The relevance of Christian Theology in our Christian life

By -
According to Alister MacGrath, in his book 'Christian Theology', Christian theology is supposed to be exciting and interesting to the Christians. I, at least, find this true. It should be true. Christian theology, in its very essence, is relevant to the Christian life, as it looks deeply into the doctrines of Christianity and attempts to answer the questions of Christianity, such as who is God. The answers to these questions form the basis of our understanding on who God is. I would think that theology is more than just an academic exercise. But it is understandable why people tend to shy away from theology. 

For one, theology tends to go into the abstract and 'chim' philosophies to understand Christian doctrines and issues. Try understanding the doctrine of eschatology or Christology in the light of maybe Augustine or Calvin. Try reading Aquinas and Paley, or Leibniz, or Barth. I think they are the same league as Hegel and Kant and Humes. Sometimes you wonder how can a common Christian be able to finish reading, let alone understanding, the abstracts of these doctrines and the level of sophistications that these scholars engage in. It takes a lot of people one lifetime to even complete a thin book on Christology, let alone a few thick volume on systematic theology. 

Yet theology is not that far removed from our Christian life. In fact, our theology will inform us how we see ourselves within the kingdom of God. Wrong theology will mean wrong perception and understanding on the word of God, which will in turn muddle up the way we live our lives for God. Small wonder why Paul exhorted us to take captive of our thoughts. Moreover, see what Jesus warned us about in the bible about false prophets, and see what Paul has to deal with in the Galatian church: super apostles. Correct grounding in the word of God, and in theology is nutrient to our spiritual life, and a safeguard against false doctrines. It is not that far removed. 

I think the first step, and perhaps the most important step in this, is to sip ourselves in the word of God, to faithfully do our bible studies properly and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in our understanding. I shall not quote these verses which we are so familiar with, but it will suffice to say that without god biblical grounding, you will be tossed around by the winds and washed away by the flood due to the weak foundation that you are building your spiritual life on. 

Christian theology is interesting and exciting. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Parable of the 'Good Samaritan'

By -
Once there was this man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among thorns, and the thorns spring up and choked him. And as he went on, he didn’t have money, and he met the Queen of Sheba, and she gave him 1,000 talents of gold and 100 changes of raiment. And he got into a chariot and drove furiously, and when he was driving under a big juniper tree, his hair caught on a limb of that tree, and he hung there many days, and the ravens brought him food to eat and water to drink, and he ate 5,000 loaves of bread and two fishes. One night when he was hanging there asleep, his wife Delilah came along and cut off his hair, and he dropped, and fell on stony ground. But he got up and went on, and it began to rain, and it rained forty days and forty nights, and he hid himself in a cave, and he lived on locust and wild honey. Then he went on ‘til he met a servant who said, “Come, take supper at my house.” And he made an excuse and said, “No, I won’t. I have married a wife, and I c
Read more

Of Teaching and Learning

By -
Image
Over the past two weeks, I was invited to attend a block class on "Learning to Teach." After two weeks of class, here are some reflections that I have. We thank God Bro Casey is a pretty humane teacher... :P  Firstly, teaching needs to meet the changing challenges of the 21st century. This is especially pertinent with all the advancements in technology as well as the worldview changes with the generation today. There is simply no room for the teacher to remain stagnant and not be able to keep up with times so as to engage their students and to facilitate learning. Applying to theological education and Bible school, we have to consider what kind of ministers we are training for the churches in the 21st century. If we are training ministers who are able to engage today’s generation, then we need to review the current methods of teaching and train ministers to be savvy in social media and technology and be able to make use of them in their ministries. Reflecting back on
Read more

Of Exegesis, Wedding Preparation and the Whole Lot of Things: Another Reflection

By -
Image
To those who know what happened, the past months since the start of 2016 had been very stressful to me. In the preparation to my impending wedding this coming October, my future father-in-law decided to throw a few spanners into the wedding preparation by declaring that he was not comfortable with me as a life partner to his daughter because I am a full time Christian worker and more importantly because I come from a different family background from her.  The latter means that there are certain practices in my own family which are unthinkable in his worldview on how a family should function. This led to intense tensions between Angelina and myself. To compound the stress, NT Exegesis class was not that easy also and the stress of meeting the deadlines mean that I sometimes did not have the time to reflect deeper into the situations I was facing in my relationship.  However, studying the text of Philemon 15-20 reminded me of the way we should conduct our relationship in Christ
Read more