History in 1,000 Words

Below is a post from Crossway Called The History of Christian Theology in 1,000 Words written by Gerald Bray, author of God Has Spoken: A History of Christian Theology (October 2014).

Theology is essentially the way in which the Christian church has received the Word of God revealed to us in the Bible and in Jesus Christ. The early church inherited the Hebrew Scriptures (our Old Testament) and accepted them as a true picture of who God is and what he is like. He is absolutely unique and sovereign over everything that exists, which he created out of nothing and for a purpose.

Furthermore, he gave human beings the right to rule in his name and established them in fellowship with himself. Nonetheless, our first parents were tempted away by Satan and sinned against God. The rest of the biblical story recounts how God’s plan to deal with this rebellion, first by choosing a special people for himself (Israel) and then by giving them prophets to teach them how to respond to him.

The first Christians inherited all of this from their Israelite forbears. However, in the person and work of Jesus Christ they came to a new and deeper experience of God. In the Old Testament, God appeared as One, dwelling among his people yet remaining largely unapproachable. He was the fire in the burning bush that could not be touched. He was present in the Holy of Holies, which was off limits to all but the high priest, who himself could only enter the inner sanctuary but once a year.
In Christ, all this changed.

Jesus broke down the barriers separating God from his people, revealing more about who he is and how he works. Believers are now seated in the heavenly places, with access to God’s presence through the indwelling Spirit of the Son, who comes from the Father. The Christian experience of God is therefore Trinitarian.

The person of the Father was the focus of Jesus’s ministry. He taught his disciples to think of God as Father, because otherwise they could not have understood Jesus as the Son. The Aramaic word ‘Abba’ (Father) was so characteristic of Jesus that it is preserved in the Gospels as a reminder of him.

Next came the work of the Father, who was understood as both the Creator and the Redeemer. There were people who thought that this was impossible, because, if a perfect God had created the world, the world would also be perfect and would not need redemption. They therefore concluded that the Creator was an inferior deity, whose work was perfected by the Father of Jesus Christ. If that idea had been accepted, the Old Testament would have been rejected as the revelation of a lesser being. Jesus would not have fulfilled its promises, but overturned its false teaching. This idea was contrary to his purposes, and so the early church had to reject it by insisting that evil is not intrinsic to creation, and that the God who made us is the same God who saves us.

Hierarchies of Truth

I love C. Michael Patton's charts! This is a good one - Fundamentalists, Liberals, and Evangelicals Charted 

Tuesday night, at “Coffee and Theology” at the Credo House, I taught what might very well be the most important lesson I have ever taught for “Coffee and Theology.” It was over the necessity of creating a hierarchy of belief, helping people learn to distinguish between essentials and non-essentials, cardinal beliefs and non-cardinal beliefs, those things that we should be willing to die for and those things that are less important.

My goal during people’s initial exposure to this subject is not to tell them what the essentials and non-essentials are, but to help them understand that these categories exist in Christianity. Beliefs matter very much in our faith, but not all beliefs matter equally. Part of the discipleship process of any Christian is to begin to work through these differences.

Here is the basic “Concentric Circle of Importance” that I often teach from. I have used it here many times on this blog.



The very center circle represents those issue of the faith that are “of first importance.” Paul spoke in such terms in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8. “Of first importance” for Paul was the person and work of Christ. Who Christ is and what he did come before all else.

Instead of filling in this chart with all that I believe fit in each circle (an impossible task to do exhaustively), I want to show this how this chart might look in differing traditions...

Read it all at the link.

Worth a Look

Some links that are worth a look:

How Protestants Can Justify the Doctrinal Development of the Reformation

Links in a Chain - Lisa Allen's Amazing Life

The Blogs, the Battles & the Gospel (Rules for Internet Controversies)

Five Signs We Might Take Ourselves Too Seriously

The New Pope: Novelty Following Precedent (A very good analysis)

Luis Palau's Friendship with New Pope Francis

A Gay Man Come Out Against Same Sex Marriage

Why Do We Recite the Apostle's Creed

Heretical Steps

Seven steps to becoming a heretic

(but if you really want to become one, you can probably do it without any help).
 

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Fighting Fair

From The Sacred Sandwich

The Harold Camping Follies (Continued)

Based on this latest update post from Robert Godfrey, I must conclude that Mr. Harold Camping (the end of the world on May 21, 2011 billboard guy) is even more off the theological reservation than I had earlier thought. Please see The End of the World According to Harold Camping (Part 5) by W. Robert Godfrey at Ligonier Ministries Blog. I knew Camping was off in his date setting for the judgment day, as well as his wacky numerology approach to interpreting the Scriptures. However, I did not  know that he is also teaching non-evangelical things about salvation and the nature of God. Godfrey concludes:

"Camping’s presentation of God’s mercy is from beginning to end unbiblical and unchristian. He has no Trinity, no cross, no faith alone in Jesus alone, and no assurance. His vision of God and mercy is more Muslim than Christian. If Camping still believes in the Trinity, in Jesus and his cross, and in justification by faith alone, then his recent teaching shows that he is a failure as a teacher of the Gospel and his call to repentance lacks enough content for sinners to find salvation in Jesus."

I suggest that everyone should avoid Camping and his teachings like a spiritual plague!

It Matters

"...American evangelicals must curb the decline of doctrinal concern in our midst and recapture the teaching responsibility of the church. Doctrine without piety is dead, but piety without doctrine is immature at best, and inauthentic at worst. Faithful Christians are always concerned with the development of true Christian piety and discipleship in believers. Yet, as John A. Broadus commented over a century ago, doctrinal truth is “the lifeblood of piety.”

Those who call for a “doctrineless Christianity” misunderstand–or misrepresent–both doctrine and Christianity. Pragmatism and program concerns dominate the lives of many Christians and their congregations. The low state of doctrinal understanding among so many evangelicals is evidence of a profound failure of both nerve and conviction. Both must be recovered if there is to be anything even remotely evangelical about the evangelicalism of the future."

Dr. Albert Mohler on Why Doctrine Matters

Hat Tip: Rick Ianniello

Theological Arguments - A Child'sView

Speaking of doctrinal controversies (see post below)....

From:  Wednesday Link List « Thinking Out Loud