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I recently had a conversation with a well-known pastor who claimed that theological colleges shouldn’t teach theology. After dropping that bombshell, he explained what he meant. Instead of simply teaching theology, he said, they should teach students how to do theology.
The distinction is important, and goes for churches as much as for theological colleges. Every Christian – not just those who will become our pastors – needs to be equipped to know not just what the Bible says, but how to find out what the Bible says. Sadly, few of our churches explicitly teach this skill, and most Christians are relying more and more on preachers and commentators to tell them what the Bible says, and losing the joy of discovering it for themselves.
Worse still, some evangelical churches appear to be preaching a new Catholicism. Just as medieval priests did not believe that the laity could be trusted to read the Bible on their own, so many evangelical churches give the impression that it’s just too risky to let the ‘ordinary Christian’ read the Bible without the help of more experienced Bible teachers in print or in person.
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Published on 5 October , 2007
in Articles.
Loving the truth is definitely not an optional extra for any Christian. Loving the truth is not less important, nor less ‘spiritual’ than loving the gospel, living a holy life, or even loving our Saviour. Indeed, it is impossible to separate loving the truth from those things. We cannot do them unless we love the truth.
Yet there are many Christians who show by their lives that they do not really love the truth at all. They may believe the truth, and possibly even admire the truth. They may defend the truth, and perhaps even preach the truth. But they do not love the truth. They are not passionate about the truth. Some Christians have a worldly attitude which shows itself in immorality. Some have a worldly attitude which shows itself in materialism. And some Christians have a worldly attitude which shows itself in that they do not really love the truth. Perhaps you are one of them. I fear that sometimes I am one too.
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Every consistent Christian is passionate about the truth. We know this because 2 Thessalonians 2:10 tells us that those who are not Christians “perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved”. I have never met a Christian who does not believe that we ought to be passionate about prayer, passionate about the gospel, and passionate about Jesus – even if we have to admit that often our lives don’t reflect what we say we believe. But I’ve met lots of Christians who regard those who are passionate about the truth with some suspicion, as if they’re not really sure whether it’s right to be passionate about the truth at all. So what evidence do we have from the Bible that tells us that every Christian must be a lover of the truth?
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I came upon
this sermon of Spurgeon’s during my time in theological college, and it has stuck with me ever since. It is vintage Spurgeon, but the truths ring as clear today as they did in 1859. Here’s an extract, but the whole sermon is well worth reading, if simply to understand Spurgeon’s passion for souls and God’s glory:
[Paul] had preached ALL the counsel of God. By which I think we are to understand that he had given to his people the entire gospel. He had not dwelt upon some one doctrine of it, to the exclusion of the rest; but it had been his honest endeavour to bring out every truth according to the analogy of faith. He had not magnified one doctrine into a mountain, and then diminished another into a molehill; but he had endeavoured to present all blended together, like the colours in the rainbow, as one harmonious and glorious whole… He had, doubtless, sins to confess in private, and faults to bemoan God. He had, doubtless, sometimes failed to put a truth as clearly as he could have wished, when preaching the Word; he had not always been earnest as he could desire; but at least he could claim this, that he had not wilfully kept back a single part of the truth as it is in Jesus…
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I recently had a conversation with a well-known pastor who claimed that theological colleges shouldn’t teach theology. After dropping that bombshell, he explained what he meant. Instead of simply teaching theology, he said, they should teach students how to do theology.
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