Doing Theology

A key aspect of doing theology is to always remember that theology is intended for worship. A lot of theology starts to go offtrack when it begins to analyse the subject apart from the way the subject was intended to be studied (i.e. faith).

Much of Liberal theology results in a fashion such as this. The first step is to study the bible by reason alone apart from faith. This is of course exactly the opposite of the intent of scripture.

How you look at things depends on what you see! If you see the Lord of Heaven and earth standing at the top of a hill speaking the words of eternal life to you then you will hear one thing. If you are simply looking at a text written 2,000 years ago and using reason alone then you will see something completely different.

The reality is that faith is not separate from reason. In fact faith is based on reason. But if reason becomes convinced that God himself is speaking to oneself, it becomes a very different sort of listening.

If God is speaking to you and you are having a difference of opinion with God then one needs to look deeply inside oneself to see if it is rational to disagree with such a being. If God is who he says he is and he has a word for you and that word is found in scripture then when God speaks to you and you do not like he says the correct approach is to say "Lord have mercy on me a sinner."

Is man greater than God? No! But many men wish to think that by their reason they can out think God. Or as if "God says" is simply not enough reason to end an argument.

Of course it is always imperative to confirm that God has actually said what people say he has. Many people have made claims about Christianity that are very hard to substantiate from the bible. But if in fact God did say it then it is a great folly to stand toe to toe against the Living God.