I just read this article yesterday, “Why Theology and Youth Ministry Seldom Mix” and now I’m wondering what we would say Theology does mix with? Or does the study of God always hang out in its own category – in the same coffee shop where people who study God hang out?
Is the solution to our watered down youth programs more theology? Is theology something we can add in to the recipe of various ministries where some have enough, others too much, and others not enough?
Maybe theology is about living. Doesn’t it make sense that the more we study God the more we know what pleases Him and the more we delight to do it? So, our ministry (whether formal or otherwise) is not about balancing out the messy games with the exegesis of Romans. Ministry is just about inviting others into our study of God – finding out what pleases Him and delighting to do it together.
I once tried to come up with a word for this: viviology.
I know it doesn’t make sense and thank goodness I don’t work at Webster’s. But, as I read through Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas several years ago, I struggled to come up with a way to describe the kind of life Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived. He was so serious about theology. I mean, brilliance ran in the guy’s family so he would have excelled in whatever field he chose to pursue. The interesting piece is not that Bonhoeffer was brilliant as a theologian, but that he was brilliant as a mentor, friend, and pastor.
To Bonhoeffer, theology wasn’t something that he worked in to a lesson plan. Theology happened when he played soccer and wrote letters and read for hours. Theology happened when he was in prison and when he struggled through sin and when conviction led him to take a stand against injustice. Theology wasn’t an additive.
Theology – the truest kind, I think – is always mixed. In fact, it’s mixed so much that it can’t be pulled apart from all the pieces of life it connects. Ministry is about drawing others into a study of God so that we know what pleases Him and are delighted to do it together.
What will become of the library? This article by author and social change expert Seth Godin helps us navigate the evolving landscape of information systems. It’s not as “doomsday” as I thought… actually there is much hope for the library, if we understand and value the unique need it fills.
As long as we’re talking about books, check out this survey Tim Challies posted on his blog. The results are more than surprising… and worth a look. Here’s a sneak peek:
This article from the Gospel Coalition, “Making All Things New (Not all New Things)” by Pastor Tullian is such an encouragement. I can never be reminded of this too often.
I love this article, “The Sorting Table,” from the Curator about the grape harvest in Australia, even though sadness hangs over it like a blanket. It reminds me of my reflection about time inevitable march forward.
This article, “God of the Impossible,” from the Gospel Coalition is finally an example of what I’ve been trying to explain. Everyone takes in theology everyday. Maybe we don’t call it that and maybe we do, but the point is: we choose to expose our minds to certain beliefs, which in turn form a foundation on which to believe or filter everything else. There is no “throw away” knowledge. Every action has a reaction and every thought triggers another thought. The author, David Schrock, was persuaded by the first theologian who found a place on his night stand. For some people, the first theologian is Kierkegaard, others Donald Miller, and still others Martin Lloyd-Jones. What I love about this article is the beautiful reminder that theology is the study of God and we must remember that He is sovereign. I firmly believe that what we decide to think about, read, believe, discuss influences our theology… but I also believe God is sovereign and working in the midst of our human decisions. I praise God for that!
So, there’s a guy predicting the world will end on Saturday. This is Cal Thomas’s response in World Magazine.
Here is a great video from John Piper on Jesus’ strategy in Samaria. Piper says this story is in the Bible to encourage us in our pluralistic society.
If you think God might be tending to other, more important matters today, here is a very necessary reminder: you are the important matter. God is intimately involved in His creation and the process of our sanctification. He cares so deeply and is so relentless in His pursuit of us, that He offers a transformative grace to draw us into His presence.
Sometimes that grace confuses us because it isn’t peaceful and comfortable and full of relief. Sometimes it means getting broken… actually, I would say more times than not. Read this article by Paul Tripp about the beauty of grace and David’s prayer for broken bones to rejoice in Psalm 51.
He writes,
“Although our greatest personal need is to live in a life-shaping relationship with the Lord, as sinners we have hearts that have a propensity to wander. We very quickly forget God and begin to put ourselves or some aspect of the creation in his place. We soon forget that he’s to be the center of everything we think, desire, say and do…
It’s time for each of us to embrace, teach, and encourage others with the broken-bone theology of uncomfortable grace. Because as long as each of us still has sin living in us, producing a propensity to forget and wander, God’s grace will come to us in uncomfortable forms.”
Whether or not this title is earned, many people look to Christians for examples of ultimate hypocrisy (oh, how little has changed in thousands of years!) instead of examples of ultimate servants. I was reading this article over at the Desiring God blog and I really believe it’s a message we need to allow to take root in our hearts.
I’ll admit, Christians can be so stubborn and fearful about theology that we miss the point in living out what theology tells us. In our absence, others step in and try a hand at serving, loving, and giving without the power of redemption at the center. Their efforts, no matter how amazing, simply cannot take the place of life-altering redemption and a secure eternity.
The world is groaning (Romans 8:22) for redemption and (NEWSFLASH) Christians aren’t the only ones feeling the pains of childbirth. The human race, along with creation, is desperate to right the wrong condition of things.
But, there is only one option for redemption and that is through Christ. And in Christ alone I am qualified to do good works.
“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8 ESV)
If the God of the universe is making all grace abound to me, so that I may abound in every good work, I think it is important to seek out the work. Think of it – God is sufficient in all things and at all times and it is HE who makes me able to abound in every good work.
I believe God is calling us to Himself… calling us to obey… and calling us to live in the delight that will come as a result of our committed hearts (Ecclesiastes 5:20 and 2 Chronicles 16:9) working in day-to-day acts of service.
I want to live BELIEVING so strongly in God’s story of redemption that I wake up LOOKING for ways to abound in every good work. It’s not charity or public policy or brownie points… it’s simply life lived in the bounty of His grace to the glory of His name!
I scanned the last sentence of Eric Metaxas‘s Bonhoeffer and it was regret that stared back when I saw the next page titled, “NOTES.”
Over 500 pages of a beautiful submersion into a life lived completely and I find myself wishing the book were longer so that I could walk next to someone who understood how theology spilled out into and gave purpose to *viviology (knowledge, study, and act of life or living).
Few people, especially those blessed with academic minds, are able to meet the needs of the former without sacrificing the demands of the latter. Bonhoeffer refused to only stand behind a podium in the high brow, organized classrooms of universities and behind closed doors of churches. The more he learned and studied, the greater he felt pulled toward living out the Truth he so passionately taught.
I love how he didn’t abandon the books and the study to live among the people in radical opposition to his intellectual contemporaries’ expectations.
Bonhoeffer saw, in his travels to the United States, what could happen when people step away from Truth and place something else at the center. He traveled to the US first in 1930 to study and teach at Union University and then again briefly in 1939 to consider a teaching position. Both trips were filled with the realization that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is and will always at the center of Christianity. This is what he said during his first visit,
“The sermon has been reduced to parenthetical church remarks about newspaper events. As long as I’ve been here, I have heard only one sermon in which you could hear something like a genuine proclamation … One big question continually attracting my attention in view of these facts is whether one here really can still speak of Christianity, … There’s no sense to expect the fruits where the Word really is no longer being preached. But then what becomes of Christianity per se?
The enlightened American, rather than viewing all this with skepticism, instead welcomes it as an example of progress.
…
In New York, they preach about virtually everything; only one thing is not addressed, or is addressed so rarely that I have as yet been unable to hear it, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross, sin and forgiveness, death and life.”
It’s funny … how timely these words are today. Maybe “sad” better describes how far we’ve come since Bonhoeffer’s evaluation in 1930. We preach on “virtually everything” but what will reach, save, and transform lives. We preach on trees and health and wealth and all the ways the world is evil, but we don’t preach Christ. Could it be because we are scared of the price? Bonhoeffer’s approach to life was, in large part, informed by God’s approach to grace and discipleship.
We want the discounted version – the less painful, less costly kind of grace – but with the full benefits of its original value. In what he would call “cheap grace,” Bonhoeffer explains how we do ourselves a disservice in settling for something less than what God originally intended (by straying from Jesus Christ at the center of the Good News). In his book, “Cost of Discipleship,” he says,
“cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”
We’ve created a grace that strips it of all its power. When we’re done sermonizing, what we’ve given people is at best hollow and full of despair. There is no life in it. In contrast, is this costly grace:
“costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” “
I still cannot figure out how Bonhoeffer merged his knowledge with his life, but I can certainly see that he did. For three months in 1931, he conducted confirmation classes in rough neighborhood of Wedding. He took the post shortly after being ordained and the zeal with which he approached the class of fifty boys might have been characteristic of a new minister, but the care and perseverance he applied in every aspect of his teaching was unique. His life with those boys emphasized community and sacrifice. The textbook was not drudgery, opened with great pain and resistance. The Text was carried around in their hearts and gave the greatest joy to its living out.
Even as the very church he helped to build up (The Confessing Church) failed to stand for Truth when it mattered most, Bonhoeffer’s resolve grew only stronger. He believed that he had been “grasped” by God – that he had been chosen for something. But, that something was only important because of (and dependent on) the God who decides to break through and use people, sermons, and situations for His glorious purposes.
He resolved to not only preach Christ and Him crucified, as Paul declared in his letter to the church in Corinth, but he endeavored to LIVE in obedience to Christ’s costly call to follow as a disciple.
How do we marry Theology and *Vivology?
I think it means knowing the Word so well it becomes a part of you. I think it means keeping your bookshelves loaded and guarding time for study, even if technically no longer a student. I think it means dedicating uninterrupted times of prayer. I think it means loving Truth because you believe in your deepest soul it redeems and reveals life. I think it means fellowship around campfires and crazy games of soccer. I think it means coffee and conversation and debate. I think it means keeping Jesus Christ at the center – recognizing that every good gift is only good because God wills it to be so.
And, I think it means delighting in this life. I think it means being deliberate about our thanksgiving – walking in each day knowing that God’s glory is what shines bright to reveal He is at the center.
I must end this musing here, but I promise I will continue to ponder.
Until then, would you, with me,
.let LOVE FLY like cRaZY.
*I might have just made up this word, but give me credit because it’s got two parts that should work together – viv is the latin/greek root word meaning “live” and ology is a suffix used to describe bodies of knowledge. I’m trying to say that, just like we aspire to grasp theology, we must also pursue a grasp of vivology and a combination of the two. What is knowledge of God without a life lived out as a result of that knowledge? And really, how does one know about ‘living,’ exactly?
MUSINGS IN THE MIDST 