Latest / Clear Path Christianity / Why EVERY Christian NEEDS Theology (Part TWO) ||CPC Podcast Ep. 24
Transcript
- Cole Crone: So last week's episode was going a little bit long and so we decided to break it up into two parts. And so this is part two of why every Christian needs a theology. So the second thing that theology does is theology protects us from false teaching. So not only do we need to know what the gospel is, that that's key, right? That is at the top of the hierarchy of needs, so to speak, right? You have to get the gospel right. So this the a an another key feature to that is to be able to be able to suss out and and to know when you're hearing false teaching. A person who doesn't understand basic Christian theology can be extremely vulnerable to someone who sounds confident, right? I just said a minute ago that like the internet alone is littered with wannabe cult leaders or Christian quote unquote Christian gurus or snake oil salesmen or whatever you want to call them peddling something that they are claiming is Christianity. And you wonder by what metric, because what they're saying doesn't look anything like what Christianity has looked like for two thousand years. People are are all over the place and and s one of the key things that they tend to do is they tend to constantly quote the Bible. Despite the fact that these people are out there preaching and teaching things contrary to what Christians have believed forever, one of the key features is their constant use of the Bible. If you are a Bible without theology person, you've already lost the game. You've already lost the game. Because I can figure out how to manipulate your understanding of the Bible very, very, very easily. And trust me, I came from a group that did that very, very well. And most people bought the product. Hook, line, and sinker because they didn't have a theology. They didn't have a proper understanding of who God is and what the gospel is. And so they were they were susceptible to falling for a counterfeit, more so than anybody with even a rudimentary theology would have been. A theologically equipped Christian can rebut false teachers with. Any one of the following questions. One, is that really what the passage means? So when you have someone quoting a passage of scripture and they're doing so in order to try to convince you of something that you haven't heard before, this is a good place to start. Is that really what the passage means? Another thing, does that interpretation fit the rest of Scripture? See, now you're forcing the person to do theology. Anybody can quote the Bible. I mean, we're probably only a century away from teaching chimps how to quote the Bible. But but we're not going to we're not going to then consider them authorities simply because they can parrot something out of the Bible. has historic Christianity understood this differently? If The faith was once for all delivered to the saints, as Jude three says, it follows that those saints carried on that tradition. So if you have a a view on a particular Bible verse or on some kind of biblical theological theme that is novel It is it is almost certainly wrong. because you're you're inferring, whether consciously or subconsciously, that two thousand years of Christians have gotten have been mistaken about something. And the more fundamental that teaching, the more unlikely that is the case. Another question What does this belief imply about God? Course that again moves the person directly into the realm of theology. If you quote a Bible verse out of particularly out of context, and then begin to make certain claims that don't sound right, make the person actually do theology. Make them actually show you how this would fit in with what you do know to be true. about Christianity in the Bible. Or finally, what does this imply about the gospel? what does this imply about the gospel? Again, if the gospel message is the most important thing about Christianity, and you and you hear something that sounds slightly off, you you can expose the false teacher relatively easily by getting them to show you how their particular view actually affects the gospel itself. Because We we need exceptional levels of discernment, especially in this day and age, where anybody, myself included, I'm sitting here doing it right now, putting a camera in front of me, hooking up a microphone and talking about my my thoughts. And if they're complete nonsense, how are you gonna know if they're complete nonsense or not if you don't have some s some truth that you are comparing them to. And so if we are going to keep ourselves from falling prey to the many false teachers, many wanta be cult leaders out there, then we're going to need to make sure that we understand and are discerning about everything that we're hearing. The third reason why theology matters is because theology determines our values. Theology isn't just about getting the gospel right and avoiding heretical teaching. Theology actually helps us align our values with the character of God. As an example, if God is sovereign, I can trust him when I don't understand what he's doing. When I when I don't understand whether or not my life is going in the right direction, when it seems like everything is pure chaos, if God is sovereign, then I can trust him with the future. If God is holy, then I must take sin seriously. If if sin is something that is by definition Something that is anti God, something that is working against God, then I have to make sure that I am doing everything in my power to combat sin because I'm trying I'm my my desire is to be reconciled to a perfectly holy God. If God is gracious, then I don't have to work so hard to earn his love. If if we being being sinful know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will our heavenly father give good gifts to his children? He is if he is abundantly more infinitely more gracious than we are, right? Then we don't we don't expect our children to earn our love. So of course God doesn't expect us to earn his love either. If God has truly forgiven me, then I can repent without ever believing that I'm beyond redemption. I can hold out that same hope for my wayward friends and family members if that is my belief about God. If the Holy Spirit indwells believers, then Christianity cannot merely be about following rules. It it is more about being remade into the likeness of Christ. If the church belongs to Christ, then I don't get to treat the church like a consumer product. Right? likewise, if the church is the bride of Christ, then we must be building her up into something that Jesus can be proud to walk down the aisle with, as it were. So getting any one of those things wrong is obviously detrimental not just to our beliefs about God, but actually figuring out what it is that we should value, how we should actually align our values. And that kind of fits closely with the fourth reason why theology matters, and is that theology gives us a practical framework for the Christian life. So not only does it it align our value systems, but it actually gives us so it gives us something to aim for, right? Because what we believe and and what we value has real implications on our daily lives. We have that that path that we can walk. Again, as an example God's grace leads to gratitude which leads to obedience. If God has graciously or if God has promised to graciously give us all things, then what what other what other more appropriate response could there be than to devote ourselves to the obedience of God's way of living? Rather than fear leading to performance which leads to spiritual exhaustion, which is where I came from, right? Fear led to performance, which just led to spiritual burnout. Like flipping flipping that mindset isn't just about getting information or getting a better goal orientation. Right. It it's it's actually gonna change practically how I walk through my life on a day to day basis. Because two people can perform exactly the same Christian quote unquote Christian behaviors motivated by entirely different understandings of who God is. Right? As an example, I spent a lot of my life going to church because I was afraid of what God would do if I didn't. Right? So I'm I'm I'm going to church because I'm afraid of God, more or less. Now I go to church because it is it is where I get to have a real encounter with. With the the gracious God who was willing to give his life for me. Both people are going to church, i. e. doing the Christian thing, but their motivations are completely different, and theology is what makes those motivations as disparate as they are. One person says I need to behave in a certain way in order to become acceptable to God, while the other person says I am a new creation in Christ, and I live there. out of that new identity each day by God's grace. Right? The two parties can do exactly the same things practically, but the theology is what actually makes the framework either Christian or something else. So this this distinction is only possible because of good theology. Your view of God only is what is what makes is the difference between you living living towards a gracious God or living in fear of one who just can't wait to, you know, crush you the first time you do something slightly out of line. And so that that is the fourth reason why theology is important. Now the most I don't know if this is the most the most common objection, but it's the most certainly it's the most common objection that I hear. And it is that theology divides Christians. We we we can't we can't do theology, right? Despite the the four reasons that I just gave why theology is crucial, but we can't do theology because theology divides Christians. While theology is crucial for distinguishing biblical truth. from falsehood and orienting the Christian life, it is true that theology has created disagreements between true Christians. So it's it's one thing to distinguish between true Christianity and other, but but what about when it begins to actually distinguish between people who are Genuine genuine disciples of Christ. Now this is admittedly an unfortunate byproduct of fallen people doing theology. However, not all disagreements about theology are bad. Some theological disagreements are extremely important, and for millennia Christians have distinguished between a few categories of theological beliefs. Where where I went to seminary at Western, it is taught this way that there are basically there are four levels of theology. You and they all begin with D, so it's easy to remember. You have truths that you are willing to die for. These are going to be things that are essential to the Christian faith. there is a God. That would be an example of i i if if you are a Christian, you are probably willing to die for the idea that there is a God. or that you know your your your your standard sort of like gospel truths, right? Some of them are basic like of course there there has to be a God or you don't really even have anything to theologize about. You're just an atheist. There are so there th those are the die for categories. The divide for is the second D, and it is those theological beliefs that make it very difficult to be in the same Christian community with a person who disagrees. An a a classic example, if you believe that children should be baptized let's say prior to their their eighth day, sort of because you're you're a paedo baptist and you believe that babies should be baptized. that is going to be a very difficult thing to reconcile with a church that believes that only believers should be baptized. That's I mean, I know I have at least I have heard of churches, particularly in very, very small communities, that that do both. Because they want to honor the preferences of Christians who disagree, but it's it's very difficult. So that's that's the divide for category. The debate for category is basically I'm I believe this to be true insofar as I'm willing to defend it against people who disagree with me. I'm willing to have a dis I'm willing to have a discussion about it. I'm going to I'm willing I'm willing to debate somebody about this. I'm we can be in the same church and we can do the same things on Sundays and you know, there's gonna be very little difference between us. But I believe this enough to actually have a good a good spirited conversation about it because I believe it to be true. And then the fourth level is decide for. And these are just doctrines that if you're if an interested party would just make a decision eventually. about how they feel about a particular topic. another way of looking at it would be to frame it in three categories. A essential beliefs, These are things things things Christianity cannot abandon without ceasing to be Christianity. a secondary belief is gonna be important doctrines where faithful Christians disagree. And then tertiary beliefs are gonna be issues where Christians can disagree, but without significant doctrinal consequences. So there's there's two different ways of kind of framing that sort of that performing that theological triage. Part of our Christian maturity is actually not only learning what we believe, but actually how important is that belief to my theology. So doing theology isn't about knowing everything. Because I've spent I just spent four years in seminary and would consider myself to be in many ways a theological beginner. The the goal isn't for every Christian to get to the level of a seminary professor. The goal is for every Christian to become increasingly capable of knowing what they believe. Knowing why they believe it and whether what they are being taught or what they are hearing is actually biblical. So the question is not do I need theology? The question is this is my theology true? If if you care about following Jesus, you should care about knowing that knowing the truth about Jesus. It isn't just enough to care about and and to be devoted to your idea of who Jesus is. What's important is that you are committed to who Jesus actually is. And and that requires theology. That is Theology.