There are a lot of remarks people make that can discourage or frustrate me.<\/p>
\u201cWe\u2019re leaving the church.\u201d<\/p>
\u201cI got a detention.\u201d<\/p>
\u201cThe doctor just called, and it\u2019s not good.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>
One that really gets me is when a Christian says: \u201cYeah, well, I\u2019m just not a theologian. You study theology. I just want a relationship with God.\u201d<\/em><\/p>
Here\u2019s the truth: If you are alive, you are a theologian; that is, you have beliefs about God.<\/strong> Now, your theology may not be specialized (Systematic, Reformed, Historical, etc.). Your theology might even be \u201cGod doesn\u2019t exist.\u201d But you are a theologian, and that means that theology is important for you<\/em> and it should be important to you<\/em>.<\/p>
Let me give you just two reasons for why studying\/learning biblical theology is a good thing. The first I\u2019ll take from another writer. The second will come from Scripture.<\/p>
1. Learning biblical theology is learning what God said about himself.<\/strong><\/p>
\u201cJust as with human relationships, a divine-human relationship cannot begin without knowledge of some minimal truths about the Person; then the personal relationship generates the desire to know more facts, which in turn deepens the relationship, and so on. This kind of cycle ought to be the experience of every student of theology; a knowledge about God should deepen our relationship with Him, which in turn increases our desire to know more about Him.\u201d<\/p>
Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology (p. 28)<\/p><\/blockquote>
For me, sitting down and reading the Bible (not for study or teaching prep, just reading) is like having coffee with an old friend. There\u2019s just something \u201cgood\u201d about it. But part of a strong, growing friendship is probing each other for knowledge and insight into each other\u2019s worlds. You can have coffee with an acquaintance; a friendship takes much more.<\/p>
God wants to be far more than just your acquaintance or Savior or God. A strong relationship with God does not happen without learning biblical theology at some level. Knowing him better leads to loving him more.<\/p>
2. Studying biblical theology is God\u2019s will for every Christian.<\/strong><\/p>
\u201c[God] wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth<\/strong>.\u201d 1 Timothy 2:4<\/p>
\u201cGrow in the grace and knowledge<\/strong> of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.\u201d 2 Peter 3:18<\/p><\/blockquote>
In case the practical side didn\u2019t quite do it for you, here\u2019s the other side. God not only wants you to have<\/span> a strong friendship with him, he wants you to want<\/span> a strong friendship with him. So, by command, he encourages us, \u201cLearn about Me. Grow in your knowledge about Me.\u201d<\/p>
And just to make sure that we had no excuses, he gave us 1) the written Bible to read and study on our own; 2) the Holy Spirit to provide insight and cause growth; and 3) human teachers to teach us directly and answer our questions.<\/p>
So, what\u2019s holding you back from being the theologian that God wants you to be?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are a lot of remarks people make that can discourage or frustrate me. \u201cWe\u2019re leaving the church.\u201d \u201cI got a detention.\u201d \u201cThe doctor just called, and it\u2019s not good.\u201d One that really gets me is when a Christian says: \u201cYeah, well, I\u2019m just not a theologian. You study theology. I just want a relationship […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[103,104],"tags":[25,20],"class_list":["post-1268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discipleship","category-theology","tag-1timothy","tag-2peter"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"gutentor_comment":2,"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"widget-thumbnail":false,"rpwe-thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_single":false,"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Daniel Goepfrich","author_link":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/author\/dgoepfrich\/"},"uagb_comment_info":2,"uagb_excerpt":"There are a lot of remarks people make that can discourage or frustrate me. \u201cWe\u2019re leaving the church.\u201d \u201cI got a detention.\u201d \u201cThe doctor just called, and it\u2019s not good.\u201d One that really gets me is when a Christian says: \u201cYeah, well, I\u2019m just not a theologian. You study theology. I just want a relationship…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}