Imperishable Inheritance

Many Chris­tians are hard­ened to the study of the­ol­ogy for sev­eral reasons:

1. They feel the­ol­ogy sep­a­rates the Chris­t­ian into a ‘head-filled’ rela­tion­ship with God.
2. They feel the­ol­ogy is divi­sive and un-edifying.
3. They feel the­ol­ogy is extra-biblical.
4. They don’t want to believe that some­thing they’ve believe their entire lives could be wrong.
5. They want to retain their emo­tional view of the Bible.

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a ques­tion to test him. “Teacher, which is the great com­mand­ment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first com­mand­ment. And a sec­ond is like it: You shall love your neigh­bor as your­self. On these two com­mand­ments depend all the Law and the Prophets.“
Matthew 22:35–40 (empha­sis added)

The­ol­ogy is sim­ple the study of God (‘ology’ means â??study of’ ‘theos’ God). Let’s look at the other major branches of the­o­log­i­cal thought:

• Chris­tol­ogy: the study of Jesus Christ.
• Eccle­si­ol­ogy: the study of the church.
• Escha­tol­ogy: the study of the end times.
• The­ol­ogy Proper: the study of God’s attributes.
• Bib­li­ol­ogy: the study of the Bible.

No rea­son­able and sin­cere Chris­t­ian would doubt that these doc­trines are impor­tant. In fact, we are com­manded by Scrip­ture to be stead­fast in our doctrine.

And he gave the apos­tles, the prophets, the evan­ge­lists, the pas­tors and teach­ers, to equip the saints for the work of min­istry, for build­ing up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowl­edge of the Son of God, to mature man­hood, to the mea­sure of the stature of the full­ness of Christ, so that we may no longer be chil­dren, tossed to and fro by the waves and car­ried about by every wind of doc­trine, by human cun­ning, by crafti­ness in deceit­ful schemes.
Eph­esians 4:11–14

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it law­fully, under­stand­ing this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the law­less and dis­obe­di­ent, for the ungodly and sin­ners, for the unholy and pro­fane, for those who strike their fathers and moth­ers, for mur­der­ers, the sex­u­ally immoral, men who prac­tice homo­sex­u­al­ity, enslavers, liars, per­jur­ers, and what­ever else is con­trary to sound doc­trine,
1 Tim­o­thy 1:8–10

There­fore let us leave the ele­men­tary doc­trine of Christ and go on to matu­rity, not lay­ing again a foun­da­tion of repen­tance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruc­tion about wash­ings, the lay­ing on of hands, the res­ur­rec­tion of the dead, and eter­nal judg­ment. And this we will do if God per­mits.
Hebrews 6:1–3

But even if you should suf­fer for right­eous­ness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be trou­bled, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being pre­pared to make a defense to any­one who asks you for a rea­son for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gen­tle­ness and respect, hav­ing a good con­science, so that, when you are slan­dered, those who revile your good behav­ior in Christ may be put to shame.
1 Peter 3:14–16

Jesus Him­self even stood as a pil­lar of the­ol­ogy and apolo­get­ics (Matthew 6:5, 11:20–24, 15:1–9, 16:1–4, 23:13–38; Mark 7:1–13, 8:31–33; Luke 9:37–56, 11:39–54); He was a mas­ter of Jew­ish law (Matthew 12:25, Luke 10:26, 24:44, John 7:19, 8:17, 10:37, 15:25). Jesus was the most inquis­i­tive the­o­log­i­cal mind in all of history.

And when the feast was ended, as they were return­ing, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His par­ents did not know it, but sup­pos­ing him to be in the group they went a day’s jour­ney, but then they began to search for him among their rel­a­tives and acquain­tances, and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, search­ing for him. After three days they found him in the tem­ple, sit­ting among the teach­ers, lis­ten­ing to them and ask­ing them ques­tions. And all who heard him were amazed at his under­stand­ing and his answers.
Luke 2:43–47

The­ol­ogy must become prac­ti­cal; if it does not then it is worth­less. The­ol­ogy should be an edi­fy­ing expe­ri­ence to which we feel that study­ing of God, doesn’t devi­ate from our ‘heart-felt’ rela­tion­ship with God, but only adds a new dimen­sion. We must remem­ber that study­ing the­ol­ogy must always remain sys­tem­atic (the Bible on a whole) and must always be inter­preted exeget­i­cally (crit­i­cal inter­pre­ta­tion). We must know that bas­ing our view of the Bible on feel­ings and emo­tions is not the way to look at it (eiseget­i­cal interpretation).

Chris­tians often fail to real­ize that they, as well as Athe­ists, Agnos­tics, Mus­lims, Jews, and the like all have a the­ol­ogy: ‘The­ol­ogy is sim­ply the study or truth of God.’ The prob­lem is that their the­olo­gies are incor­rect as they are not based on the truth inher­ent in Christ Jesus through the Bible. We as Chris­tians have let the­ol­ogy slide to points where we now have the cults of Chris­tian­ity: Jeho­vas Wit­nesses, The Mor­mons, One­ness Pen­te­costals, and the like.

Most Chris­tians I believe fall into a minor form of The­o­logi­co­pho­bia, or the ‘fear of the­ol­ogy.’ Although this can man­i­fest itself on many lev­els, it is impor­tant to note that the­ol­ogy is what you work on all the time. When you read the Bible, talk with other believ­ers, and even live your life you are actively work­ing on devel­op­ing your theology.

As a final note: why do so many Chris­tians have “an idol­a­trous pas­sion for pol­i­tics, but indif­fer­ence to God and the­ol­ogy [and evan­ge­lism]? Just another exam­ple of how “today’s Chris­t­ian cul­ture is destroy­ing Chris­tian­ity.”