many times,

and the language in Revelation is full of dramatic

imagery. We can't be as certain. Second is how

important doctrine is to the gospel. Jesus coming

back to life after three days is the event that

validates every one of his claims. It's a huge

deal. However, your position on whether the days

in Genesis are literal 24 -hour periods or references

to extended periods of time has nothing to do

with the gospel. Third is how the church historically

understood a topic. History doesn't trump scripture.

The Bible always has the final word. But if you

want to challenge a doctrine that the church

has maintained for the past 2 ,000 years, such

as the biblical definition of marriage, you'd

better have some solid evidence. And finally,

we want to ask how the doctrine affects the church

today. Consider the debate over whether the gifts

of the Holy Spirit stopped with the apostles

or continue on to today. That may not be related

to the gospel, but it will impact almost every

aspect of running a church. There are also some

questions we shouldn't ask because they're irrelevant

to the truth and importance of a doctrine. Are

advocates of a doctrine my friends or nice people?

Well, Jehovah's Witnesses are almost universally

nice people. That doesn't make them correct or

even Christian. Will we lose donation money or

members? Imagine you're a pastor and you find

out that a large portion of your membership has

started visiting psychics. That's not good. The

Bible warns strongly against any sort of divination,

witchcraft, or sorcery. You want to get your

members back on the right track, so you have

a sermon on the topic where you present the biblical

evidence and you tell them clearly to stop going

to psychics immediately. 10 % of the congregation

gets extremely offended and demands that you

retract the sermon or they'll leave. Even if

that number was 90%, it wouldn't change the truth

in the Bible. Will secular academics criticize

us? The thing is, the Bible's never been wrong

in any of its claims, and has defeated every

challenge put against it. Take the story of Noah's

Ark. In addition to the rain, Genesis 7 -11 says,

all the underground waters erupted from the earth.

Secular academics and scientists pointed to this

passage as an example of the Bible being wrong.

After all, everyone knows there's no water under

the earth, so it's time for everyone to just

become atheists. Well... Then we invented ground

-penetrating radar and discovered massive underground

vaults of water that some geologists think rivals

the volume of water on the surface. Finally,

could someone sue us over this? A woman in England

was arrested and sentenced to two years of jail

for praying silently in the vicinity of an abortion

clinic. Fortunately, this case was overturned,

but the culture is already on a course to start

legal warfare against churches. It's not a matter

of will we be sued someday, but when we will

be sued someday. for any of the various things

about Christianity that the culture finds offensive.

But that doesn't change how true or valid they

are. Now it's time to dive into these ranks or

categories of doctrines in a little more detail

and look at some examples. As I mentioned, the

first rank or primary doctrines are those that

are essential to defining, proclaiming, or defending

the gospel. These doctrines define Christianity.

If a group or individual doesn't hold to them,

they're not Christian no matter what they claim.

In order to be as charitable as possible, Dr.

Orlin recommends using negative definitions of

key doctrines instead of positive definitions.

So, instead of expecting every person of any

age, level of education, or spiritual maturity

to have a 100 % perfect understanding of a doctrine,

we don't want an active denial of the important

parts of that doctrine. Consider the thief on

the cross next to Jesus. He most certainly didn't

have the complete understanding of sin, God's

triune nature, or the mechanics of how Jesus'

sacrifice saved people. He probably had a vague

understanding of Jesus as divine and that his

death on the cross would save people in some

way, and that was sufficient. Had he rejected

Jesus as only human or argued that God didn't

exist, it would have been a different story.

In the same way, I expect the kids to have an

age -appropriate understanding of the gospel,

not the same understanding as one of my seminary

professors. When we encounter one of these doctrines,

Dr. Orland recommends courage and conviction.

Say you hear a pastor state that Jesus is just

an ordinary human, not God. You go to that pastor.

You go to the church board. And if it isn't immediately

addressed and rectified, you find a new church.

Now, if that's a denomination's official stance,

you find a new denomination. Neither that church

nor that denomination are legitimate Christianity

anymore. An example of a first -rank doctrine

would be the Trinity. This is the doctrine that

God has eternally existed as one being with three

persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

All three persons are equally omniscient, omnipotent,

omnipresent, and omnibenevolent. The Trinity

is a great example of why we use negative definitions,

because even though the Bible is clear that God

exists as a Trinity, the concept will always

be mysterious to humans, who are one being with

one person. The Trinity is like quantum physics.

Anyone who tells you they understand either completely

is either mistaken or lying. So our battle lines

are drawn when someone actively rejects the Trinity.

For instance, Mormons call themselves Christian,

but they reject the Trinity. They believe that

God the Father was a human in another universe

who lived a good life and was given godhood if

this universe is his reward. They believe that

Jesus was the Father's first creation, meaning

he's not eternal. They may use the same names,

but they don't believe in the same God. They're

not Christian. Jehovah's Witnesses are another

example. They believe that Jesus was God's first

creation as well, and they created a Bible translation

that intentionally adds words to the original

Greek to back it up. In their version of John

1 .1, for instance, it says that the word was

a god, not the word was god like the original

Greek plainly states. Jehovah's Witnesses are

not Christian. In lieu of listing every potential

first -rank doctrine, Dr. Ortlund recommends

the Apostles' Creed as a sort of cheat sheet.

I'll spare you reading the entire thing. It's

up on the screen right now. But this is a statement

developed by the Apostles to capture the fundamental

doctrines of Christianity and has been used and

affirmed by the Church since the beginning. Ideally,

all Christians would fully understand and accept

everything contained in the creed, but for the

purposes of theological triage, we know it's

time to go to battle when someone claiming to

be Christian actively disagrees with any part

of it. Now we come to the second rank or secondary

doctrines. While not an essential part of the

gospel or salvation, these beliefs create practical

differences in how we do ministry. They're often

matters of conscience, and being forced to act

in a way that violates one's conscience can cause

great spiritual and emotional distress. Some

of these secondary doctrines are unclear or have

been debated throughout church history without

reaching a consensus. For that reason, splits

over these secondary doctrines into separate

denominations or churches while maintaining a

sense of grace and unity with the rest of the

body of Christ may be the best choice to preserve

peace. Instead of the courage and conviction

that Dr. Ortlund recommends for first -rank doctrines,

he calls for wisdom and balance when disagreements

over second -rank doctrines arise. There's no

better example of a second -rank doctrine than

baptism. Everybody agrees that we're meant to

baptize. Everybody agrees it should be done in

the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy

Spirit. And that's where the agreement stops.

Across the many Christian denominations, you'll

see a variety of combinations of answers to these

three questions. First, is baptism only meant

for believers who can express their faith, or

should it include infants? Second, should baptism

be done through full immersion, partial immersion,

dipping of the head, pouring of water, or sprinkling

of water? Third, is baptism simply a sign of

obedience, a necessary part of salvation, or

something in between? Legitimate, sincere Christians

come to different conclusions based on their

understanding of the Bible and the traditions

of their churches. Forcing someone to perform

baptisms in a way that violates their conscience

is simply not acceptable. So a denominational

or church split over the practice of baptism

is a reasonable compromise as long as everyone

maintains a sense of grace towards each other.

Two other big examples are women's roles in ministry

and whether the gifts of the Holy Spirit ended

with the apostles or continue to today. Some

people take Paul's stance on women not being

allowed to hold authority in 1 Timothy as a universal

ban on female pastors. Others take it as a localized

command meant to address a problem specific to

the region in which Timothy was ministering.

The debate over whether the gifts of the Holy

Spirit continue to today is just as heated. But

you have legitimate, sincere Christians on both

sides of both issues. Keep in mind that this

sense of grace doesn't apply to things that are

explicitly unbiblical. For instance, the command

to not steal couldn't be clearer. So if the denomination

of thieves formed and treated stealing as a fundamental

practice of the church, we'd be right to fight

over that issue, even though it's not an issue

of salvation. Third rank or tertiary doctrines

are those that have little or nothing to do with

the gospel, salvation, or ministry. It doesn't

mean that they're not important. Everything God

wanted included in the Bible is important. But,

to use an example I'll expand upon later, the

timing of Jesus' second coming has zero effect

on how you share the gospel or run a church.

These topics will be important in eternity, and

many of them are truly fascinating to study and

discuss, but there is no good reason that people

with different views can't peacefully coexist

within a church or denomination. Ironically,

because many of these topics are so esoteric,

they lead to the fiercest debates and accusations

of heresy on social media. It would take you

10 seconds to find a video from each position

on Jesus' second coming calling proponents of

all other positions heretics straight on the

path to hell. That's not just terrible for unity

within the body of Christ, but imagine how bad

that looks to non -Christians. In reality, most

denominations agree on 100 % of the essentials

and 95 % of the non -essentials, but you'd never

know that looking in from the outside. Since

I've already mentioned it twice, let's look a

little more at why people disagree over the timing

of Jesus' second coming and why this debate isn't

worth dividing over. Revelation 20 mentions the

1 ,000 -year -long reign of Christ. Some translations

render it as the millennium, which is why the

study of this period is called millennialism.

As I mentioned earlier, there's not a ton of

information provided, and what we do have is

presented in dramatic, apocalyptic language,

so the timing of Christ's return is a bit ambiguous.

Pre -millennials believe that Jesus will come

back before the millennium and reign over it

directly. Post -millennials believe that Jesus

will come back after the millennium, having ruled

over the church's activity from heaven. Amillennialists

believe that there is no thousand -year reign.

Historical millennials fall into one of those

three categories and believe that Revelation

is describing real events that will happen in

the future. Allegorical millennials believe that

the Revelation is entirely symbolic and does

not describe actual events. Preterists believe

that some or all of the events in Revelation

have already happened. Now that's about 20 different

combinations, and that's not even all the possibilities.

But I have to ask, what does your position on

any of that have to do with sharing the gospel?

Not a single thing. And the answer to that question

is the same for other third -rank doctrines.

Whether you believe the days in Genesis are literal

24 -hour periods, undefined periods of time,

or allegories not responding to actual events,

the gospel story is still the same. Whatever

legitimate, meaning non -heretical, such as Jehovah's

Witness translation, Bible translation you prefer,

or your church prefers, the doctrine of salvation

remains unchanged, even if it's described in

slightly different words. And finally, we come

to our fourth rank, or quaternary doctrines.

It's such a great word wasted on doctrines that

are frankly embarrassing to divide over. Many

of these are church -specific traditions that

don't come from the Bible. Imagine standing in

front of God's throne one day, and he asks why

you left a certain church. Now you've got to

look God in the face and explain that it was

because the pastor wore a two -piece suit instead

of a three -piece suit. Or because the band used

electric guitars instead of acoustic guitars.

Now that sounds silly, but we've had several

families come to HCV sent by other churches who

told them that their clothes weren't nice enough

to attend their church. But the people at Hub

City Vineyard don't care what you wear. And as

long as you're covering everything a bathing

suit would, we really don't. Heck, if you came

here naked because you couldn't afford clothes,

we'd give you some nice tie -dyes and a coffee

and welcome you in for the message. This isn't

a country club, it's a church. Who cares what

people wear? We want them in here, listening

to the message, building their relationship with

Jesus. Okay, let's say you're on board with the

concept of theological triage. We've discussed

the ranks and what is and isn't worth dividing

over. Now, what do you do in the moment when

a theological disagreement occurs? First, ask

questions. A lot of questions. Try to get a complete

understanding of the other person's perspective.

because there may not actually be a disagreement,

just different language. Last session, we talked

about five different definitions of biblical

inerrancy and five different definitions of biblical

inspiration. These are referring to the Bible

being true and the Bible being inspired by God.

Imagine getting into an argument with someone

over inerrancy, but neither of you stopped to

define the word. If you had, you might have realized

that what you were talking about wasn't two different

things, but actually the same thing. And when

it comes down to the details, you're in agreement.

Whoops. Second, be honest about your position

and beliefs. Accurately and completely explain

it to the best of your ability. Don't say what

you think the other person wants you to say.

If you genuinely believe that baptism should

only be done on believers, don't pretend that

you're okay with infant baptism. Third, be tactful.

During one of our previous Alpha sessions for

new and potential Christians, one of the attendees

expressed that Christianity's stance on same

-sex marriage was keeping her from committing

to the faith. She explained that she has many

gay and lesbian friends and felt that she would

be betraying them by joining a religion that

hated them and wanted to deny them marriage out

of hatred. So instead of getting angry, calling

her an idiot, or responding with a canned one

-liner like she has heard many times in the past,

I just asked whether I could explain why the

church has that position. She agreed, and so

I pointed to Paul's statement in Ephesians 5,

31 -32 that marriage is meant to illustrate Jesus'

relationship to the church. The man represents

Christ, and the woman represents the church.

Whatever other reasons people get married, God's

purpose for marriage is that illustration. That

illustration doesn't work with two Jesuses and

no church, and it doesn't work with two churches

and no Jesus. Now, admittedly, many Christians

do a terrible job of explaining this if they

even try, and they're unnecessarily cruel to

same -sex attracted people. But the Christian

position on marriage comes out of a desire to

be obedient to God and respect the institution

he created. Nobody had ever taken the time to

explain that to her before, and now she's a baptized,

active member of this church. Fourth, be gracious.

If you're someone who believes that women should

hold the same ministry roles as men, especially

if you're a woman, it's hard not to take it as

a personal attack when you meet someone who doesn't

believe that women should be pastors. It's easy

to brush the person off as a sexist or a misogynist,

to assume that they hate you and are stuck in

the past. Instead, try to put yourself in their

shoes. They sincerely believe that they are accurately

representing God's stance on the issue and are

doing their best to follow God's command. You

can try to change their mind. You can express

how their position makes you feel, but don't

assume anyone's motives. Instead, assume that

every Christian is acting in good faith and until

proven otherwise. And really, the last two steps

come together. You trust that God is using the

encounter for good and divide if and only if

necessary. Maybe God directed you to this person

to help correct a mistake on their part. Maybe

it's a mistake on your part that he's trying

to fix. Maybe he's planting a seed that won't

sprout for decades. We can't know for sure, but

we do know what type of God we serve. And so

when all is said and done, and you've had the

chance to discuss your differences and sit down

and calmly analyze both positions, apply the

principles of theological triage and decide whether

this is a fight worth having. If it is, figure

out where this doctrine ranks and whether it's

worth dividing over. And then we'll wrap things

up tonight. I've got the resource back up on

the screen. I've got my contact information,

links to view the slides. And of course, you

can see this and all of our other sessions on

our YouTube. Thank you all very much for listening.

I'm very grateful for your continued support.

If you have topics you'd like me to cover, if

you have questions you'd like me to answer, if

you've got feedback on how I can make this more

interesting or more useful, or if you ever catch

me making a mistake, please email me anytime.

I would love to hear from you. Have a great night

and God bless you.