Good Theology

This coming Sunday morning, we're going to be looking at 1 John 4:1-6, where John instructs his readers, his church to test the spirits to see if they are from God. How do we know if an idea, a teaching is from God or not? Can we be certain about anything? John says yes we can.

Perhaps you might be wondering why this is important. Why should we learn theology? Why should we familiarize ourselves with the scriptures?

Good theology is essential for understanding everyday events. Why do my parents make me, or encourage me to go to church? Why do bad things happen? How do we experience the joy of our salvation in light of our own sinfulness, or even in light of personal tragedy? A friend of mine blogged, "We are realizing from the inside the value of good, Gospel theology right now."

Theology, that is, logos (the study of) about theos (God), the study of God, is essential for putting all of life into perspective. Theology informs us that there is a God, and we are not Him. Theology tells us that we're not the most important thing in the universe, God is. Theology does tell us that we are important to God, that He loves us, and gave up His Son to die so that all who believe in Him will live with Him forever. Theology gives us truth, reality, and hope.

An unfortunate part of reality is that people reject the truth, sometimes with the best of intentions. Unable to reconcile tragedy with a good, loving God, they turn away from God, rather than try to understand the situation in light of God. For God does speak to every situation, if we're prepared to listen to Him, and not to the ideas and philosophies of the world. Sometimes people are influenced by the spirits of the world, and like the original sinner, Satan, they spread lies which on the surface of it appear to be truth (the lies are cleverly cloaked in snippets of truth).