At Tennent, we are passionate about helping believers connect the dots between theology and doxology (worship), between the intricacies of biblical study and the feet-on-the-pavement way we live out our faith. Can you find connections between Leviticus and, say, youth ministry? Between Moses and missions? If you would like to learn more about integrating your understanding of the Bible with your personal worship or your ongoing ministry, check out Tennent’s philosophy of education. We would love to help you worship God with all of your heart and soul, mind and strength.
“I firmly believe people have hitherto been a great deal too much taken up about doctrine and far too little about practice. The word ‘doctrine,’ as used in the Bible, means teaching of duty, not theory.” This was the view of George MacDonald, the Victorian writer and pastor who inspired many Christian literary giants—C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and G.K. Chesterton among them. It’s easy to see why such a viewpoint still holds traction. God’s thoughts are indisputably higher than our thoughts about Him, so our theological constructs are always limited. As C.S. Lewis would later quip, “But of course these conjectures as to why God does what He does are probably of no more value than my dog’s ideas of what I am up to when I sit and read.”
MacDonald and Lewis both recognized how little they knew, how much there remained to learn. MacDonald in particular seems to impatiently echo Paul: “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (I Col. 13:2). MacDonald—and Paul—remind us that head knowledge without corresponding action—love—is worthless. They are, of course, right. Our doctrine might be ever so neat and tidy, but loveless orthodoxy is lifeless.
Any theology that fails to lead to loving action must have some serious cracks in the foundation. Is our teaching built on the teaching of Jesus? If we take seriously the precept that was uppermost to Christ (“you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength…. You shall love your neighbor as yourself” Mark 12:29-31), then our doctrine will display itself in love. Coupled with John’s (frightening) admonition, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (I John 4:8), it’s evident that knowledge without increasing love is no knowledge at all.
Loveless theology isn’t just missing the love, it’s missing the theology.
The problem, then, is not that studying theology is a waste of time, but that bad theology, like bad seeds, will never sprout. Nor, for that matter, will good theology, if learning the talking points is merely a shallow intellectual exercise. We don’t need to study less, we need lively doctrine, engaging both heart and mind.
We need to study more.
And yet the idea circulates that theological study is futile. Why study the ineffable God? Many a modern Christian seems to gravitate towards chucking doctrine, perceiving the pride and folly of claiming to know with our small brains what can only be understood by our omniscient Father. Rather than advocating a heaping helping of humility, some are seduced by a false dichotomy: doctrine or mercy, doctrine or mystery, doctrine or mission.
Mercy
There’s a great little verse tucked into the book of Micah which has been printed on a thousand tee shirts:
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly, To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8, NKJV).
The prophetic emphasis on action is appealing to a get-her-done culture. Don’t just stand around spouting wisdom, do something. Change the world. Seek justice. Bring shalom.
Better, the thinking goes, to get our heads out of books and our feet out in the street.
But the biblical call to action in no way diminishes the importance of theological reflection. Jesus himself was renowned as a teacher whose knowledge of theology and Scripture astounded other rabbis (Matthew 13:54, Luke 2:46-47). On the contrary, the study of God enriches our service. To press in to know the God of love and justice must result in greater motivation to love and serve, and a more nuanced, effective approach to ministry. Good theology married to mercy elevates temporary kindness to an eternal game-changer.
If we desire to do justly and to love mercy, we would do well to seek to know “the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty” (Exodus 34:6).
Mystery
No doubt God has wired us all in different ways, and not everyone is naturally inclined to study. For the scholar, comfortable with definitions and categories, poets and artists have much to offer: a posture of humility, awe, and a glorious vision of the mystery that surrounds God. For the dreamer, skeptical of black and white and enchanted by new perspectives, the theologian offers opposite gifts: lessons from history learned the hard way, boundaries, a compass.
The Christian call to pursue knowing our transcendent God presents one of the great paradoxes. We admit that he is higher, that his ways and purposes are shrouded in mystery, that he is blindingly bright, that we see through a glass darkly. Why then, do we fill libraries with books attempting to understand him? Not because we can pin him down, quantify him, predict his next move, or even work out which subset of humanity is on the right team.
We study because there is no higher subject, no greater beauty. He is sublime, and worthy of eternal contemplation. We dig in, because there is no time to lose.
Mission
I met an aspiring missionary who was scornful of seminary. What a waste of time when there are countless individuals who have never heard the gospel! He was full of zeal; his passion for the lost, if bottled, could spark a movement. But his energy was one-sided, all going and little knowing—a spark without sustaining fuel.
How can we make God known when we don’t know him ourselves?
A passion to know God, to explore the forests of Genesis and Job and John, to listen intently to men and women whose hard work and intellect have mapped out the far reaches of the theological landscape, this is how to gather the slow-burning hardwood which will warm the church for a generation. The less we know, the less we pass on.
In the lead-up to the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s, evangelistic fervor was not lacking. Christians, fretting about vast unchurched regions of the western US, were amazed and delighted when revival began sweeping across the country. But as J.P. Moreland has demonstrated, in the wake of that amazing movement, charismatic new leaders, untaught, launched heretical offshoots of Christianity—cults that persist in leading many people astray even today. The zeal was commendable, but the lack of corresponding commitment to truth was a fatal flaw.
Known
MacDonald argued that we are a “great deal too much taken up about doctrine.” But perhaps we have been a great deal too quick to ignore theology, when the study of God is the highest aim for any thinking person.
To borrow words from Paul, “not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Philippians 3:12).
Why press on to know the Lord? Because we are fully known, deeply loved, and invited to know him in return. What grace.
Catherine Morgan serves as the Director of Communications for Tennent. She is the author of Thirty Thousand Days, Sparrow, and Suddenly Schooling: A Survival Guide for Panicky Parents. She and her husband, Michael, live in Colorado, where they are watching as their kids (with alarming speed) leave the nest.