What makes good theology

Unfortunately, this mode of thinking has found its way into Christian faith, preaching, and worship. One hears sermons for spiritual—or even material! We start to view God in terms of ourselves: We are weak, so God becomes strong; we are lonely, so God becomes our friend; we lack knowledge, so God becomes the cosmic answer.

Christian faith acknowledges a God who discloses to us our true weakness—sin—and sovereignly acts in Christ to reconcile us to God and to each other. As the community of this God, the church is not a community of self-help instruction but a place of missionary self-giving. Many people find comfort in the belief that God is in complete control of our lives. Perhaps it is no surprise that, in an age of political chaos fueled by an inability to find common ground, we find assurance in a Cosmic Decider that makes such clear and final decisions.

Viewed abstractly, we have here another version of the self-help deity—one who seemingly meets our needs and solves all our problems. Naked sovereignty leaves us with no confidence in who this God really is and whether God loves us and will be faithful to us. A second look at the New Testament calls into question the notion of two wills in God.

While eating is a restorative and often pleasurable experience, it is finally aimed at a purpose beyond itself. We eat in order to live. The same holds true in the Christian life. Christians are never fed simply for their own benefit but always on behalf of others. We are convinced that engaging in careful theological thought is an essential task of the Christian life. We can no more abandon theology than we can abandon God, since theology is involved in some fashion whenever we think or speak about God.

Consequently, every person is a theologian. The only question is whether we will be thoughtful, responsible theologians or irresponsible ones. The journey of Christian discipleship is a matter of learning why we believe, and thinking hard and carefully about this belief, not so that we can bludgeon others with our knowledge but so that we can bear faithful witness to God in the totality of our life. Theology is less about the what and much more about the how. You are commenting using your Twitter account.

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Skip to content What makes a good systematic theology? Comprehensive For systematic theology to be comprehensive means that it looks to see what scripture, as a whole, teaches about specific topics. Coherent Organization This aspect of systematic theology looks at all the details that scripture gives us and attempts to see how they are all tied together.

Done for the Glory of God Finally, we must realize the systematic theology is done for the Glory of God. Eaton Disclaimer: I have used the list above in my teaching for the last years. Like this: Like Loading Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:.

Email required Address never made public. Name required. Follow Following. The Fight of Faith Join other followers. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Log in now. Loading Comments This book seeks to answer this question by looking at 5 core aspects of Christianity: the Trinity, the Son of God, the Spirit, the church, and heaven and hell. Therefore, theology is nothing other than the doctrine of living for God through Christ.

There are, to me, five foundational pillars in the Christian faith. Put simply, the Christian faith is defined as that which is:. These are doctrines that we do not simply believe, but also ones that we respond to in faith. Our thankfulness towards God for his saving acts towards us is impossible apart from a knowledge of what Christ has done for us.

We live for Christ because Christ lived and died for us. As such, our Christian lives are Christ-focused. The work he does for us in its kind is as great as those of the Father or the Son. Do we live in awareness of our utter dependence on the Holy Spirit for our salvation?

If we are taught about the glories of the Spirit and his connection to the work of the Father and the Son, then perhaps our desire to be inhabited by him will increase; which should ordinarily give us a greater Christian experience and godlier living for God. The place where we typically learn about the glorious truths of the Christian faith is the church. I want to point out to you a correct way of studying theology, for I've had practice in that.

If you keep to it, you will become so learned that you yourself could if it were necessary write books just as good as those of the fathers and councils. This is the way taught by holy King David and doubtlessly used also by all the patriarchs and prophets in Psalm There you will find three rules, amply presented throughout the whole psalm: prayer oratio , meditation meditatio , and affliction tentatio.

First, you should know that the Holy Scriptures constitute a book that turns the wisdom of all other books into foolishness, because not one teaches about eternal life except this one alone. Therefore you should straightway despair of your reason and understanding. With them you will not attain eternal life, but, on the contrary, your presumptuousness will plunge you and others with you out of heaven as happened to Lucifer into the abyss of hell.

But kneel down in your room and pray to God with real humility and earnestness as David did , that he through his dear Son may give you his Holy Spirit, who will enlighten you, lead you, and give you understanding. Second, you should meditate not only in your heart, but also externally, by actually repeating and comparing oral speech and literal words of the book, reading and rereading them with diligent attention and reflection, so you may see what the Holy Spirit means by them.

Take care you do not grow weary or think you have done enough when you have read, heard, and spoken them once or twice, and that you then have complete understanding. You'll never be a particularly good theologian if you do that, for you will be like untimely fruit which falls to the ground before it is half ripe. God will not give you his Spirit without the external Word.