Introduction To The Study Of God (theology proper, part 1)

Father, we thank you and praise you this morning that you are a God who gives your church gifts. Who has bestowed many gifts on us individually.

Father, we're particularly thankful for salvation, for the Lord Jesus Christ, for his life, for his death, for his resurrection and for causing us to believe in these things.

Father, I pray that this morning as we look to your word, as we look to really just truths about you.

Father, I pray that you would bless our time, that we would be transfixed as it were by the truths about you, that we would be transformed by these truths, that we would seek to implement them in our daily lives, that we would worship you all the more.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Well, having completed our summer in the parables,

I mean, I did enjoy looking at the parables. And once again, thank you to all the men who taught this summer.

That was a lot of fun for me watching these guys struggle to get Sunday school done. One guy said, you know, it's actually harder teaching than preaching.

And I go, I know that's what I try to tell everybody and they don't want to listen to me. Well, you know,

I ran several ideas by Pastor Mike on what we might do in Sunday school and he was very helpful.

He said, they all sound good to me. So what we're going to do over the next couple of weeks is work our way through an 800 page systematic theology book.

Okay, it might be more than a couple of weeks. Might take a little while. But I want to start this morning with something that kind of might bring this into focus.

And I, as always, I took this off the internet, but I won't give you the source just yet. I have a riddle for you.

A young man walks into a building from the outside. It looks like a nondescript, run down, abandoned warehouse inside.

He finds mood or I'm sorry, he finds mood lighting music with throbbing bass.

And young people wearing skinny jeans and superfluous scarves, superfluous, meaning extraneous.

They don't need them. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Fashion statements. A bar off to the side offers drinks of some sorts and a frenetically lit stage is shrouded with fog.

Jumbo screens display what appears to be music videos. Everywhere people text on their iPhones.

A young woman with a nose ring and a vaguely Middle Eastern tattoo comes up and introduces herself.

She makes awkward but refreshingly earnest small talk about her passion for community gardens and food co -ops.

She asks him if he's heard Arcade Fire's new album. By the way, who's Arcade Fire? I have no idea either.

She asked him if he has heard Arcade Fire's new album and compliments on his bushy beard and lumberjack look.

Beards like that are cool, she says. Eventually, she asks him for his contact information.

Now, here's the riddle. Is the man in a bar or is he in a church?

And the answer is it could go either way. Welcome to the world.

This is, by the way, from Christianity Today. Also known as Christianity Astray, and I read it, so you don't have to.

Welcome to the world of hipster Christianity. It's a world where things like the

Left Behind book and film series, Jesus Fish bumper stickers, and door -to -door evangelism are relevant only as a source of irony or nostalgia.

Remember when the church used to do those things? Forget about that. It's a world where Braveheart, meaning from the movie,

Mel Gibson's movie, Braveheart youth pastor analogies are anathema. In other words, he would never even use that.

Where everyone agrees that they wish Pat Robertson weren't one of us and shares a collective distaste for the art of Thomas Kinkade.

This struck me like a knife. Those beautiful old New England churches, you know, all lit up and everything like that.

I like those paintings. The latest incarnation of a decades -long collision of cool and Christianity, hipster

Christianity is in large part a rebellion against the very subculture that birthed it.

Which is interesting because what is that subculture? Christianity.

They're rebelling against Christianity. It's a rebellion against old -school evangelicalism and its fuddy -duddy legalism, apathy about the arts, and pitiful lack of concern for, wait for it, social justice.

It's also a rebellion against George W. Bush -style Christianity, American flags in churches, the

Ten Commandments in courtrooms, and evangelical leaders who get too involved in conservative politics, such as James Dobson and Jerry Falwell.

The new subculture of young evangelicals, I call them Christian hipsters, grew up on contemporary

Christian music, focused on the family's adventures in Odyssey, flannel graphs, vacation

Bible school, and hysteria about the end times. Now, all that is laughable to them as they attempt to burn away the kitschy dross of the megachurch

Christianity of their youth with this emphasis. Now, listen to this. They want to get rid of this.

It's emphasis on soul winning at the expense of everything else and trade it for something with real world gravitas, some real heft, some real weight.

I have to say, just before I just finish this little bit of the article, this so reminds me of really the demise of fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism, I know, has a bad, you know, name in the world today, but fundamentalism basically started in the early 20th century as kind of a rebellion against liberalism, against, you know, as a move away from not only liberalism, but the whole idea of modernity, modernism, the impact of evolution on the church.

And fundamentalism was basically a move that said, look, we need to get back to the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

And eventually, what happened to fundamentalism is they became so separate, you know, and we joke now about fundamentalism because there's some truth to this.

But, you know, it was like, hey, if I'm a fundamentalist, I'm going to disassociate myself not only with somebody who doesn't believe the right things, but somebody who associates with somebody who doesn't believe the right things.

And, you know, second degree of separation, third degree of separation until, you know, you're all in a room all by yourself because you're the only one you can trust.

But what happened eventually to fundamentalism is they kind of got to the point where they had withdrawn from the academy, the academic world.

And because of that, they had a reputation not being very intelligent, very bright. And so to kind of get rid of that, they decided they needed to, the fundamentalists did, to re -engage.

And they went back into the academy to be taken seriously.

And again, it just brings me back to this, that they wanted to get rid of, these people here, Christian hipsters, want to get rid of soul winning as the big emphasis and trade it for something with real world gravitas, with heft, with importance.

And in the same way, I think the fundamentalists said, you know what? It's good to have these doctrines that keep us separate from the world and keep us true to Christianity.

But we need real world approval. We need people to look at us as academic achievers, as thinkers.

And so fundamentalism went by the board and eventually gave way to some pretty bad stuff.

I mean, I've said this before, but, you know, Fuller Seminary started as a fundamentalist seminary.

And within a decade, it was liberal. And now it's the most, one of the most liberal seminaries in the entire country.

Back to this article, it's real quick, I'll finish it up here. Christian hipsters alarm some church leaders and mystify others.

But for many observers, hipster Christianity is an exciting development. It reassures them that not all young people are abandoning the church.

They are just rehabilitating its image. Wait a minute.

A rundown abandoned warehouse, mood lighting, music with throbbing bass, young people wearing skinny jeans and superfluous scarves, a bar off to the side, music videos, fog.

Yeah, it's church, I'm sure. They're just rehabbing its image. Now listen to this hipster checklist if you're a

Christian hipster. Here are the things that you really value. You want to get the church involved in social justice.

What's social justice? Well, there's no absolute truth anymore.

Social justice ultimately means though, but it's a, it's a making sure that there's economic equality.

That's the idea behind social justice. You know, it's not right for the rich to be rich or the poor to be poor.

We've got to bring about social justice. And how about this? This is a nice phrase. Get the church involved in social justice and creation care.

We need to make sure we're on the forefront of recycling. Not, you know, go, go next door.

Oh, you guys are from the church. Yes, we're here to check and make sure you're recycling. Okay. How about this?

On their checklist, show clips from R -rated Coen Brothers films like No Country for Old Men, Fargo.

Wait a minute. Listen, during services. How about this one?

Sponsored church outings to micro breweries. Put a worship pastor on stage, decked in clothes from American Apparel.

I've never even been in American Apparel. Be okay with cussing. No big deal.

Print bulletins only on recycled cardstock. This is my favorite one.

Use Helvetica fonts. Why would you do that? Do you know why you do that?

They use less ink. Got to be environmentally friendly.

This is Christian hipsterism. And the article goes on and on and on. But ultimately, here's the key.

If you went into one of these churches, churches, I seriously wonder whether you'd be able to tell the difference between the world and the church.

The main difference that the article pointed out was that the bigger hipster movement, you know, has a real lack of moral value.

You know, whereas Christian hipsters don't have that issue, allegedly. But I'm like, it's a pretty fine line.

It's a pretty fine line. You just go, what happens when the church becomes exactly like the world?

What's the impact of that? What's that? There is no impact, right?

If the world looks at the church and goes, you know what? Those guys are just like us. Then they're fine.

We're fine. We're all fine. No need to change. No need to be concerned. If they're going to heaven and they act like that, why can't

I go to heaven too? So quiz question number one.

As we come to this quiz, we're going to find out what sort of theologians you are today. And then we're going to start next week.

We're going to start talking about theology proper. That is the doctrine of God. And then

I think it's Christology after that. And there are several ologies. You know, would a pastor say that if you want to do something this year, you should study ologies?

That's what we're going to do. We're going to study ologies. True or false?

Theology is not that important. Most Christians really don't need to understand it. Boy, I hope everybody got that one right.

I mean, and it's evident. The reason I use that long introduction, by the way, is what? These people are living out their theology.

Does it have an impact? Is what they believe about the Bible, about God, about Jesus, about man, about sin, about salvation, everything.

Is it impacting what they're doing in church? Yes. Is it impacting what they're doing in their daily lives?

Yes. Doctrine matters. If your view of man is here and your view of God is here, or even if they're equal, does that impact how you live?

Absolutely does. Culver, and that's who's systematic theology we're going to be using,

Robert Culver, says this. On a deeper level, listen to this, theology is the essence of Christianity.

The essence of Christianity. It is so much of the essence that to dispense with theology is to dispense with Christianity.

How's that for a bumper sticker? No theology, no Christianity. I don't know if that would really work.

I don't know if anybody would do that. He says Christianity is not merely a mixture of ceremonies, beliefs, adherence, history, and the like.

Does that sound like any churches we know? Let me read that list again. It's not merely a mixture of ceremonies, beliefs, adherence, history, and the like.

I don't know, that sounds like Roman Catholicism right there. The Christian religion is all of these, perhaps, but that is also a misleading statement for it is not merely a mixture of those things.

It's not you mix in a little baptism, a little Apostles' Creed, a few

Baptists, a couple of doughnuts, boom, you have a... He says authentic Christianity is a single thing, a cohesive whole.

He says we may compare it to a chemical compound such as sulfuric acid, which for those of you who don't know, and I only know because it's written down here, is

H2SO4. And he says it's not two parts hydrogen, one part sulfur, and four parts of oxygen somehow mixed together in a beaker, stir well.

It is a single thing. These chemicals or these elements have come together to form a single element, a single part, single compound, and they're integrally united to form a single substance different than any one of the three alone.

He says it's the same way with Christianity. There are several components of Christianity that cannot be separated.

And here are the four he lists. Certain acts of God in history or redemption.

Secondly, the meaning of those acts of God as set forth in Holy Scripture or doctrines.

So you've got the history of God and his work. And then you've got doctrine.

Third, the lives of countless believers, the Christians themselves through the ages, but particularly those alive today.

So the full body of believers. And then fourth, the congregations of believers throughout the world, the churches or the universal church.

OK, question number two. True or false, the redemptive work of Christ is an ongoing process.

You know, and having the nice thing about teaching IBS classes, by the way, is

I really get good about thinking through how I phrase these questions most of the time, although sometimes I want to fire myself.

But phrasing these questions so that the answer is really not ultimately arguable, and some of you are probably going to want to say true, but the answer is false.

Bruce, never believe what is on your quiz.

See, that's why I rewrote it. The redemption of mankind is an ongoing process. Well, that's a bad one.

The better one is the one I put on this sheet. There you go again. This is what happens when you don't check your work.

True or false, it should be the redemptive work of Christ is an ongoing process. And that is false.

Culver says this, Christianity has been rendered what it is by what God did a long time ago.

The second person of the Godhead became a man. He lived, suffered and died for us and for our salvation.

He arose, ascended to the right hand of God, where presently he reigns till his enemies are made the footstool of his feet and where he exercises certain ministries for us in the presence of the

Father. I mean, doesn't that right there, doesn't that read like the Bible? I mean, he just summarized several verses.

He says, essentially, however, redemption is finished. Let's look at Hebrews 1 .3.

Did Jesus ever say it is finished? And what did he mean? Was he talking about his momentary suffering?

What's really bad is when you leave your Bible in your office because you just finished a meeting.

Hebrews 1 .3. And who would like to read that for us, please, Dave? OK, so what's the significance in Jesus?

First of all, notice that he made purification for sins. That is, he paid the price.

He cleansed us of our sins. But what does he do next? Sits down.

Why? He's finished. The work is over. There's not more to do.

What God did in the redemptive career of Jesus of Nazareth was a consummation, a summary.

Of events of God's doing from eternity past. Through all of preparatory, all the preparatory history of the

Old Testament and up to the point where in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son, which is

Galatians 4 .4. There's a particular moment in time where God, through Jesus Christ, accomplishes all this.

But it's been in the works for ages. I mean, when we read in Ephesians 1, what does it say?

Does it say, you know, in August of, you know, 6

B .C., God hatched this plan? What does it say in Ephesians chapter one?

Before the. Got to open up the donut room earlier. Verse three, blessed be the

God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Even as he chose us in him, in Christ, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us for adoption. I mean, the whole language here, it goes back to before creation.

The eternal councils of the triune God. Number three, and hopefully you guys have the right one here.

Now, since I'll have to pull up my own quiz here to make sure I'm right. OK, number three. There are other reliable sources of the life of Christ beyond the four

Gospels. What's that?

Isaiah 53 is prophecy, but it's not a historical document. There are other reliable sources of the life of Christ beyond the four

Gospels. True or false? I heard Bruce Biddy say false.

Anybody else want to agree with Brother Bruce? Nobody does. Well, Bruce is right. Everybody else is wrong.

Culver says this, the first Christian generation heard the story of redemption from eyewitnesses.

At least the earliest ones did. We, however, depend upon the written testimony of the eyewitnesses.

Now, listen, there is no alternate dependable source at this late date.

He means now. He wrote this book in 2005. And at that point, there's still and there still are not today any dependable sources other than the

Gospels. And you might say, well, what about the

Gospel of Thomas? Anybody ever read the Gospel of Thomas? It'll take you like three minutes and it's really just not very helpful.

Problems with the Gospel of Thomas, I can name two. Anybody can name the two problems with the

Gospel of Thomas? Not written by Thomas and not a gospel.

So other than that, pretty good book. Not inspired, you know, and I don't know why.

You know, it's funny to me that feminists are the ones are amongst the group pushing this whole idea of the

Gospel of Thomas. When, you know, Jesus is quoted in the Gospel of Thomas, which was written, I think, somewhere around 130

A .D. So maybe about 100 years after the death of Christ. Jesus is quoted in the

Gospel of Thomas as saying that in order to get to heaven, women have to become men. So I don't know why anybody, you know, really wants to go down that road.

Number four, our quiz. There are no alternate dependable source materials for the life of Christ.

Number four, true or false, the death of Jesus is a central doctrine of the Christian faith.

Man, I am so proud of you guys. That's really good. That's false. Listen, what

Culver says. I think this is helpful here. He says the death of Christ, taken as a naked fact, is not a doctrine.

Not even a very significant fact. Says Julius Caesar died. So my dear father, over 40 years ago, my dear mother, over 15 years ago, is appointed for man to die once.

What verse is that? Hebrews 9 .27.

Very good, Pat. It's a great passage to know the reference to because it comes up a lot of times.

There's no special meaning for the human race in the fact that a man, even a sinless man, died unless someone in a position to have the facts tells us why and what for.

The death of Christ, as we sometimes hear it correctly said, had a cosmic meaning. Statement of the fact with the meaning it has for the world of sinful people is a statement of Christian, wait for it, doctrine.

We call it the doctrine of the atonement. Gresham Machen, J.

Gresham Machen said this, from the beginning, the

Christian gospel, and indeed the name gospel or good news implies, or as it implies, consisted of an account of something that had happened.

And when, from the beginning, the meaning of the happening was set forth, there was Christian doctrine.

Christ died, that is history, not doctrine.

Christ died for our sins, that is doctrine. Without these two elements joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no

Christianity. Must have history and doctrine. History, he died, but why did he die?

For our sins. Facts alone are not particularly meaningful. It is the explanation of the planning and purpose of the death of the

Lord Jesus Christ that makes it important. Why did Jesus die? For our sins, that makes it important.

Number five, true or false? Luther's salvation came about when he subjectively experienced the forgiveness and acceptance of God.

Very good. False. Can't pull the wool over your eyes. Culver says it this way, he says, there is a modern approach to Christianity which holds all doctrines to be assertions of and interpretations of religious experience.

Let's see if we can say this, my liberal Nibirian, referring to Reinhold Niebuhr, who was a liberal theologian, a college professor of religion, for example, claimed that Luther's doctrine of justification by faith was the reformer's interpretation of his religious experience of forgiveness and acceptance by God.

Now, is there anything wrong with having an experience? Is there?

Well, let me ask you this. When you knew that you knew that you knew that you had been forgiven by Jesus Christ, did you feel differently?

I did. Isn't it kind of like there's a weight lifted off your shoulders? I think so.

So I don't think the experience in itself is wrong. The question is, is that all there is? Listen to what he says, of course,

Luther himself who found the doctrine of forgiveness and acceptance by God in evangelical psalms,

Galatians and Romans as he prepared his sermons for the congregation of the churches of Wittenberg. Now, let's just stop there for a minute.

Think about it. While he was preparing sermons and studying scripture, he got saved.

I don't know if he should have been preparing sermons, but it's interesting anyway. He goes on to say that Luther found it was the other way around.

First, he learned the doctrine of justification from Paul and from David on the ground of Jesus shed blood appropriated by faith alone.

After he believingly appropriated the righteousness of God, he had wonderful Christian religious experiences.

In other words, knowledge must precede religious experience.

You can't experience forgiveness of sin without understanding what God has done. That's why when people say,

I'm saved and I go, great, give me the gospel. And they say, well, I really can't. Then I start asking some questions like, well, what do you mean that you're saved?

And if people can answer those questions, that's fine. If they can't answer those questions that we have to go through the gospel all over again.

Number six, true or false? Theology and doctrine are stressed in the new Testament. Well, it's got to be true.

If it's not true, we're in a world of hurt. Culver says this insistence on proclamation of these two elements, theology and doctrine is found repeatedly in the new

Testament. Yet in spite of that about every, I love this, about every generation or so another emphasis, what he calls another gospel, which is not another is proposed.

When I began to learn about such things in college, the prevalent notion in Protestant circles of ministerial training in America was that the apostles superior grasp.

The apostles were just really keenly aware of the eternal moral principles taught by Jesus and exemplified by him.

That was the gospel that conquered the empire of Rome. In other words, it was this kind of moral goodness that just swept over the empire of Rome.

Another world depression, Adolf Hitler, a second world war and general dissolution of liberalism scotched that fable.

Then in America, the gospel of existential experience or neo -orthodoxy came and went.

In other words, just having the experience became the total package of Christianity.

After that, the image of God, of God in man, theology promoting, promoting self -fulfillment as the essential

Christian gospel came along. There have been, and there are other theologies, a whole series of books about these and other ephemeral.

In other words, temporary theology sits on the back shelves of many of private preachers, private library today says all these things are like the world passing away.

What happens? People are, it's just like this story, this thing on hipster

Christianity. People are never satisfied with the old, old story. They've always got to improve it.

They've got to reinvent it. The Christian survey guy, what's his name?

Barna. You guys are good theologians. Barna comes out with this book several years ago, you know, that says, if we don't change the way we're doing church, church is going to disappear altogether.

The churches in Europe are shutting down. Churches all over the place are shutting down.

Why is that? I think it gets back to this. No, they don't have throbbing bass drums in the morning.

They don't have smoke machines and all this other stuff. But what they have is a, such a shallow experience where God has never presented.

You come in, you hear five or 10 minute message about being a better person. You sing some songs that nobody really knows and doesn't care about.

You stand up, you get away for you go home. What's the point? So eventually, guess what? People stopped going without theology and doctrine.

You have no Christianity and you have no reason to go and listen to anything. Number seven,

Christianity is a matter of knowing the right doctrines. False.

Culver says, notice how Paul ties redemptive history and the meaning of it within his own life as essential, true religion.

Let's look at Philippians one verse 20 and 21.

Philippians one versus 20 and 21. And who has that?

Somebody beat me. Go ahead, Chris. Now is that doctrine?

Yes. And how's he saying that his doctrine is going to be shown?

It's by, well, ultimately it's how he lives his life. He knows the truth is that to live is

Christ and to die is gain. How can anyone say that without having an awareness of heaven, without having an awareness of the temporary nature of this life, without having an awareness of the surpassing riches that are in Christ Jesus.

You can't say those things. Listen to Galatians two 20.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me and the life

I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Is that doctrine? It absolutely is. He mentions the substitutionary atonement right there, and it's lived out in his life.

It's not just a matter of knowing the right doctrines. It's a matter of apprehending those right doctrines of believing them, of having them change the way that you live.

This is what Christianity has been from the beginning, all the way from acts.

If you look at the founding of the church in acts through the epistles and revelation, this is in spite of two centuries of every conceivable attack on the genuineness of the accounts given in scripture.

Christianity began a few days after Jesus's resurrection and ascension. It was not an absolute beginning for it existed in preliminary form.

As soon as Jesus gathered the original group of five or six disciples. Okay, number eight, true or false, doctrine impacts the daily lives of Christians.

Well, it has to be true. Culver says this, the dynamics of living out the

Christian life are on display beginning with the first chapter of acts through the end of revelation.

In a nutshell, the elements were constant attention to apostolic doctrine, to fellowship, to the special central fact of worship, i .e.

the breaking of bread, their prayers together to their public testimony. In fact,

I want to read with somebody turned to acts two and read from verse 41 to the end of the chapter.

Acts two verse 41 to the end of the chapter. And by the way, just to set it up, what happens in acts two right before this, right before four verse 41,

Pentecost and Peter gives a sermon. And this is kind of the fallout of the, uh, of the sermon starting in verse 41 and reading the end of the chapter.

Go ahead, Bruce. And do you think the doctrine had an impact on the early church on that acts to church?

They hear the word preached, they repent and look at what they do. It's just unnatural.

It's absolutely insane. They devote themselves to teaching, which by the way, is the word that means doctrine did decay.

It doesn't just mean Sunday morning teaching. It means the collective quantity of teaching, but they do that.

And the result is that all comes upon every soul, many wonders and signs being done.

Now here's the, here's the, just the part that's incredible. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

Now, do you think that they understood that this life and accumulating stuff was not the end all and be all they got it.

They didn't need a governmental welfare system because they took care of their own. And then daily attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes.

I mean, these people were meeting all the time, real sense of community. And you want to know how the early church spread?

Well, it's spread because in the midst of this or following this, what happened to the church?

Persecution. And yet what do they keep doing? They kept living it out day after day, after day, after day.

Number nine, true or false. One may love Christ and not necessarily love the church.

Not if one is a child of God, Peggy says a song I particularly am fond of where he says it, uh, it's kind of the voice of Jesus.

And he says, if you love me, you will love the church. And I'm like Matthew 16, 18.

Jesus says upon this rock, I will, whatever the rock is. We could debate that some other time, but he says upon this rock,

I will build the church and the gates of death. King James, I think says gates of hell.

New King James might even say it, but the point is that no power will overcome the church.

Jesus is building the church, but I don't really care about the church. And I don't see how those two go together.

I love Jesus. Not really too crazy about the church. I love

Jesus, but not the church that he gave his life for. Culver says this, this unity of the believers, both locally and universally is so central in the new

Testament portrayal of Christianity that our religion can neither be discussed nor possessed without reference to it.

There is no such thing as having Christ or loving, admiring, or confessing him without similar participation in the church.

This is the way Christ himself determined the matter to be the features of the church, which distinguish it from other social groups will then be examined later on in the, in the book.

But the church of today is inseparable in reality and thought about it from the church of yesterday and the church of tomorrow.

It is both a heavenly reality and an earthly entity. The history of Christianity and the history of the church may be distinguished, but not separated.

Church is important. The church universal. Number 10, true or false.

The church may exist without doctrine. That's obviously false.

You couldn't have a church without doctrine. Well, you could, but it would be the UU church. It wouldn't be a

Christian church. This man Pelican with a K not with a

C Pelican says this. He says what the church of Jesus Christ believes, teaches, and confesses on the basis of the word of God.

This is Christian doctrine. The Christian church would not be the church as we know it without Christian doctrine.

What would he do? You know, get together and basically do the things that I was talking about earlier.

They'd be ultimately meaningless. The church would be meaningless. Number 11, true or false. A church engaging in systematic teaching from the

Bible may be said to be practicing exposition. Uh, Culver says this when, what the church teaches is announced as it emerges portion by portion from the

Bible. The discourse is properly called exposition. One of the exciting things is when you work through a book of the

Bible, especially studying it, teaching through it is you really find yourself thinking along with the author, considering the original situation that he was in and understanding exactly what he's trying to, what his original authorial intent was as far as any human being can.

And that's what we want to do. But you can't do that. You know, I grew up in a system where we would take a, you know, a verse here and a verse there, and you can make, you know, people say, well, you can make the

Bible say whatever you want. Well, that's true. If you're willing to take it out of context, you can do whatever you want.

But if you look at it in context, if you follow the author's argument, you can't miss it.

And that's what exposition is. That's why Pastor Mike always says, you know, you move to a new area, you want to look for churches, you say, you know, well, what book are you teaching through?

And he says, well, you know, I just kind of, uh, I picked my favorite verse this week. And then I go over to that, go somewhere else.

Number 12, true or false. In order to gain or engage in exposition of the text, one must engage in exegesis.

Who said God bless you? Okay. God bless you. Exegesis is not a sneezing word.

It is, it means to, to draw out. You know, if exposition is to expose the text is to uncover the meaning of the text by virtue of working through the entire book, exegesis is doing the nuts and bolts work in the original languages to get to the heart of the matter.

Yeah. So that's true. Uh, number 13, true or false. Systematic theology is good for only two things.

Pressing on warped objects to help straighten them and removing the excitement from Christianity. Who said true

Peggy, you got this heavy, you know, heavy systematic theology books and you push them on, you can put them on, you know, books that have gotten wet or something like that.

Straighten them out. Very nice. Very helpful. And that's exactly what's strong. Good Gordon's.

Uh, that's false. Culver says this. When these doctrines are organized into some logically coherent arrangements, there is systematic theology as shall become evidence.

Systematic theology is more than logical arrangement of biblical doctrines, but it must not be ever ever be less if it is rightly to claim the title systematic theology.

There are different kinds of theologies, biblical theology, Mike's been on a biblical theology terror. What do you understand?

Uh, biblical theology is taking the theology of a given book at a time instead of systematically the whole

Bible, uh, sustained study of doctrine of the word of God cannot be, cannot avoid being organized.

Meaningful study of well, and he gives a great example here. I think meaningful study of botany, zoology, law, history, medicine, agriculture, or any other type cannot proceed without organized, coherent arrangement of the data.

In other words, you know, you would think a lawyer or a doctor mad who didn't have some kind of system to their thinking.

And yet we think, well, systematic theology, that's for other people. It's not for me. I'm just a lowly

Christian. I don't need to understand systematic theology. Well, yes, you do. You need to understand how things work together.

Number 14, true or false church history may be understood apart from doctrine. That's false.

I like this and we'll, we'll probably close here and then I'll pick up and we'll go on to theology proper next week.

But uh, Culver is a seminary professor and he, he gives this story about a theological student.

He was a bright man and of course, leading to his master of arts degree in church history at the seminary.

There was a required minor comprehensive examination in systematic theology, which to his dismay and disgust, he failed utterly as department chair in charge of a second try.

And with some leniency, I allowed the student to read the college level manual of Christian doctrine by Lewis Burkhoff.

Has anybody ever read Burkhoff? And would you say that he's easy to understand?

No, he can give an Aquinas a run for his money. That's all I'm going to say. So if this guy had trouble with Burkhoff, I understand.

But, uh, so he allows this guy to read the manual of Christian doctrine by Lewis Burkhoff and to document and to make a satisfactory written report in lieu of a second try at the examination, which is very gracious.

Reading this standard work was his very first experience with theology and it completely changed his mind about the value of systematic theology and education.

In his report, I was pleased to read the following conversion uncoerced by me for he did not need to respond personally.

This is a Trinity seminary. He says, I came to Trinity with a strong anti -theological bias and I wanted to study church history without studying theology.

The fact that I imagined such a thing to be possible indicates the extent of my ignorance of both disciplines.

As one might expect, I spent an extremely foggy first year. He goes on to say that he did poorly on his papers in church history, the area of his major, because he did not understand the theological issues involved.

He only acknowledged or he acknowledged that the theology book I required him to read had not only fascinated him, but compelled him to change what he now called unsupported dogmas of his own.

The report closes as follows. The greatest value of the book was in setting boundaries for discussion.

When one studies church history, the field looks infinite. There's no end to the topics and this is extremely frustrating.

There's something reassuring about being able to examine a book from cover to cover like Burkhoff's systematic theology and knowing that one has at least an introduction to all the subject area within a given discipline.

I could never have had a course in introduction, or I have never had a course in introduction to theology.

The reading of Burkhoff could not actually replace such a course, but it did provide a general overview to the field in which

I needed, but did not want to learn. I'm not yet a theologian, but I know what

I will need to become one. And my goal for each one of you over the next several months is not that you will become a theologian, but that you will know what you need to become one.

We are all theologians of some stripe. We can be really bad theologians, which is to have a really impoverished view of God.

And part of the reason for that might be because we don't know enough about systematic theology. We don't ever take the time to put all the moving pieces together.

It's important to know all of what scripture says on a given topic, and that's what systematic theology does.

Well, I'll just close. I'll give you number 15. We've already kind of covered this. One of the strengths of the early church of Acts was that it was not all caught up in doctrine.

That's false. We already read through Acts 2, 41 to 47, so we already know that's true.

Number 16, true or false, systematic theology is only for pastors, professors, and really smart elders like Pradeep. I was going to put

Pradeep in there, but I didn't want to embarrass him. But now it's on the tape, and that's false. Not the part about him being really smart, but listen to this last quote.

Since all believers are admonished by scripture to deepen their understanding of divine things, the study of theology in a structured manner is appropriate for everyone.

Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you that you've given us men like Robert Culver and others to systematically work through doctrine to put them in an understandable way for us.

Father, we pray as we look at theology proper, that is the study of God, that you would grant us a deeper understanding of you, a deeper awe of you, a better understanding of our own place in the universe.

And Father, I would pray for each one of us that we would wake up in the morning just thinking what a great

God you are and how thankful we ought to be that you would ever consider to save us, let alone save us, adopt us, fix your love upon us forever.

Lord, what a great blessing. Each and every day would you bless us with that thought in Christ's name.