Theology Downgraded

From Tim Challies’ “The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment”, page 49:

…many Christians have separated theology from practice, knowledge of God from their practice of serving Him.  Some Christians delight in their ignorance, claiming that they don’t want theology; they just want to love Jesus.  These people tend to build their faith upon feelings and experiences than upon the truths of the Bible….

…but Christianity is not a faith that can be taken a la carte.  It is not a faith that allows its adherents to pick and choose which elements they would like to accept and which they would prefer to reject….For us to understand what the Bible teaches, we must examine it systematically, seeking to learn how one doctrine builds upon another.  We cannot have right theology if we are not systematic, and we cannot be systematic if we do not look to Scripture to guide our theology.  We must have both…

…When theology in general, and systematic theology in particular, are downplayed, it is no longer possible to defend beliefs that are structured according to systematic, logical, biblical principles.  We are left instead with a hodgepodge of disparate, sometimes contradictory beliefs that bear little resemblance to biblical Christianity.  As theology falls out of favor in the culture, so too does it fall out of favor in the church. This makes the pursuit of discernment ever more difficult and ever more unpopular.

Wow.  That’s quite a quote…but man, it’s quite true also.  How much we should desire proper meat!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 28th, 2008 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Theology Downgraded”

Dani September 28th, 2008 at 8:23 pm

Great Quote.. But to it I may add a warning that struck me in JI Packers “Knowing God.”

And I quote..”What is my ultimate aim and object in occupying my mind with these things? What do I intend to DO with my knowledge about God once I have it? If we pursue theological knowledge for its own sake, it is bound to go bad on us. It will make us proud and conceited. The very greatness of the subject matter will intoxicate us, and we shall come to think of ourselves as a cut above other Christians because of our interest in it and grasp of it; and we shall look down on those whose theological ideas seem to us crude and inadequate and dismiss them as poor specimens. ”

Packer later goes on to show that the need for theology should be based upon wanting to understand God’s truth in order that our hearts might respond to it and our lives will be conformed to it.

It ties it all in of course with the difference between knowledge about God and knowledge of God. ” How can we turn our knowledge ABOUT God into knowledge OF God? the rule for doing this is simple but demanding. It is that we turn each truth that we learn ABOUT God into a matter for meditation BEFORE God, leading to prayer and praise TO God!”

Again, great quote.. Thanks for sharing.

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