Introduction
You have probably heard different versions of the following statements:
Don’t try to impress people with your theology.
People need more than theology.
We don’t need all that theology. We just need to love God and love others.
To be sure, people can absolutely be theological jerks. The Christian is not merely an intellectual being (though certainly not less). And our theology is nothing if it does not lead us to love God and others.
But to pit theology against Christian growth, Christian maturity, and necessary for the Church is anti-biblical and goes completely against Church History.
The Dangerous Implications
There are a number of implications that have happened and are happening as a result of rejecting theology in the Church. Since most people skim-read blogs, I’ll structure this in a list for easier reading:
Rejecting growth in theology rejects what Jesus prays in John 17:3 “And this is eternal life that they might know you the one true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” See Michael Horton’s Core Christianity.
Rejecting growth in theology rejects a basic Scriptural premise of delighting in God: “Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in Him” (Ps. 111:2). See John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion.
Rejecting theology is the first step to caving on ethics. See John Frame’s The Doctrine of the Christian Life.
Rejecting theology is the first step to losing the purpose of ministry. See Harold Senkbeil’s The Care of Souls.
Rejecting theology is to reject the purpose of preaching. See David Strain’s Expository Preaching and Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ Preaching & Preachers.
Rejecting theology results in functionally embracing heresies (beginning with the Trinity, the Person & Work of Christ, and then the doctrine of Man). See Jameison & Wittman’s Biblical Reasoning.
Rejecting theology is contrary to sanctification since faith grows by hearing the Word of God (John 17:17; Romans 10:17). See Michael Horton’s Calvin on the Christian Life. See also Timothy Ward’s Words of Life.
Rejecting theology is what the Colossians were reprimanded for and why Paul wrote that letter for them to stay focused on the gospel.
Rejecting theology is what led to the many problems at Corinth (including their pride in knowledge over love because when theology is done right then we will see that true knowledge overflows into true love). Notice that Paul writes a highly theological letter in both 1 & 2 Corinthians to deal with their issues.
Rejecting theology is what leads us to build a group around a different purpose than the purpose of Scripture. This can lead to us caving in on certain convictions because we will have a bigger goal of keeping a gathering. Rejecting theology will lead us to build a group that focuses on our political views or ethnic groups over the gospel. This will be seen in a true lack of unity amidst diversity (that only the gospel of grace truly produces). See Voddie Baucham’s Fault Lines.
Rejecting theology is what has led the American Church to put more of its focus on science, psychology, and sociology. This is NOT to say that there is no place for studying and interacting with these areas. On the contrary, theology done well will not only promote the study of these disciplines but it will also promote the right study of these disciplines which will then better help our societies. Theology gives us the proper foundation. By rejecting theology we have built on the foundation of science, psychology, and sociology. A clear evidence of this is seen in how lots of “Christian” counseling has more and more left out the sufficiency of the gospel and pastors are being told more and more to only refer people to trained therapists. For more on this, see David Powlison’s The Pastor As Counselor. Also see Michael Horton’s Christless Christianity, Paul Tripp’s Instruments In The Redeemer’s Hands, David Powlison’s Seeing With New Eyes, Heath Lambert’s A Theology For Biblical Counseling, and Bob Kellemen’s Scripture and Counseling.
Rejecting theology has led us to reject thousands of years of soul care in favor of the latest psychological trends. For more on this, see Thomas Oden’s four volume Classical Pastoral Care.
Rejecting theology has led pastors to feed their people less and less on Sundays beginning with cancelling Sunday evening worship, Sunday school, midweek gatherings, prayer meetings, and the like. See Sinclair Ferguson’s Devoted to God’s Church. Also see Robert Godfrey’s comments here.
Rejecting theology has led scores of people to reject the biblical identity of saint, sinner, and sufferer in favor of a sufferer-only mentality. See Michael Emlet’s Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners.
Rejecting theology has led Christians to majoring on the minors and minoring on the majors. See William Still’s The Work of the Pastor.
Rejecting theology has caused us to reject true knowledge of self and has led us to be more enamored by personality tests than God’s Word. See Kevin DeYoung’s blog post here.
Rejecting theology has caused many Christians to struggle with assurance of salvation since the emphasis today is put less on God’s Word and more on our current emotional state. See Justin Perdue & Jon Moffitt’s Rest. See also: Carl Trueman Luther on the Christian Life, Randall Zachman’s The Assurance of Faith, Joel Beeke’s Knowing and Growing in Assurance, Thomas Brooks’ Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, and Bob Kellemen’s Counseling Under the Cross.
Rejecting theology is what led to “The Dark Ages” and recovering theology is what led to the Reformation (and all great revivals). Today, rejecting theology is what has led to our increasingly secular age and worldliness in the Church. See Vanhoozer & Strachan’s The Pastor As Public Theologian.
Rejecting theology has led us to desire little of Jesus and become more enamored with us being God (even if we don’t say that but it is seen in our general self-obsession today). See Michael Reeves’ Rejoicing in Christ.
To reject growing in our knowledge of theology is like getting married and then saying to your spouse, “I don’t want to get to know you anymore. I’m fine just having this status.” Would we ever conclude that this is truly loving your spouse or your children?
Are We Truly Reformed?
How different was John Calvin. If something, Calvin brought theology back. The Church plummeted into the spiritual “Dark Age” (though not altogether dark) when the Word was no longer translated into the modern languages and theology was no longer pursued. Luther, Calvin, Knox, Bucer, Melanchthon, Zwingli and many more brought about the Reformation by recovering the Word of God and bringing theology back. It was during this Reformation that light shone in darkness, numerous conversions happened, Christians began to mature more, and societies changed.
The Reformation brought back true theology. True theology produces humility rather than being the obnoxious “totally reformed” (though some people are accused of being “TR” merely when they have any theological convictions). Calvin said, “Without humility, self-knowledge serves pride and is the root of all error in philosophy.”
Doing theology, especially that of Reformed theology, must lead us to bearing the fruit of the Spirit. Truly doing theology is doing it in such a way that is truth in love (Eph. 4:15), compassionate (Lk. 7:36-50; Lk. 15), gentle (Ga. 6), patient with others (Rom. 14), grace-driven (Ps. 51), and God-centered (Rom. 11). Those who run people over, are harsh in their dealings, impatient with those they interact with, and take pride in their knowledge are not true theologians. They do no show us that knowing theology is wrong but rather that those people don’t truly know theology well. Those who never show the implications of our theology for real life aren’t doing theology rightly.
The Reformers not only gave us the matter of biblically sound theology but they also did it in a manner that was biblically sound. To reject emphasizing theology is to reject being Reformed.
We tend to reverse what Calvin says in Institutes I. 1. 3. when he writes, “Yet, however the knowledge of God and of ourselves may be mutually connected, the order of right teaching requires that we discuss the former first, then proceed afterward to treat the latter.” How often we seem more ready to discuss the knowledge of ourselves before even thinking about the knowledge of God and His gospel.
To be truly reformed is to bring back theology done in a biblical way. Without this, we will fail to know God, see numerous conversions, advance Christian maturity, and lastingly change societies.
What It Means To Be Reformed
Once again, let me structure this in a list for easier reading:
To truly know God is seen in devoting our lives to God. Simultaneously, there can be no devotion to God if we do not know God as God has revealed Himself.
To be a true theologian is to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit, repenting of the fruit of the flesh, and using our theology to restore the ones who have strayed, bring sinners to the grace of Christ, and to bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 5-6).
To be a true theologian is to protect the Church from false teachers who would seek to lead us astray even though they might have “good” intentions.
To be Reformed is to bring back an emphasis of deep theology richly applied to all of life.
To be Reformed means to saturate (not merely just mention a couple of times) our sermons in the gospel of grace and to show the sufficiency of Christ for all of life.
To be Reformed means to bring back the centrality of the preached Word and the Sacraments.
To be Reformed means to put work into our sermon preparation as we think hard about what the text says, how the text says it, who the text was written to, how the text applies to the people we’re preaching to, and how to preach it in such a way that is easy for them to understand. Little effort in sermon preparation is against the emphasis Scripture puts on it.
To be Reformed is to restore a God-centeredness to our preaching. The Triune God is the main character of every sermon rather than us. Yes, we obviously preach about us but the main character in this covenant relationship is God.
To be a true theologian, and a Reformed theologian at that, is to focus on the sufficiency of the gospel of grace rather than the current ideologies and trending ideas.
To be a true theologian is to major on the majors and minor on the minors.
To be a true Reformed theologian means that our primary goal is the glory of God as seen in the gospel and building His Church around Him and His truth. The goal is God’s glory and the by-product (or result) is “building a group”.
To be a true theologian is to see the sufficiency of Scripture (not that it says all things about all things) as the foundational lens through which we analyze all things. For counseling, ethics, discipleship, preaching, godly leadership, and soul care Scripture is sufficient. It is sufficient for all of life and godliness.
To be a true theologian is to introduce people to actual biblical terms and doctrines (yes, even terms like “Trinity” that might not be said verbatim in Scripture but that accurately describe what is portrayed in Scripture). We don’t reject using theological words but we also explain what we mean and what we don’t mean.
To be a true theologian is to also show people how modern worldviews and ideologies do not match up with Scripture. It means to interact with the modern cultural ideas to see where there might be consistency and yet where there is disconnect. Neither should be neglected. This is not saying that there is nothing good in the world (which would be to reject the doctrine of common grace & natural revelation) but at the same time realizing that Jesus and the biblical writers frequently warned us about be catechized by the world (Deut. 18:9-14; Joshua 1; Ezra 10:11; Daniel 1-6; Matt. 13:22; Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23; and the entire letter of 1 John).
Embracing true theology is what will grow ethical character.
Recovering theology is what will bring depth to our knowledge of God which therefore will bring more enjoyment of our God, freedom in the gospel, steadfastness amidst suffering, courage despite persecution, assurance amidst spiritual trials, and rock-solid identity in an identity-lost world.
Recovering biblical theology will be the anchor amidst the storm of changing times. We will better be able to interpret what is happening to the Church when we see it through the lens of our unchanging theology.
Recovering Reformed theology is what truly leads to peace of conscience. Man-centered emphases (even when people can say they’re Reformed) only causes us to become more self-absorbed. Reformed theology grounds us in the promises of God as our true reality regardless of the season of life.
Holding fast to Reformed theology will help us deal more efficiently with the identity crisis that is rampant inside and outside the Church. We will recover the primary emphasis of being “in Christ” while embracing the saint, sinner, and sufferer identity (all three at the same time for the believer). All other identities are secondary compared to being in Christ (Ga. 2:20; 3:28). And it is this ultimate identity that brings true unity amidst diversity. It is also what will bring humble confession of our sins while holding onto the greater fact that our sin does not define us nor should define us because while we are sinner we are even more so saint (Rom. 6, 7, & 8).
Recovering true theology will actually bring people to hear something real. People are leaving churches because they are not hearing the gospel. Preachers (myself included) are too worried about being liked than about proclaiming gospel truth. No, we do not become theological jerks (as mentioned earlier that is not true theology). But, we speak the truth in love. That is what transforms people. That is what God uses to build His Church.
Recovering true Reformed theology will placard Jesus before all eyes. Jesus will be the main focus. Jesus will be who saturates all ministry. People will walk away from sermons saying, “That Jesus of that text is the most amazing Person I have ever seen.”