Thou shalt not major in minors. It is soooooooooo tempting to get caught up in the ``interesting'' parts of Scripture, like Daniel and Revelation, or the non-Messianic prophecies, or alleged predictions of today's scientific discoveries, or numerology. But one risks being the most knowledge able Bible scholar in hell, if one knows everything about Bible numbers and nothing about the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. We call such an error ``majoring in minors.'' By that we refer to the fact that a college student has a major subject, perhaps mathematics, and a minor, perhaps French. If he gets barely passing grades in math, but converses brilliantly in French, he is majoring in minors and is likely to get sent home from college as a failure. In college you can always switch majors. In Bible, however, it's a pass/fail course, and we all have to major in the same thing, Salvation 101.
An examination of each denomination's teachings will show that some of them do in fact major in minors.
The Adventist's chief emphasis is on Old Testament laws. Roman Catholics emphasize the Sacraments. The Calvinist elevates the majesty of God to center stage, while holy living is the heart and soul of a Methodist's religion. Some churches push missions week after week; others, prayer and the apostolic succession; and at least three major denominations (Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Episcopalians) are kept apart mainly by insisting on one of the three forms of church government found (but not commanded) in the Bible.
Well, all these things are fine, and all of them are important. But are they most important? Did Jesus come to preach sanctification -- or prayer -- or church government -- or religious liberty? All these things have their place. The fault with most denominations is that they take them out of their proper place. What is most important is that every doctrine be given its proper weight and be used at the proper time.
And for a balanced view of Holy Scripture, just you try to do better than Luther's catechism. Just read the Table of Contents once. Does it or does it not cover all the teachings of Scripture, each in its proper order, place, and weight? You will not find a Lutheran preacher spending the whole summer on numerology or end-time prophecy. Nor should a true Lutheran pastor ever let anyone walk out of church on Sunday without telling him the way to be saved. One thing I'd advise you: Find out the day when you're going to die, and the Sunday before that go to a Lutheran church. (Conservative, of course.) Because this is what the Lutheran strives for: that he would be good to have any sermon he preached be the last or only sermon a man ever heard. The true Lutheran always explains the critical issues, the important things, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, whenever he mounts his pulpit.