Theology is Lived

Theology is not something that is found primarily in text books. Theology is something that is lived.

You see there is a great connection between living and theological belief. You cannot separate living and believing.

Theology is often thought of as something in academic life or something one reads in a book. But really you see for someone studying the discipline it is really something lived.

You wonder why some theologians are so great in preaching and teaching and you often see why when you look at their life. You see theology is about knowledge but we can only truly understand theology by living.

Often the theology of academics is very dull. Why? Often they have not lived much. It is not their fault their profession is far more time consuming than most full time positions. They have little time to get out of theology in the class room and text book.

Theology is something that only truly forms by living and by interacting with the world. You see we can be a part of the world but not really engage it or live in it if we are too busy. This is the case with academia at many times.

Simply the theology has not entered the world in a real sense and the theology is poorer for it. Truly strong theology needs to have interacted with the issues of the day and seen the world.

We need to be different from the world of course, but if theology has never set foot into the world than it is very theoretical in nature. And theology is not as much of a theoretical discipline as it is thought. It is a discipline of living well in the world before God.

This is what is meant that as Christians we are to "be in the world but not of the world." You see if we isolate ourselves from the world we fail to follow the commands of Jesus. This is one flaw of many Christian groups who try to isolate themselves more and more from the world.

Often there are groups who err in the opposite way and move into the world and forget that they are to be separate. You see we are to be set apart as we are in the world.